December Highlights, Advent Delights, Your Invites!

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another…”
                                                                                                                          - Hebrews 10:24-25a

     It’s getting that time of the year where our church schedule seems to be packed more than ever. But shouldn’t it be that way? We are wrapping up our church year and getting ready to prepare to welcome the season of Advent leading up to the celebration of the birth of the Christ child. And the joy and anticipation for Christmas we should feel this time of year should be contagious throughout our church. So much so that we should be making plans to be here for every event starting December 3, which is the first Sunday of the Advent season.

12/03 ​	4:00 pm ​6:00 pm​ ​	Advent Festival (pre-registration required) ​UMW Love Light Service Hanging of the Greens
12/10 ​	5:30 pm ​	Light Refreshments (Family Life Center) "Coming Home for a Salem Christmas"
12/24 ​	9:30 & 11:00 am ​6:00 pm	Regular Morning Services ​Christmas Eve Service (Sanctuary)

​ And for the Advent season, I will be preaching a sermon series called “The Redemption of Scrooge,” based on a book by Rev. Matt Rawle, a UM pastor from Louisiana. The book is based on the Charles Dickens’ holiday classic, “A Christmas Carol.” We will look at the Christmas Eve night where Ebenezer Scrooge encountered the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come and seek to apply the lessons Scrooge learned that night to our own lives on how we can live with and love for others as followers of Jesus. 

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     With all of this going on, there is no better time than to invite your family, friends, and others to come to Salem and see what God is doing here, for us and through us. I can’t wait to see where God is taking us together in our first Advent and Christmas season together. 

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