Relational Gifts

Here are the ideas I shared yesterday about how to give relational gifts this Christmas:
· Spend a day making breads, candies, or cookies with the family with Christmas music playing in the background. Then deliver these treats to new families in the neighborhood or friends and family in the area.
· Host a holiday movie night with friends. Order some pizzas, break out the cookies, and watch a Christmas Classic with a living room full of friends.
· Wrap 2 books and a box of tea to give to a friend. Insert a coupon and offer to get together once a week to discuss the book and have a cup of tea.
· Create coupons that are redeemable for some service that you can provide to someone else – babysitting for a young couple so that they can have a night our together, yard work for an elderly neighbor, etc.
· Buy a gift that requires spending time together with friend or family members – a board game that you can play together or a jigsaw puzzle or a model to build.
· Create coupons that are redeemable for some activity that you will do with the other person – a round of miniature golf, an afternoon of bowling, a hike and picnic.

I know that many of you will have some great ideas, too. You can share them by replying to this post or by going to the "Discussions" tab on our Facebook page.

Spend Less - Give More

One of the things I'm going to encourage people to do in the message this Sunday is to consider spending less this Christmas season so that we can give more to help people unwrap God's in expressible gift of Jesus.

I'd love to hear what ideas that you might have about how to do this. You can post your responses here or go to our Facebook page and respond there.

Anticipating the return of Jesus

Yesterday I challenged all of us to take a look at 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24 this week and see what God is showing us about how to live our lives on a daily basis while we await the return of Jesus. Be sure to share what you are learning, either by commenting on this post or by going to our Facebook page. I'll look forward to seeing how God is working in our midst.

Taking Our Application One Step Further

This week I want to encourage all of us to take the application of the message one step further. Let's keep praying for at least one unsaved person every day. Pray for God to do what only He can do and draw that person to Him. But let's take it one step further and also ask God to use us in the process of sharing the gospel with that person. Pray that we will make the best use of our time as God gives us opportunities to interact with that other person this week.

Putting the Message Into Practice

Although I work really hard to make sure that I draw relevant applications from the passage each week, I really want to encourage all of us to put into practice the applications from Revelation 9. When we see what happens to those who harden their hearts as they consistently refuse to respond to God, I pray that it will give us all a great sense of urgency about praying for the salvation of others and sharing our faith with them as God gives us opportunities.

So let's all commit to pray every day this week for someone that we personally know who needs to commit his or her life to Jesus. Ask God to draw that person to Him and also to use us in the process of sharing the gospel in that person's life. I'm convinced that is a prayer that God will delight in answering.

Let's Talk

I'd really like to use this blog as a tool for us to interact with each other. If you have questions or comments on the sermons each week, send me an email at patdamiani@comcast.net. I'll post the questions (anonymously, so don't be afraid to ask whatever you want) and my answers here on the blog where others can also comment.

Partners in preaching

When I logged on to sermoncentral.com this morning to post yesterday's sermon, I noticed that I had reached a milestone of sorts. Since I first started posting the text of my messages to that site in late 2005, I have posted a total of 178 sermons and this week the number of times that those sermons have been viewed by visitors to the website passed 10,000. That's really hard for me to believe, but it just goes to illustrate how, with today's technology, the ministry of our church reaches all over the world.

I'm grateful to a church that allows me to do something that I love to do so much - teach the Word of God. All of you are partners in that process. At a minimum, you give to our church so that I can actually get paid to do something that I enjoy so much. But many of you play a much greater role in my preaching and teaching. The men who come at 6:30 a.m. each Tuesday morning help provide insight into the Scripture passage each week and help me to focus my teaching in those areas where people might have questions. Our "Connections" Bible study teachers often interact with me and share thoughts and ask questions. And then you take the passage and help our people to apply it in their lives each week. And most of all I'm indebted to Pastor Dana and the chance I have to bounce my ideas off of him and discuss the Bible each week and work together as a team to make sure that our teaching is accurate and relevant. Although he is often not as visible as I am, his input is invaluable to me each week.

So thanks to all of you who share in the impact of having 10,000 views of those messages!