Just wanting to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! This is one of my favorite times of year. I thought I would include a great story I just read as I close this message...
At that time Emperor Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Roman Empire. When this first census took place, Quirinius was the governor of Syria. Everyone, then, went to register himself, each to his own hometown. Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judea, the birthplace of King David. Joseph went there because he was a descendant of David. He went to register with Mary, who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant, and while they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby. She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger---there was no room for them to stay in the inn. There were some shepherds in that part of the country who were spending the night in the fields, taking care of their flocks. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone over them. They were terribly afraid, but the angel said to them, "Don't be afraid! I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people. This very day in David's town your Savior was born---Christ the Lord! And this is what will prove it to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Suddenly a great army of heaven's angels appeared with the angel, singing praises to God: "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!" When the angels went away from them back into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us." So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and saw the baby lying in the manger. When the shepherds saw him, they told them what the angel had said about the child. All who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said. Mary remembered all these things and thought deeply about them. The shepherds went back, singing praises to God for all they had heard and seen; it had been just as the angel had told them.
Welcome to our new website! This was one of the first projects that we gave to Pastor John Bales when he came and he did a great job. But this is only the start of what we plan to do with our new site. Here are a couple other things that will be coming soon.
1. Online giving. If you are like me, you probably buy things online. I even pay some of my bills online and I love the convenience. So we want to offer that same convenience to you. How many times have you gone to church and realized that you forgot to go by the ATM for some cash or forgot your checkbook on your desk at home? You can still give in the offering at church if you want, but we wanted to offer another convenient way to give. We hope to have online giving ready before Thanksgiving 2009.
2. Live Video of our weekend services. Technology is progressing at a rapid rate. It has progressed to the point that starting in January we will be offering a live feed of our weekend services on this website and on our Facebook page too! We wanted to offer this for a couple of reasons. The first reason was to share the Gospel to as many people as we possibly could. We also have people in our congregation that travel for business. This will allow them to stay in touch with their Living Word family when they are on the road. I also know of a few people that have had a bad experience with church and if they could watch before they attend, it would put them at ease.
This website will always be a work in progress, but if there is anything we could add please let us know and we will see what we can do.