Agape and its collaborative partners are currently serving through Powerlines Community Network (PCN) in three Memphis apartment communities. One effort where Park has focused, is the Autumn Ridge apartments.

ABC TV 24 story here: http://www.abc24.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=3497328&navCatId=20604

Twana Whitlock is the site coordinator.  3888 Autumn Ridge Court/Memphis, TN 38115, (901) 748-5070

The Le Bonheur Haiti Medical Mission

Gordon Corder is a member of this team that is working in Croix des Bouquets, near Port-au-Prince.

Le Bonheur Haiti Link

Twenty-five of Harding Academy’s 5th and 6th graders were invited to join the Knowledge Master Open team.  The KMO is no mere trivia contest.  One hundred challenging questions require higher-level thinking skills and cover 13 curriculum areas.  The competition is timed allowing one minute per question.  Bonus points are awarded if the question is answered within the first 30 seconds.  Winter competition was held January 20 and the Spring competition will be held March 24.

Congratulations Jonathan! (He is seated third from the left on the front.)

Memphis Urban Ministry (MUM) provides food items for the homeless and those in need.  There is a labeled box for items located in room 106 of the Education Building.  This will be an on-going project for the Park Family.  Feel free to contribute at any time during the year.  Families tend to need items that can be heated and served.

Items needed:  Canned vegetables, fruit,  soup, stew, spaghetti, chili, salmon, ham, chicken, sardines, Vienna sausage, potted meat, and  tuna.  Or peanut butter, fruit cups, snacks, and crackers.

“If we all were to purchase one extra can of soup every time we went to the grocery, thinks how much this would help the MUM food ministry.  If you would rather make a monetary donation, I will be glad to purchase food items for you. ”  – Sylvia Scott

There is no heat in the educational building.  While the issue is being worked on there is no guarantee that the repairs will be completed in time for our assembly tonight.  We encourage each of you to spend some time praying tonight for the people of Haiti.  Funds are going to be collected to help.  All repairs to the heating system should be completed in time for the Sunday assembly and we will meet with the Bible Classes at 9:00 and worship at 10:00 this Sunday.  We will share a meal together after the assembly.  The menu is pasta and please bring a dessert to share.

By Paul Goddard

By now, I’m sure that you’ve received numerous holiday emails.  Here is one that I would like to share with you.  It is entitled, “A Letter from Jesus”.  This fictional letter has come to me in several versions.  Here is one that I find interesting.

Dear Children

It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking my name out of the season.  Maybe you’ve forgotten that I wasn’t actually born during this time of the year, and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate my birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival.  Although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children.  Children want to please, but they must get along with others and be obedient in the process.  Now, having said this, let me go on.

If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn’t allow a scene depicting my birth, share my story with your neighbor.  If all of my children did that, there wouldn’t be any need for such a scene on the town square.  Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the Christmas tree a holiday tree.  It was I who made all trees.  You can and may remember me anytime you see any tree.  (Decorate a grape vine if you wish.  I actually spoke of that one in the Gospel of John, chapter 15.)

If you want to give me a present, here is my wish list.  Choose from it:

1.  Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way my birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to those who are away from home.  They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of the year.  I know; they tell me all the time.

2.  Visit someone in a nursing home.  You don’t have to know them personally.  They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3.  Instead of writing your employer complaining about the wording on his holiday card, why don’t you write and tell him that you’ll be praying for him and his family this year.  Then follow up.  It will be nice hearing from you again.

4.  Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts that you can’t afford, and they don’t need; spend time with them.  Tell them the story of my life, and why I came earth.  Hold them in your arms, and remind them that I love them.

5.  Pick someone that has hurt you in the past, and forgive him or her.

6.  Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel alone and hopeless?  Since you don’t know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile.  It will make the difference.  Also, you might consider supporting the local Hot-line, they talk with people like that every day.

7.  Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with him.  Give him a warm smile and a kind word.  Even if he is not allowed to wish you a “Merry Christmas,” that doesn’t keep you from being nice.  Then stop shopping there on Sunday.  If the store didn’t make so much money on that day, they’d close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

8.  Here’s a good one.  If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary, especially one who takes my love and good news to those who have never heard my name.  You already know someone like that.

9.  There are individuals and whole families in your town who will not have a holiday meal.  Neither will they have any presents to give or receive.  If you don’t know them (and I suspect you don’t), buy some food and a few gifts, and give them to the Church.  They will make the delivery for you.

10.  Finally, if you want to make a statement about your belief in me, then behave like you know me.  Don’t do things in secret that you wouldn’t do in my presence.  Let people know by your actions that you are one of my children.

P.S.  Don’t worry, for I’ll take care of you  and the rest of your siblings.  Don’t forget that I am God, and your time on earth is short.  Love me, trust me, and obey me.

I LOVE YOU

Jesus

By Paul Goddard

“If a thousand old beliefs were ruined in our march to truth we must still march on.” – Stopford A. Brooke

The birthday of Jesus Christ has been celebrated on December 25th since A.D. 336.  During the first three centuries of Christ’s Church, this holiday festival was not observed by Christians, nor was it on their calendar.  The Bible does not reveal the year, and there is considerable uncertainty about the correct day and month.

The Christmas celebration was started in the fourth century to put an end to pagan festivals.¹ Most of the Eastern churches settled for January 6th, but the Western churches chose December 25th to commemorate the birth of the Messiah.  These days were selected because they were already public holidays for pagans.  The Romans celebrated “Natalis Solis Invicti” (the birth of the Unconquered Sun), and the Iranians celebrated “Sun of Righteousness.”

Some Christians opposed the birth celebration of Jesus because birthdays were reserved for pagan gods.  Origen wrote that it would be wrong to celebrate the birth of the Christ in the same way Herod and Pharaoh had been honored.² However, not all of his contemporaries agreed.  Clement of Alexandria favored May 20th, and Hippolytus selected January 2nd as the date of Jesus’ birth.

What we do know about the birth is that it occurred during the reign of Caesar Augustus.³ His mother was a virgin who was pledged to be married to a man by the name of Joseph, son of Jacob (Matthew 1:1-25).  The birth occurred in Bethlehem of Judea, during the first census of governor Quirinius, and shepherds were told by an angel that the birth had occurred (Luke 2:1-20).  Likewise, Magi from the east were led by a star to worship the infant king (Matthew 2:1-12).

In this, the fullness of time, the incarnate son of God came to earth to redeem mankind (Galatians 4:4-7).  What day was he born?  We do not know.  Do you believe it happened?  Only you can answer that.  Christian, are you up for the task?

“Why did my Savior come to earth, and to the humble go?  Why did He choose a lowly birth?  Because He loved me so!” -J.G. Dailey

¹ The origin of the word Christmas:

Latin = Dies Natalis (birth day)

English =  Cristes-maesse (the mass of Christ) appeared in 1038

Dutch = Kerst-misse (the mass of Christ)

French = Noel (to be born)

Italian = il Natale (been born)

German = Weihnacht (sacred night) appeared in 1000

Greek/English = Xmas (the Greek letter, Chi or X, is the abbreviation for Christ, thus Christ’s Mass)

² Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 10 (New York, 1911), 709.

³ Caesar Augustus ruled Rome from 31 B.C. until 14 A.D.  In 1627, the scholar Petavius invented the system of dating the events before Christ (B.C.).  On the Gregorian calendar, B.C. is followed by “Anno Domini”  (Latin phrase for “In the year of our Lord,” also known as A.D.).

Our annual Holiday Meal is Sunday, December 13, at 5:00 PM in the Fellowship Hall.  Everyone is encouraged to attend and to invite friends and family.  It is important that we know haow many to expect.  You must reserve a spot for your self and any any guest who will be in attendance.  There is a sign up sheet on the front pew.

By Tank Tankersley

I don’t imagine for a moment that I can write anything about the holiday that we call Thanksgiving that hasn’t already been said, and better, by someone else.  What more can be said?  There’s nothing special about the fourth Thursday in November, of course.  Christians ought always to give thanks.  “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).  As in all that is worthwhile, Jesus is our example.  “And he took the seven loaves and fishes and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to this disciples, and the disciples to the multitude” (Matthew 15:36).

Our songbooks contain scores of hymns of thanksgiving.  We are often, and rightly, admonished from the pulpit to count our many blessing.  Not a Lord’s Day passes but that someone prays a public prayer recounting some (not all, for all public prayers must end) of those things for which we should be thankful.  The list is familiar to us all by now.  The words fall from our lips as readily as our ABC’s: food, clothing, shelter, our health, our jobs, a free country in which to worship, preachers, elders, deacons, teachers, song leaders, missionaries, friends, and on and on.  And then there is Jesus.  God’s perfect gift.  I list Him separately because He is a list of one.  There is nothing that compares.  “Thank you, God, for Jesus?”  That doesn’t quiet suffice, does it?  But what would?  What can?  Here words fail.  They are, after all, well…just words.  And the love that sent Jesus to reconcile us to God transcends all language, all thought, all… well, you understand.  It isn’t in us to describe that love.  But it is in us to embrace it, even if most imperfectly.  And to act upon it by loving others.  No, we cannot love as Jesus did, but we can love in ways we never could have had we not yielded our lives to Him.

It’s always struck me as odd that there’s one blessing for which we so seldom give thanks, perhaps because all other blessings are part and parcel of it.  Thank you, God, for sharing your world with us.  He didn’t have to, you know.  He could have kept it all to Himself.  But He wanted someone made in His image to love.  All the rest of His handiwork, as wonderful as it is, does not suffice for that purpose.  All the rest of His creation is a product of His power. Mankind is a product of His love.  His creation is too good not to share.  God is love, and love must have its object.  How blessed we are that He chose us!

But there is more.  When it all went wrong, not because of any failure on God’s part, but by virtue of our rebellion, He made it right in Jesus.

God made it all for us, asking only that we yield to Him.  But we wouldn’t have it.  We insisted on our way, not His, ruining it all.  Irreparable, had God been any less than what He was and is.  But being who and what He is, He entered time and space and took all the ingratitude, and hate, and sin and shame, and filth upon Himself.  That, and that alone, would bring us back to Him.

So, we say what?  Thank you?  Well, to say it and mean it is a start but not nearly enough.  But then nothing that we can ever say, or feel, or think, or do will be enough.  But we can turn it all over to Him, yielding as completely as we know how to Him.  That’s all we can do, and how, in response to a love that is God’s alone, can we do any less?  That much we can do, not merely on the fourth Thursday in November, but on the day before and the day after, and on every day until that day He calls us to where from the very inception of time He has always desired us to be – with Him!

Children in the 4th through the 6th grade will have a Service Project on Sunday, December 6.  They will meet in the Fellowship Hall for lunch immediately following the morning worship assembly.  Parents, you may pick your children up at 2:30 PM.  Please see Tammi Watson if you have any questions.