Our Light, the Christ!

Hello Church!

When I share with you via this medium I prefer to look ahead, but if you'll indulge me, I'd like to look back to last weekend's online service. If you missed it, do yourself a favor and go review what took place, particularly the interview I did with the five youngest members of our pastoral team. I hope none of these good people are strangers to you, but if they are, now they won't be if you'll invest a few minutes. I was compelled and encouraged as they shared their high's and low's from the last few months, as well as the Scripture they're leaning on these days. It was worth a one-week pause in our prayer series to hear and see from these inspiring current and future leaders. As a church, we're in a good place partly because of Jenna, Luke, Jesse, James, and Kiara.

And now looking ahead - this weekend we pick things up where we left off in our series "Teach Us To Pray." This weekend's focus is on intercessory prayer (Petition), where I'll take a shot at describing whether prayer actually makes a difference.

The mysterious nature of prayer has been long debated, and I hope the message gives you a healthy dose of optimism as you pray for others as well as yourself. 

I hope you're experiencing good health emotionally, physically, and spiritually. We've known these weeks of darker and colder days and public health restrictions were likely to pose a variety of challenges. Even as this week has given us our first real legitimate blast of winter, the days are getting longer, spring will be here soon, and prayerfully, so will vaccines.

Please stay faithful to your God and to each other. I continue to marvel at all the ways our faith community is staying engaged and connected. Let's keep walking together through this unusual season knowing "...on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned." Thanks be to God - we know what Isaiah was longing for! Our Light, the Christ.

Pastor Greg Hochhalter, Lead Pastor

We were so blessed to have Jordan Cavanaugh, our guest speaker at our Faith @ Home event last Tuesday, share helpful, up-to-date information on technology and its influence on our youth. He discussed how the over-usage of "screens" have significantly impacted students' sleep, cognitive development, and mental health. He also brought up the concern over the lure of pornography and how it has played a leading role in how students view their own sexuality. Shepherding our kids can be such a lonely and overwhelming task! We were encouraged as parents engaged in conversation with each other and were equipped with the resources they needed.

Watch or listen to the entire episode to gain valuable insight on what you can do to help your family and youth navigate technology in a healthy manner. Resources are available that include a technology contract to help you create guidelines on technology use at home. As well as a conversation starter you can have with your students to help navigate technology usage in your home.