What's the Deal With Advent

’m going to give a lot of credit to Steve Bell for this particular writing today. Among his amazing ability as a singer-songwriter, he is a deep thinker and a great author. A few years ago he released some books on the Christian calendar. Some devotional material to guide us through these rich, but sometimes unexplored seasons. I gravitate to that kind of stuff, so I dove in. His book on Advent is particularly helpful this time of year.

The season of Advent will begin on November 29th this year. It is the church's New Year in a sense. We begin here and retell the beautiful story annually for a reason. The church retells her sacred stories year after year, much like a good parent retells the same story to a child who hungrily asks for it every night. We tell it with love, hope, and wonder.

The actual details of the story are pretty absurd if you just list them out. Centuries back these prophets got a message about how a Saviour would be born...then nothing happened. For a really long time nothing happened. I don’t know about you, but I think I would lose faith in those promises pretty quickly. And then like any great moment, it just kind of happened. We read about it now with the lens of history and appreciate the "warm fuzzies" it brings, but it is a ridiculous story. Shepherds seeing angels, elite foreigners following a star, a teenage pregnancy, an authoritarian government, a census, donkeys, cows… It goes on and on.

We Christians are a lot of things, but for sure we are the keepers of this story.

So as we begin Advent, how are you going to recapture the story? Is there a Bible reading plan you could dive into? Maybe a new Nativity set you could build, or some new music to enjoy? Whatever it might be, I hope you can find the beauty in this story that we tell every twelve months. It really is the beginning of our faith as much as it is the beginning of our Christian year. Our capacity is deep as followers of Christ, and I pray he will fill that with hope, love, peace, joy, and wonder this month.

Greg Ramsden

Colette Baudais has been partnered with Sherwood Park Alliance Church as an International Worker for over 15 years but has been working in West Africa since 1996, with the majority of her service being spent in Guinea. She has been serving in Conakry, Guinea since 2001 where she led a variety of ministries – her main ministry projects currently are the Empowering Women Project, the Infant Rescue Center and the Guinea Radio Project (Renaissance Radio). All these projects focus on the proclamation of the Gospel and showing Christ’s love in practical ways.

Recently, Colette shared a brief update on life and ministry in Guinea, as well as some prayer requests:

In September there were 171 people that came directly to the radio station for prayer and that is only done on Thursdays and Fridays. The location of our radio is in the neighbourhood where most of the manifestations against the government originate. It has always been like this, but it is only this year we have told people to come to the radio directly for prayer. This month, because of all the election problems, not one person has been able to come to the radio for prayer. We were attacked by the security forces. We were sabotaged - our antenna wire was drilled into, cutting off the signal and that took us weeks to discover, and was expensive to fix.

• PRAY God would provide for us our own building in a safe neighbourhood where we could grow in our ability to reach our listeners' spiritual needs with face-to-face prayer. This is the key to building real bible believing communities. The team has begun four home cells with 177 regular attenders. This began as we began receiving people at the radio for prayer.
• PRAY for God to give us partners to help with the need to relocate the radio.
• PRAY for our team, at the radio, to be strong, courageous and determined in the tasks God has given us to steward and accomplish for His Kingdom.

Join Colette’s prayer team and receive future ministry and prayer updates.

This weekend begins the season of Advent and the start of a new series, Carols, leading us up to Christmas. Each weekend, the message will use a classic Christmas Carol as its launching point, zeroing in on a significant line or phrase, and using that phrase to dig into the Scriptures for a fresh Christmas perspective.

This weekend, Pastor Brody's message will focus on the Carol, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, and dip into the grand narrative of the Old Testament and its anticipation and longing, perhaps more accurately, groaning for the coming Messiah.

Starting this weekend, we have made the decision to suspend in-person worship services until the weekend of January 9/10. Learn more...

Online gathering takes place Saturday 7 pm, Sunday 9 am and 11 am on the website, Facebook, YouTube, Apple TV and Fire TV.

Whether you've just begun to journey with us, or you've been part of this church family for decades, you are welcome, you matter and you belong here. The 2020 Annual Report is now available along with the 2020 Annual Financial Reports, which will be discussed at the Annual General Meeting (online) on Monday, December 7, 2020. Registration is required.