Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

Between purchasing presents and planning travel, enjoying holiday concerts and attending parties, it is all too easy for the bustle of Christmas to silence the sacredness and crowd out the quiet anticipation of the truths of this glorious season. We often find it hard to just be silent in order to make room for the Prince of Peace to speak into our souls and help us to ponder the things of heaven rather than the things of this earth.

NCBC is preparing a few events to help you pause and re-consider the riches of Christ come to earth, and help you ready your heart for a fresh experience of Christmas.

Advent – From the latin term adventus meaning “coming,” Advent is a season observed particularly in Western Christian churches. It is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus at Christmas.

Our church looks forward to celebrating Advent with a series of brief meditations embedded in our Sunday morning worship services as we light the traditional advent candles, signifying Jesus, the Light of the world, who has come to save His people from their sins. This year Advent began on Sunday, November 29 and continues for 4 successive weeks.

The theme of readings and teachings during Advent is often to prepare for the Second Coming while commemorating the First Coming of Christ at Christmas. With the view of directing the thoughts of Christians to the first coming of Jesus Christ as Savior and to his second coming as judge, special readings, prayers and songs are prescribed for each of the four Sundays in Advent.

This year, Pastor Sunday will focus our attention on Isaiah 9:6 for each of these 4 Sundays. We will look to Jesus as our “Wonderful Counselor,” “Mighty God,” “Everlasting Father” and “Prince of Peace.”

Christmas Carol Sing – This year our church will celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus Christ with a traditional Christmas carol sing, where we will share the backgrounds of both the words and music of some of your favorite Christmas carols and sing them together. We are preparing a very nice bound program with artwork, hymn histories and music that can double as a family devotional guide during this season. This program will be presented on: Friday, December 11 at 7:00 p.m. This program will be followed by a dessert reception in our Family Center.

Helping with the dessert reception –
If you’d like to offer to help with set-up, serving, or clean-up, Contact Donna Strand at dstrand@newcbc.org or call the church office at (630)584-2611.

Christmas Eve Service – The season will culminate with our traditional Christmas Eve service at 4:00 p.m. We will sing, hear a special message from Pastor Sunday, and end with our traditional candlelight song medley.

Invitation cards with all the above information are available at the Information Desk so you can invite a friend, a relative, a neighbor, or a co-worker to attend one of the events above.

Ray Ortlund Jr. wrote, “We do love to celebrate! People love to break from the routine of life and celebrate. The curse over C.S.Lewis’ land of Narnia was that it was always winter but never Christmas.”

This winter, be among those who are refreshed by the good news of Jesus, our Savior, who came to save His people from their sins. Our prayer for you is that you might be better equipped to “give a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that lies within you”  (1 Peter 3:15), and look for ways to “proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (2 Peter 2:9)

Pastor Dan Huff