What a joy the past few weeks have been to fix our eyes on Jesus and who He truly is.  I pray you are enjoying this advent season as you behold Jesus.  This week we continue our advent celebration as we look at Jesus and His second advent.  I look forward to seeing you this Sunday and also for our Christmas Eve and Day gatherings.

Christmas Eve:  4:30 and 6 pm
Christmas Day:  11 am

Then to start off the New Year we will have a special worship gathering Sunday, January 1 at 11 am.  This service will be for everyone including all children.  This worship gathering will launch our week of prayer.  You will receive a prayer guide to help lead you through this first week of the year.  We will also have a special worship gathering on Wednesday, January 4 at 6:30 pm.

I wanted to again share with you a change occurring on our staff.  Our worship pastor, Jordan Moore will be leaving his role on staff to venture into the nursing field.  I am so thankful for Jordan, Heather and Sammy.  We will still be blessed with their presence here at The Ridge, but we will miss Jordan’s leadership each week and his faithful oversight of the worship team.  Coming in to fill Jordan’s role is Jon Meyer.  We are excited about Jon joining our team.  Jon has led at The Ridge a couple of times and we are blessed to have such a talented musician join us.  Jon comes on in a three month interim position.

Before I sign off I wanted to say thank you for your participation in our advent giving.  Thus far we have had $32,000 given toward the goal.  The goal is $80,000.  Half of the funds go toward our regular December expenses and then the other half will go to fund local and global opportunities.  As the Lord purposes in your heart to give may you do so cheerfully (2 Corinthians 9.7).  God is good.  He continues to build His church here locally at The Ridge.  Looking forward to Christmas and 2012!   

For your advent joy,

Jerry