Tonight was our traditional Christmas Eve candlelight communion, and it was a very steady stream of people for the whole three hours. It just flew by. Our Christmas communion is not a service but a time when people stop by anytime between 5-8 for personal communion and prayer. We always had people waiting to be served, except for a very few minutes where we got to sit and rest for a few quick seconds before somebody else walked in the doors. This is one of our favorite events of the year and such a special time to be with our people who have stayed in town and not traveled for Christmas. This seemed to be the year that felt the shortest, due to being so busy with the people coming in and out and having little to no time to sit for a moment. But that's the way we like it! We also had a good number of our new people there...this is really a blessing.
Communion was followed by our other family tradition of going out for a Chinese dinner. We always invite the staff to go with us and this year Trinity and Misty both have family that has come in for Christmas so they actually left tonight right afterwards to go to Daytona and spend it with them. But the Garlands went with us and this year we went to Liang's which has become the favorite Chinese place of all of us on staff. It's sooooo incredibly good especially their orange peel chicken. Yum!
We're back home and it's time to wrap up a few last minute Christmas things and get to bed. I'm so tired, and very much looking forward to rest this next week. Did I say that before?
I just heard some news today that really inspired me. A church here in Tampa, Relevant Church is doing a new thing this month called the "30 Days Sex Challenge." (I've never visited the church but Pastor Trinity - our children's pastor - has visited or has met some people from this church and he was very impressed.) Realizing that this is a major element missing from some marriages (the frequency factor) their lead pastor, Paul Wirth, has issued a challenge for all the married couples to have sex for 30 days in a row. At the same time he has issued a challenge for all unmarrieds to completely abstain from sex. Of course we know the Bible says that those who are unmarried should not have sex in the first place but the point is, a lot of unmarried's aren't obeying the Lord's command to abstain and this is just one pastor's way of trying to get them to see that indeed, there is a better way! (God's way!) At the same time, many married couples are not
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