I thought this week I would enclose for you one of the reflections that Andy posts each day on our and the Circuit's Facebook pages. It seemed particularly relevant.

An act of will.
Scripture, reflection and praise. Psalm 108:1-5
"My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast;
I will sing and make melody.
Awake, my soul!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn.
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples,
and I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is higher than the heavens,
and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
and let your glory be over all the earth."
Reflection: Four times the psalmist makes a choice, not for his future but for his present. Four times he says, "I will..' The psalmist understands the goodness of God and reacts with praise. The Lord does not force us to praise, but really does deserve it. God is utterly worth of our praise. Have a think about the great depth of the psalmist's praise. I have no clear idea what it means to 'awake the dawn' with praise. Yet, we can feel the joy in the heart of the writer.
Will we sing praises of the Lord this day? Have we woken the dawn with our thanksgiving? Will we make melody? Will we choose a day of praise to our Lord Jesus? This is the day that the Lord has made. Will joyful anticipation of the blessed birth dominate our mindset?
Why should it? "For your (The Lord’s) steadfast love is higher than the heavens and your (The Lord’s) faithfulness reaches to the clouds." And, if you want proof just take a little glance at a stable; at the nativity scene. A baby shows us steadfast love.
Praise. "Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
and let your glory be over all the earth."

It will soon be Christmas and the celebration of the birth of a child that will turn everything on it's head. A child with the power to change everything and more than that, to change everyone. To remake us into new people.
For us, school has broken up and the Children are growing excited for the big day. I hope and trust you are settled in and ready for the big day too. Let me draw your attention to my contact details further down this email, as I am available to bore you about the following topics over the Christmas period:- Mainframes, cloud computing, Cyber security, Vulcan aircraft, the cold war, modern history, anything engineering, and Christ! In fact, I can bore you on these at great length, should you wish! (As I regularly do to Helen and the Children.)

God bless!
Jon, Helen, Josh and Beth
xxxx

Messages from Di:

Morning Services in December:
20th December Di Smart
25th Christmas Day - Di Smart

Evening Zoom Services:
REDACTED
20th December - Andy Mac - Carol Concert

The Stewards made the decision to have a service on Christmas Day rather than 27th. Christmas Day is very special and although it will be very different from usual it's important to many to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Please contact me (405435) from Monday to Thursday each week to book. If I'm not here please leave a message - my answer phone gives time and date. I’ll ring back to confirm. If we're full when you ring your name will be transferred to the following week. Thank you.

with blessings,
Di

Worship in Person
Our building will now be open each Sunday morning at 10:30 for worship. This means around 27 people will be able to join in worship in the church building. If you would like to be a part of that you are asked to book in advance via Di. Bookings must be made by Thursday. Full information on how to book and what to expect can be found on our website here:
http://www.elburtonmethodist.org.uk/images/Notices/EMCC_RO_v4.pdf

If you can't join us in person we are hoping to stream the service to you live at 1030.
Last week's broadcast seemed to work, and around 10 households joined us on-line, if you had issues please let me know.
How do you get that?
Well you have options, and I put them all here in case of issues ....
Option 1 - Go to this page which SHOULD go directly to this weeks broadcast https://www.facebook.com/ElburtonMethodist/posts/3498752466827191
Option 2 - Go to https://www.facebook.com/ElburtonMethodist/live_videos/?ref=page_internal - This is our Facebook web page and contains our upcoming and previous live videos
Option 3 - Go to http://www.elburtonmethodist.org.uk/index.php/video-services - This is our website and I hope to embed the video here for you

Alternatively if you can't join us at 1030 the video will be available after the event on our website. http://www.elburtonmethodist.org.uk/index.php/video-services



The Courier
The latest copy of the Courier is now available on our website. The Advent courier is a chance to catch-up on what has been happening around the Church. You can visit by clicking here http://www.elburtonmethodist.org.uk/images/LinkMagazines/AdventCourier2020.pdf

Christingle
This year we are doing the Christingle in a very different way. Instead of a service you will be able to attend EMCC on December 24th between 3:00 and 5:30pm to collect a DIY Christingle kit. We hope this will be a way that we can share with the joy and light of Christmas in our own homes. Many Thanks to Tony, Julia and the Messy team for making this happen !!


CONTACTING OUR MINISTER
Rev Andy Chislett-Mcdonald
07960 050355



ANDY's Messages
If you are not already aware Andy is sharing a message everyday during lockdown and you can read this on our facebook page. You don't need a Facebook account to do that, if you come as a guest Facebook behaves like any other website. You can read all his past posts here: https://www.facebook.com/ElburtonMethodist

Contact Details

The NOTICES

Please remember you can get these notices via our notices blog on this page of our website:http://www.elburtonmethodist.org.uk/index.php/notices-blogso if you don't get this email do check there, anytime.

PRAYER

For those who would like to we are continuing our Wednesday prayers, starting at 7pm we are each praying at home. We end at 7:15 with the Lord's prayer. You can find out more on our website.

JAM & IMPACT

JAM & IMPACT are yet to return to their on-line or in-person sessions, we hope to provide details about the plans soon.

COFFEE MORNINGS

Please remember Denise hosts a coffee morning at 1030 each Saturday on Zoom, please get in touch for zoom details.

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