Celebrations

We started out the month celebrating Chanakah for the first time. We had a corporate gathering where we lit the candles on the Chanukah menorah (see picture), said the blessing prayers, played with draidels. ate jelly donuts, and invented a Gentile game for the kids called put the light on the menorah (we realized they were too young to be blindfolded). We know from John 10:22 that Jesus celebrated this holiday related to the cleansing of the Temple. We found it to be a great way to focus on Him and added greatly to the holiday feel of December. This Christmas was filled with the wonder and awe of our Savior and Messiah, the King of the Jews, who would come in human form to reveal to us who God truly is.

The month ended with our annual New Year's retreat which consisted of playing Bible pictionary, spending time reflecting on all the amazing things God has brought us through coroporately and individually, and a discussion on how to live in healthy relationships with one another.

For 2008, we have changed our church format to two weekly meetings: one on Sunday night at 5:30 for worship, waiting on the Lord, communion and then breaking up into smaller groups. The other meeting is on Wednesday night at 7pm for a talk on transformation followed by an hour of corporate prayer for our city.

The spring semester of Jewish classes begins this month. We are excited for those in our community who will be taking classes. Paul and I have decided to take a break this semester but look forward to hearing from others what they are learning.

Paul continues to go to other Merriam churches and meet the pastors. We decided to take our Sunday night group to Pastor Gillis' church, the non-denominational congregation that allows us to use their building for MHOP prayer and worship meetings. He had Tom and Leah help with the music, and then he put Paul in charge of the testimonial time. This past week, Paul also went to the largest church in Merriam to meet Minister Hole, who mentioned that his board has asked him to prepare a sermon on "revitalization" of the congregation there. He was also interested in getting together with Paul, so we are encouraged by the repsonse of the pastors so far. Since Paul is trying to get the pastor's to come together and pray, along with our corporate prayer night on Wednesday, we are taking a break from our daytime worship and prayer meetings at the Merriam House of Prayer.

We hope you are entering this new year with anticipation of what God is going to do. Blessings - Paul, Lauren, Harrison and Noah ( http://noahcalebblake.blogspot.com/ )