What happens when 20 or so juniors in high-school go Christmas caroling in your neighborhood? I did this with some friends, and can answer from experience:
– Half of the group doesn’t sing.
– Those that do sing sound fairly awful.
– The four-year old neighbor boy gets beamed in the head with a football.
– Somehow, someway, an unlikely neighbor comes over the next day to tell you that he really felt blessed.
I was shocked when he came to our door and asked for me, and was afraid that he was angry at us! I had lived across the street from him my whole life, but didn’t really know anything about him besides the fact that he was Jewish. And yet, he thanks me for bringing my rowdy and tone-deaf group of friends to his driveway to sing “Silent Night”!
I’m not sure if people still do that, but we’re going to try!
God has sovereignly planted Redeemer Church on Friendship Road in Oxford, Alabama. He has provided the means for us to purchase the building we are meeting in, and to do renovations that make the building more inviting. And though hardly any of us live in the Friendship Road community, we can be sure that God is encouraging us to reach out to the neighbors all around us there!
As Christmas approaches, we want to reach out and invite our neighbors to celebrate the birth of Christ with us. We want them to hear the Gospel, and we want them to feel the love of Christian community. This is why, on Saturday December 14th AND Saturday December 18th, at 3:00 pm, we are going to Christmas carol in our church’s neighborhood, and invite people to come and adore Jesus Christ with us on December 22nd. I’m not sure if people still carol, but I know that this is a way for us to personally enter into the community and let people know that we want to know them and that we care for them.
Pray with us for this to be a successful effort in reaching our neighbors, and come and carol with us on one or both of these Saturdays!