December 2014 – Pastor Eric’s Letter

Dear fellow rejoicers,

We continue our emphasis on the theme, “What we do as Jesus’ followers.” We are looking at what the early Christians did from Acts 2. We focused on “sharing” because they shared. Now we focus on “rejoice”, because they rejoiced. Here is the NIV translation, “They … ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.” (Acts 2:46 – 47)

I see some happy people in these verses. It seems like they were enjoying their time with one another as they praised God and shared the good news of Jesus. Their hearts were glad. When do you experience a glad heart? My Norwegian heritage allows me to experience a heart that fluctuates from the one extreme of “not too bad” all the way to the other extreme of “pretty good”. And, my heart feels “pretty good” on Sunday morning when I come to worship with you. Each of our Circle of Faith congregations has a kind of joy in it’s fellowship. People smile, people care for one another. Why? I think it is because like the early Christians we too gather to celebrate the great good news of Jesus. Jesus is right smack dab in the middle of it all. From our songs. to our readings, to our prayers, to our sharing, to our coffee to our connections outside of church.

Many of us have had the joy of the good news of Jesus since our baptism at a very young age and so we may sometimes take it a little bit for granted. We plod along in the routines of church chores and life chores and forget the extraordinary blessings of Jesus. This month we are reminded to rejoice. I hope it won’t be too much of a struggle. Remember how all the angels in heaven rejoiced when one lost sheep was found and how they rejoiced with the shepherds when Jesus was born. We do that too. It is important. Your rejoicing does a great deal for me and I know it does for others as well.

“Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice. Let your gentleness

be known to all. The Lord is near.” (Philippians 4:4-5)

Pastor Eric