For What It’s Worth… A Clear View of the Birth of Jesus

      from PASTOR SCOTT

Worship attendance is the central indicator of health for our family of faith. It is the one place where we all gather and participate together; from children in our Children’s Sermon to our most senior members. It is the time where we keep each other in prayer. It is the time where we gather around
a text from our Scripture and become a part of the dialogue. It is the time where we offer our praise and song to a God who loves us deeply. It is the time without equal in our experience as a gathered community of faith. Let us all make a concerted effort to not only continue to attend worship regularly but also to invite others into this significant time of celebration.

Here at the Presbyterian Church of the Good Shepherd, we are always on the lookout to identify leaders and faithful members in our church to lead and accomplish ministry within our organized community. We celebrated this worthwhile and valuable endeavor in January at the Ordination and Installation of our
new Deacons and Elders. But it also occurs to me, how quickly we turn the page from Advent and Christmas into a time of budgets, programming, and logistics as everyone “gets to work”. It’s so easy to get caught up in the details of church life together. Who is going to do sound, usher, greet, sing, play, plan, teach, prepare, coordinate, cook, clean, pray, visit, shovel, call, write, count, organize, lead, serve, speak, etc. These questions are vital to “getting the job done.” But while all of this is a tremendous amount of work, it is not truly the hard work.

The hard work is living daily (you, me, us) the grace-filled gospel message: at work, at home, in our neighborhoods, among friends, in the midst of challenging personalities, among those in need, out in the streets and even right here within our community of faith. The hard work is growing and fostering relationships with each other and with God. This is the hard work because there is no time off. There is no
vacation from the calling of God on each of us. The work of the church, the work that your elders/deacons/fellow members have done in 2025 (and are getting prepared to do in 2026) is to help equip each one of us for a lifelong journey of following Jesus. We should never assume that the programs of the church are the “end all – be all” of Christian life – those programs simply exist to equip/empower/encourage each of us (individually and corporately) to be salt and light in the world. Let us remember the big picture – let us not allow the busyness of the church to cloud the hard work of the church: Building, repairing, empowering relationships with God and each other in this world of ours.

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