Christmas is a wonderful time here at FBC Wimberley. Make plans to attend our Christmas musical events happening the first two weekends of December.
STOMP and Joyful Noise to Perform 1st Sunday in December
Our Children's Choir, STOMP, has been working diligently on their Christmas musical, The Mystery of the Manger. This is a delightful celebration of Christmas, featuring great music, solos, and drama. Invite your friends to come and see this heartwarming Christmas event to open the season.
Sanctuary Choir, Orchestra, and Drama Troupe to perform 2nd Weekend of December
This year's Christmas music and drama presentation, presented by the music and drama ministries of our church, is called The Word is Alive. It features a 44 voice choir, 18 piece orchestra, drama troupe, solos, and narration. The music is a great blending of contemporary and traditional Christmas songs. Be sure to make this event part of your Christmas traditions this year.
Saturday, December 13, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, December 14, 6:00 p.m.
On December 21st, our church family is invited to go Christmas Caroling to some of our homebound church members. They always enjoy it when they hear us singing Christmas carols at their doorstep. Following this event, we will be having refreshments in the fellowship hall.
After a 13 hour bus ride, including a few stops, we arrived at Eureka Springs, AK at 7 pm last Monday night. There are 45 people on this trip, including the bus driver. After arriving, it was off to the pool and hot tub, where we watched the late 20th century movie What About Bob?We watched Evan Almighty on the way to Eureka Springs. Our bus is equipped with a DVD player. Yes, this great movie, starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss, was being shown on a screen in front of the pool. Sounds like fun, huh? And by the way, we got to see the more recent movie
But enough about the movies. Tuesday morning, after a filling breakfast at the hotel, I enjoyed a 30 minute walk. Then our group convened to go into town, where we got on a tram. The tram took us on a tour of Eureka Springs. It was very informative, as well as entertaining. I find this area of the country similar to Wimberley, except for the presence of tall pine trees, and thicker forests.
Our first stop on the tram tour was the Thorncrown Chapel. This chapel, completed in the 1980s, is an architectural wonder built in the tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright. As a matter of fact, the architect that designed the chapel was a student of Wright. The chapel’s music minister was there. She and I sang two verses of “Amazing Grace” together, which will be one of my best memories of the trip.
Another stop on the tour was the Crescent Hotel, built in 1886. Look it up on the internet. It’s supposedly one of the top 10 haunted places in America. Go figure. I will let you know if I see anything funny there when we eat dinner in the hotel’s dining room Wednesday night.
After the town tour Tuesday morning, we went to the Passion Play grounds. This is a huge production! You can spend a whole day here, visiting the New Holy Land, where Biblical actors interact with the visitors. Also there’s the very tall Christ of the Ozarks statue. It looks as large as the one in Brazil, but is not as tall. If they had built it taller, it would have had to have a blinking red light on the top of his head for planes to see. Somehow, people around here didn't think that was quite right. Additionally, there is a Sacred Arts Museum and Bible Museum.
The Bible museum has over 10,000 Bibles, including a page from a Gutenberg bible, several English bibles, and German bibles translated by Martin Luther. In this museum, I was reminded of those who translated the Bible into English hundreds of years ago. John Wycliffe did so in the 1300s. He wasn’t martyred, but his bones were dug up later and burned publicly to discourage others fr
om following in his footsteps. Then there was a translation by William Tyndale. This great man of the faith was burned at the stake as a result of his translating work. The Word of God is powerful indeed.
The Passion Play was as wonderful as I remembered it a few years ago. It seems like the whole community gets behind this thing to insure its continued success. There's a huge set, a very large cast of characters, and plenty of lighting with a few special effects. Definitely worth the effort to come and see this show. But I would recommend the summer time, as it was pretty chilly last night when we saw it!
Today is a free day where people can take the tram to town and shop until they drop. We’ll all get together again for dinner at the “haunted” Crescent hotel, followed by a music program at night – some kind of hoe down comedy show. Everyone is having a great time. We’re blessed that no one has gotten sick on this trip. Our bus driver, Thomas Martinez, has taken good care of us, as well as Harvey Reed, who organized this trip. I enjoy going on these trips because it gives me a great opportunity to fellowship with our church folks. It also gets me out of my usual routine, which is a good thing. That’s all for now.
I got this quote from reading Chip Stam's website Worship Quote of the Week. This is a thought-provoking website on all things related to Christian worship. In his research, Chip considers both historical practice and contemporary trends.
Today, vast stress is laid on the thought that God is PERSONAL, but this truth is so stated as to leave the impression that God is a person of the same sort as we are--weak, inadequate, ineffective, a little pathetic. But this is not the God of the Bible! Our personal life is a finite thing; it is limited in every direction, in space, in time, in knowledge, in power. But God is not so limited. He is eternal, infinite, and almighty. He has us in His hands; but we never have Him in ours. Like us, He is personal, but unlike us He is GREAT. In all its constant stress on the reality of God's personal concern for His people, and on the gentleness, tenderness, sympathy, patience, and yearning compassion that He shows towards them, the Bible never lets us lose sight of His majesty, and His unlimited dominion over all His creatures.
— J. I. Packer, KNOWING GOD. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973, p. 74.
If you read my last post, and watched the videos, you know I'm at a family reunion in Port Aransas, Texas. We've been blessed with good weather here and are safe from the path of Hurricane Gustav, unlike those East of us.
Yesterday, Leslie and I went on an 18 mile bike ride. One of the great things about riding bikes out here (or jogging, for that matter), is that everything is flat! So, we put our bikes in one gear and took off. Of course, the humidity is pretty high. But everyone who lives here is used to it.
Last night, we went fishing at a dock in Rockport; Leslie caught some kind of snapper and a few speckle.d trout, along with a dogfish and a catfish (Yes, there is something called a "dogfish." And they're very ugly-looking.). My brother-in-law, Randy, caught a slapjack, and a few others. Slapjacks are those fish you see jumping around in the ocean any time you visit this region.
Later today, Leslie and I are going on a deep sea fishing trip. This should be a lot of fun! I'll have to let you know how it goes in a later post.
Justin and Faith are having a lot of fun, along with their cousin Patrick. I wish Justin could enjoy the trip more, but he's still hurting from getting braces on his teeth last Wednesday. Mamaw and Grandad are just having fun being around family. Randy and Holly are enjoying themselves, as well. They didn't have far to travel for this trip, since they live in Corpus Christi.
Are we crazy or what? It's hurricane season. And we're at the coast. Anyway, Justin filmed me in another couple of "moment" videos. One of them is a lot like all the rest we've taken. The other one is a little different. Enjoy!
This morning we're in Midland, Texas. We are here for the outdoor Christian music festival called Rock the Desert. Last night we saw two bands, Family Force 5 and the Newsboys. Illusionist Brock Gill was also there. Tonight we'll be seeing Hawk Nelson, Red, and Switchfoot. Wow! That's a lot of music! My personal editorial is this: Newsboys can still rock the house after all these years! Last Thursday we all took an awesome train ride and enjoyed a picnic and swim up in Austin! Along the way, we visited a bike shop.
Enjoy these pics from Cousins Camp. By the way, there's a couple of people in the picture above that aren't one of the cousins, but they're like family anyway--our friends, Samantha and Emily Hall. Darby and Adam Rollins, are here at festival too, along with their parents, Don and Cindy. It's my first time to be at Rock the Desert, but several of the people mentioned above are veteran attendees to this awesome festival, including Leslie, Justin, Faith.
Well, it's the beginning of Cousins Camp 2008 here at the Stephens House. Two cousins, Hannah and Sarah, arrived today. Two more, Claire and Jack Henry, are coming tomorrow. We're looking forward to a fun-filled week.
Christmas is a wonderful time here at FBC Wimberley. Make plans to attend our Christmas musical events happening the first two weekends of December.
