SOWING SEEDS
CHRISTMAS EVE SERVICES
Once again here we are staring down the Christmas Season as well as the final days of 2024. We will be having our Christmas Eve Services, Tuesday December 24, 3:00 & 5:00. We are so looking forward to having the first of our special services in our new auditorium.
We encourage you to invite your family and friends to attend one of the services with you. We specifically design these services to joyfully celebrate the amazing birth of Jesus, but do it in a way that connects with people who may not regularly attend a church service, and will eventually lead them to a decision to follow Jesus.
One of main reasons ALC exists is to do whatever it takes to reach the people around us with the Good News of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul says in Colossians 4, that the people should pray for him that he could make the most of every opportunity to share the Gospel of Christ with people. That is our attitude and prayer as well. One of those opportunities is our Christmas Eve as well as our Easter Sunday Services. Most people who do not attend church on a regular basis will gladly accept an offer from a trusted friend to attend a service on Easter and Christmas .
Knowing this, we intentionally take this opportunity to design these special services in a way that honors the occasion as well as creatively and joyfully communicates the message of the Birth and Resurrection of Christ. This has been our strategy from the very first Easter together (2000). A significant number of people have made decisions to follow Jesus and become a part of the ALC Family as a result of attending one of these services.
It does, however, require a sacrifice from the rest of us, to be able to put the planting of seeds of the Good News above our preferences and traditions. This may not be for everyone, but what a blessing it will be when we get to heaven and a crowd of people who were impacted and eventually saved by attending one of our “Special” services is there to welcome us home.
Praise God! I’m so looking forward to that day! Until then, let’s all work together to plant as many seeds of the Good News as we possibly can all over Sarasota and beyond - by inviting our friends and family
-Pastor Vern
