On Vision Sunday each year the LBCF leadership reveals what they sense is the movement of God's spirit and the direction for the upcoming year. Our pastoral team shared a vision of returning to foundational language in our community and seeing how those will be lived out in the community now. Words like adoption, ambassador, and abundance as well as our slogan "learning to live and love like Jesus" will be anchors but this year will be teaching and planning around how those values live out practically.

We see in scripture that the life of Christ is not one into more ease, more worldly success, or greater power but instead a descent into service, sacrifice, and self-giving love.

Angels served a specific purpose in delivering a message that Christ was coming. Angels were everywhere in the birth narratives of Christ but afterward, they largely disappeared. We find that God now chooses to use people to point others to Christ. We have become God’s messengers.

In this Advent message, we see that God's love is amazing because it always involves a covenant. From the very beginning, he marries us, and calls us his bride. It's not silly, and it's not easy, but it is true and good. It involves suffering, which always has joy in the midst of it. Let's none of us settle for less.

God demonstrates how much He loves us by choosing to be with us, regardless of what we go through. This Advent season, how does leaning into the reality of Immanuel shape the way we love and are with others in the areas we live, work, & play?

As we focus on Christ this Advent season we see in Ephesians it is Christ who is called our peace and we look at how the incarnation is not a self-help guide to quell our troubles, but an immediate and intimate presence amidst chaos in the person of Jesus.

Jesus's way of interpreting the Bible isn't as easy as we think it is. His ways of using scripture are deeply challenging. It is easier, after all, to read scripture for what we want to see than for what he wants us to see. How did he read and view scripture? Jesus brought to them an awareness as to how God was acting in their present time...he brought them to the God of the now, not the God of then. He did this by taking time aware for silence and prayer and to listen to the Father. He did this by reading and meditating on his sacred scriptures. He did this in the company of others, he had a spiritual community. He did this by deep deep dependence upon the Holy Spirit and then promised us that we would have that same Spirit. (note: unfortunately, the recording experienced a glitch throughout, we apologize for this distraction and inconvenience).

As we continue the series on discernment, we consider how we walk discernment out in areas of ambiguity by holding a posture of curiosity that asks God "What are You up to in this moment?", waiting to hear His answer, and responding to guidance in trust and obedience.

As we continue in our journey to learn rhythms of discernment this week we explore discernment through silence and discernment through speaking. Then we get to put that into practice with Lectio Divina on Romans 12:1-2.

As we learn rhythms of discernment we are reminded to look back and forward at the story of God and our place in it, calling upon God's faithfulness and our hope in the coming kingdom.