The Shepherd’s Candle: Joy

We’re already to the third Sunday of advent, the season in which we await the coming celebration of Jesus’ birth. Today’s post is a simple one with ideas you can do with even the littlest ones in your home. May the joy of Jesus’ arrival on earth be felt in your homes today.

Light: Shepherd’s Candle

Read: Luke 2:7-15

Listen:

Enjoy: Read the story from Luke 2 with your children and have them act it out with a nativity set. And/or take a drive into the country (even as close as the freeway near Coburg) and watch the baby lambs frolicking in the fields. Discuss with those in your car what it might have been like to be a shepherd watching over flocks outside Bethlehem on that night the angels declared the joyous news of Jesus’ birth.

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This December our mailboxes are filled each week with envelopes from organizations seeking donations for so many worthy causes. If you’d like to keep your money local and help our church come alongside single mamas and their little ones to provide safe housing, UFC is endeavoring to raise $25,000 to secure a second Dignity House, which will cover the costs of a second home for one year. You can give here, noting in the memo line under the general giving tag that your gift is designated for Advent Conspiracy, which is our church’s Christmas campaign to shop less, spend less, and love more. In the past, funds have been used to install water wells in India, help build an orphanage and home for widows, build a church in Haiti, establish a benevolence fund for the Eugene Police Department and Lane County Sheriff’s Department, help Cahoots buy a second van, donate to the Eugene Mission, stock food closets at South Eugene High School and Sheldon High School, fund Agape Youth ministries, and much more.