Sunday November 30, 2025

Sunday November 30, 2025

Light a candle and pray: Jesus light of the world come into our darkness and be our HOPE!

Join us on Sunday for worship at 10am.

Or listen to the sermon here: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-63km3-19d8ef6

Participate in The Hope Box.

The hope box activity is a time to pray through your current hopes and see what the Lord might do as you offer them to him as a gift. This can be a fun time of asking him, a form of prayer, for the areas that you want Jesus to move in and through your life. The activity can be done by yourself, or with those whom you do advent with. There is no limit to participants. Also, you may start to pray about this and then do the rest of the activity through the week as the Lord brings up more hopes in your heart. Sealing the box on Saturday.

If you have children, let their hopes be childish. This is right and Godly. It is a practice that Lord willing may mature over time. There is no one way to hope and there are hopes that someone else has that we may not. For example, a child might hope for a toy for Christmas. At times the hopes can feel selfish and unspiritual, and they may be, but as we grow and mature in Christ, may what we hope for grow as well. If we are really honest some of our hopes are childlike in this way.

This practice helps us lay down our hopes at the feet of Jesus. It helps put into perspective that Jesus is our hope. We need his light more than we need any of things we hope for. As we start Advent with Hope, we are learning to set our hopes on Jesus and to trust him will all that we might hope for in life. If we get what we hope for but leave Jesus behind, those hopes will not be as joy filled as presence with Jesus will be.

If this is your first year. Write down hopes on a 3x5 card or a cut up piece of paper. Pray through them and spend some time having fun with it. Some of the hopes may be deep, and some others a bit shallow. It is okay. Write them down, but them in a box, wrap the box and leave it under the tree or somewhere you can remember it. Leave it there until next year.

If you’ve done this before, open your hope box. Go through the hopes you wrote down last year. You will see some will have come to pass, some you’ll still be waiting on and others you won’t even remember why you hoped for that in the first place. Remember to thank Jesus for the ones that have come to pass. Ask Jesus if the unfulfilled hopes are to be restored or retired – if restored put them back in the box – if retired put them wherever you want. It is helpful to date the hopes as to help you keep track. You may find that some of your unfulfilled hopes will be in your box for years and years – that doesn’t mean you have to stop hoping for these things, put them back and keep trusting Jesus.