New Year’s greetings to all of you!

Dear Congregation,

New Year’s greetings to all of you, and much joy and happiness in 2025! I am grateful for the beautiful and meaningful Advent and Christmas Eve worship services we’ve experienced together at CCC. Thank you to all of you who have contributed by sharing your gifts as liturgists, ushers, choir members, musicians, audio-visual techs, decorators, preparers of Holy Communion, and in other ways!

I am grateful also for the scripture texts we’ve encountered that have reminded us of what is important to God and so what we Christians are to be about as followers of Jesus all the days of our lives—justice, peace, hope, love, and joy. We are to care for the least and lost. God’s values are different from the values of the world in which we live, which are power and wealth.

I know that many of us look forward with trepidation to 2025 as new government leaders take office. Let us be reminded that, no matter what the future brings, God will be in it with us. We are not alone.

On Christmas Eve we stood together in the peace and beauty of the Garden Chapel with our candles lit from the Christ Candle. We remembered that because of Jesus’ birth, the darkness has not overcome the light. It is up to each of us, and to the church we love, to carry Christ’s light into the world next year. Lift the candle of your life up high, in what you do and say, so Christ’s love may be seen and shared!

I hope to see you in worship Sunday as we prepare to welcome the new year together.

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Candy