Our winter quarter has begun in Promiseland with your children receiving new passports filled with Bible verses. Keep up the good work of encouraging your children to hide God’s Word in their hearts.
Two events we hope you will put on your calendar: the Backward Christmas Pageant on the 20th of December and playing bells at the early Christmas Eve service. These are great opportunities for your children to join with other Riverside children to celebrate the birth of Jesus. After the Christmas pageant, we will go caroling to Riverside neighbors and give them handmade Christmas cards containing an invitation to our Christmas services. Then back to the church we will go to share a meal with each other, including a birthday cake for Jesus.
Throughout December our 3-to-5-year-old children will discover Christmas is the time we celebrate the good news of Jesus’ birth. The Christmas story will be retold every week with a slightly different focus each time.
The K-through-3rd-graders will hear about God’s greatest gift to us: His Son, Jesus. Each week they will learn more about the Christmas story, including the appearance of angels to Mary, the journey of Joseph to Bethlehem, and the birth of baby Jesus and His being laid in a manger. The last lesson is intended to help them understand what Christmas is all about: Jesus is God’s greatest gift to us because He is our Savior – He came to save us from our sins so we can be part of God’s family.
The 4th-and-5th-graders will examine Christmas, the season of Jesus Christ’s birth. They will learn Christmas would not exist without Jesus and Jesus’ birth was the beginning of God fulfilling all the prophecies concerning the coming Messiah/Savior described in the Old Testament.
Jesus died on a cross so our sins can be forgiven. His birth in Bethlehem was a gift, but our hope, the promise of eternal life with Him, is at the cross. Jesus’ gift to us is sweeter than any treat we might receive at Christmas. Let us thank Him for His love and the hope we have in Him.
Dar Muehlhausen