For the last two years, CLC has been participating in an initiative by the New Jersey Synod called "Equipping for Vitality (E4V)." This initiative connects us with other congregations in our area to find new ways to live out our faith in our neighborhoods. Over the last two years, leaders from CLC have been involved in workshops touching on hospitality, sharing the faith, ministry to people in the first third of their lives, the practice of generosity and more. The conversations, prayers, worship and Bible study that was part of these workshops will fuel our ministry into the future.

At our last workshop, the E4V team shared a fun video called: The Backwards Brain Bicycle. It was the first time I saw this video even though it has almost 24 million views on YouTube. I want you, if you can, to go watch the video right now at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0 or by googling The Backwards Brain Bicycle - Smarter Every Day. Once you're done, come on back and read the rest of my message for this month.

I know not everyone can ride a bicycle or lived in an area where learning to ride a bike was safe and easy to do. But I'm going to imagine you've heard the phrase "like riding a bicycle" once or twice before. Like the video says, we say that whenever we want to talk about a life skill we, in theory, never forget. The idea is that once we click into a habit, the habit stays with us - forever. We might not use that habit every day or even for years at a time. But we trust that the habit will always be a part of us and that we'll be able to access it whenever we need it in a future.

Now when you think about your time with Jesus, how much of it depends on habit? Habits aren't a bad thing, and I encourage you to have faith practices that are things you do over and over again. I invite you to pray when you wake up in the morning and before you go to bed, before meals, and to make reading the Bible part of your daily routine. But when life gets busy like it might be this month, how much do we let God sit in the background while we take care of the other priorities we have in our life? And when our life suddenly ends up being different, like a bicycle that turns right to go left, is our faith up to the new challenge we find ourselves in?

The season of Advent is, for me, a season rooted in expecting God to do a brand new thing. God's faithfulness and love are always present but it isn't, I think, merely a habit. Jesus' presence in your life is a radical relationship that is dynamic, passionate, and full of unbelievable grace. Can we, as we light candles on Christmas Eve during our 5:00 pm and 10:30 pm worship, re-re-learn just how amazing God's love is so that we can grow into being who God knows we can be?

See you in church!

Pastor Marc