Home for CHristmas?

“Are you going home for Christmas?”

GRACE BIBlE CHURCH / www. gracebiblechurch.org

Sunday Worship: Traditional 9:00 am; Contemporary 10:30 am

Adult Bible Classes both hours /11306 Inwood Rd./214.368.0779

Used For Small Vertical And Social Media

NORTH HIGHlANDS BIBlE CHURCH / www.nhbc.net

Sunday: Lifequest (all ages) 9:00 am / Worship 10:30 am

Wed: Student Ministry 7:00 pm / 9626 Church Road / 214.348.9697

DISCIPl ES Of C HRIST

CENTRAl CHRISTIAN CHURCH / 4711 Westside Drive / 214.526.7291

Sunday Worship 11:00 am ./ Sunday School 9:45am

Wed. Bible Study 5:00 pm./ www.cccdt.org / ALL are welcome

E AST DAllAS CHRISTIAN CHURCH / 629 N. Peak Street / 214.824.8185

Sunday School 9:30 am / THE TABLE Worship Gathering 9:30 am

Worship 8:30 & 10:50 am / Rev. Deborah Morgan / www.edcc.org

m ETHODIST

lAKE HIGHlANDS UmC/ 9015 Plano Rd. / 214.348.6600 / lhumc.com

9:30 – Sunday School / 10:30 – Fellowship Time

10:50 – Traditional & Contemporary Worship

NON-DENOmINATIONA l

SHORElINE DAllAS CHURCH / 5321 E. Mockingbird Lane

ShorelineDallas.com / 469.227.0471 / Pastor Earl McClellan

Everyone’s Welcome at 9:15am / Children’s & Youth Ministry

P RESB y TERIAN

KING’S PARISH ASSOCIATE REfORmED PRESBy TERIAN CHURCH kingsparish.com / Rev. David Winburne / Worship at 10:00 am

Meets at Ridgewood Park Rec Center / 469.600.3303

NORTHPARK PRESBy TERIAN CHURCH / 214.363.5457

9555 N. Central Expwy. / www.northparkpres.org

Pastor: Rev. Brent Barry / 8:30 & 11:00 am Sunday Services

UNIT y

UNIT y Of DAllAS / A Positive Path For Spiritual Living

6525 Forest Lane, Dallas, TX 75230 / 972-233-7106 / UnityDallas.org

Sunday services: 9:00 am & 11:00 am

What question has been more frequent in this December season? It’s not uncommon for someone to ask it of me, then I remind them that I am a minister with four Christmas Eve candlelight services, and they say, “Oh yes — I guess you’re staying in Dallas.”

Thankfully, Dallas has long been my home, so I can say honestly that I am going home for Christmas!

“Are you going home for Christmas?”

It’s still a wistful question, since many people will not be home for the holidays. There are those who live too far away, or those who can’t scramble together enough money for plane fares. Of course we remember those serving our country in faraway places like Afghanistan or any one of many lonely posts around the world. Many still remember the song that came out during the dark days of World War II: “I’ll be home for Christmas/ You can count on me/ I’ll be home for Christmas/ If only in my dreams.”

“Are you going home for Christmas?”

Frederick Buechner, who is a minister and author, has written that in mid-December 1953 he was in church one Sunday, listening to a sermon by Dr. George Buttrick at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. Dr. Buttrick had related some comments overheard in the narthex the Sunday before about people’s Christmas travel plans. And when, in his sermon, Buttrick asked, “Are you going home for Christmas?” Buechner says the question was asked with such a sense of longing that tears leapt to his eyes.

Home. What is it really that we mean by that word? Is it a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting, all in soft greens and reds, crackling fires on the hearth, wideeyed children taking in their first glance of Christmas morning? Is it the “Home Sweet Home” cross-stitched into our dearest family memories, or the ones we wish we could have had? Is it Dorothy in Oz, clicking her heels together and chanting, “There’s no place like home, …”

What is it really that we mean by “home”? Is it the “Home Sweet Home” cross-stitched into our dearest family memories, or the ones we wish we could have had?

The danger of so many of these images is that they will leave us disappointed by the reality of the holidays.

Perhaps there is another way to think of Christmas. Maybe the point is that these are days when we remember that, wherever we are on Dec. 25, God will be there with us. And, according to my Bible, God began that journey toward us by not being home at Christmas. After all, the first Christmas found him far away from home, in a makeshift crib in an animals’ feed trough. It was about as far away from home as one can get.

So if you are not getting home for the season ahead, perhaps it will help just a little to know that wherever the holidays find you, you will not be spending them alone because it’s really all about “God with us” — a God who left home to be with us.

EvEnts

Early voters

Skye McColl, St. Alcuin Librarian Mary Ann Campbell, Nina Rose and Mikah Finley hold up voter registration cards at the school’s Virtual Voting Initiative Nov. 6. The event taught the eighth-graders about integrated technology and the voting process.

Lamplighter’s secret (service)

Lamplighter parent Jim Savage visited the school a week prior to elections as a featured guest speaker for fourthgraders. Savage is a former secret service agent and served Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Bush, both senior and junior.

to a D vertise call 214.560.4203

ChildCarE

LOVING, CHRIST-CENTERED CARE SINCE 1982 Lake Highlands Christian Child Enrichment Center Ages 2 mo.-12 yrs. 9919 McCree. 214-348-1123.