Consider giving a gift that will extend the work of Christ’s Kingdom in our community! This year, choose to give a gift in honor or memory of someone special through our Christmas Offering. All proceeds of the Christmas Offering will be used to further the mission and ministry of First Baptist Church in our town and around the world. When you contribute to our Christmas Offering, the church will send a Christmas card to the person you choose to honor. Christmas Offering envelopes are available in both the pew racks in our sanctuary and our church office.
Join Us for Worship!
Join us for worship on Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. in the sanctuary! Also join us for Sunday School at 9:30 a.m. for all ages!
The CDC recommends that you wear a mask indoors.
Maximize protection from the Delta variant and prevent possibly spreading it to others.
Our worship service will be streamed online at firstbaptistsylva.com.
The CDC Recommends That You Wear a Mask Indoors
Hurray for Our Nursery Workers of the Week!
Thank you to Heather and Jeremy Ellenburg for working in the nursery last Sunday.
You are appreciated!
The nursery worker for December 11 has yet to be determined.
There is still room on the schedule to serve “the least of these”
on Sunday mornings. It is a blessing to see their smiles and enthusiasm as you spend
time with our infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.
Please contact Cheryl Beck (cabeck@ncsu.edu) if you would like to help.
Make Peace by Making Friends
by Dr. Jeff Mathis
The second Sunday in our Advent season commemorates how God makes peace with us through Jesus. Put another way, Jesus is God’s peace to us.
Indeed, Christ is the Prince of Peace.
Jesus’s teachings make it clear that we are to be more than just recipients of God’s peace. In Christ’s headlining Sermon on the Mount, Jesus commands his disciples to make peace rather than simply consume God’s peace.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God (Matthew 5:9).”
For much of my life, I’ve understood the Advent and Christmas seasons as a celebration of what God gives us—hope, peace, joy, and love—in contrast to what Jesus commands us to give to others. Disciples of Jesus give hope to others. Disciples of Jesus make peace in a world of violence and turmoil. Disciples of Jesus share God’s joy with neighbors and love their enemies.
Consider these practical ways that we can make peace. Careful observers will notice a common theme.
Make peace by making a new friend.
Put yourself in a position where you can practice the spiritual discipline of friendship with someone different from you. Just as Jesus crossed a boundary to develop a relationship with a Samaritan woman at a well, disciples of Jesus make friends with those we wouldn’t be caught dead with.
Make peace by deepening a friendship.
Make time to listen and share with someone you may not know as well as you’d like. Be Christ to this person by carving out time and energy to spend time with them. The gift of companionship can lift spirits and help people feel less alone.
Make peace by reconnecting with an old friend.
The patterns and rhythms of our friendships change over the years. Go out of your way to circle back around and reach out to someone who has meant a lot to you. Make space in your heart to allow the door to be cracked and not slammed shut.
Transform a friendship that has become unhealthy or even toxic.
Instead of isolating or ghosting yourself from a friend, pray for your friend and listen for better understanding. Observe what is going on in the relationship and be aware of hurt, pain, and grief in your friend’s life. Choose to be a source of help, and encourage your friend to seek or accept the help of someone certified to offer the kind of attention they need.
Disciples of Jesus make peace because God makes peace with us. Throughout his ministry, Jesus’s teachings and healings point toward reconciliation, inclusion, and embrace. Reconciliation means choosing to forgive and allowing yourself to be forgiven. Inclusion is the ministry of making space for others. We cannot embrace one another until we choose to be close to others.
If this is how God makes peace with us, it serves as a blueprint for how we can make peace with others.
We become peacemakers when disciples of Jesus make friends with their enemies and offer them love.
Disciples of Jesus practice peace when they dedicate time and energy to be Christ to others.
We are peacemakers when we pray for reconciliation, healing, and health for all.
It’s not complicated. We make peace when we make friends.
Mission Moment 12.7.22
Kim and Marc Wyatt
CBF Field Personnel in the Research Triangle, NC
God of the universe,
of each one of us,
show us Your way.
God who sees EVERYONE traversing the refugee highway, help me to see the sojourner too, because they are precious in your sight.
EVERYONE is seen by you.
Those seen on TV and those still languishing from wars that long ago disappeared from the news. Those who for generations have been stateless, who have such a small voice that no one hears.
Those who are in-between, whom no one sees, the invisible that arrive in our communities.
Oh God who sees everyone, praise be your name.
You do not forget the suffering of the world’s invisible.
You see everything.
Forgive us, Lord, for only noticing the anguish of our brothers and sisters when their trials are screamed at us through media outlets.
Forgive us when we withhold welcome to those who have been waiting years and sometimes generations, because they do not look like us.
Give us eyes that see like you see.
Create in us a desire to see so that we might open our hearts and our homes to those in-between, to the dear ones that you love so much.
In so doing, may our prayer to see the Kingdom of God on earth, as it is in heaven, be answered.
Thanks be to God.
Pray. . .Give. . .Go.
Family Fun Event: Christmas Edition Is THIS Sunday
The final Family Fun Event of the year will be right after church on Sunday, December 11, in the After School Room. After a kid-friendly meal (adults will like it, too!), families will work together to make a tasty treat for some older members of the church who can't get out. The plan is to deliver the homemade gift and sing some carols at each stop. Please let Cheryl Beck know by Friday if you will be there!
Giving the Jesus Way
United Christian Ministries is in need of pasta sauce, ramen, pancake syrup, applesauce (6-pack individual cups), and laundry detergent. To donate items, please drop them off at UCM’s building at 191 Skyland Drive. Thank you!
Christmas Break Food Bag Project
United Christian Ministries’ annual food drive to collect food for school children and their families during the Christmas break. This year, our church has committed to collect 250 boxes of cereal. We’ve collected 91, so we need 159 more by December 15! The cereal we collect will be combined with other food items in a bag and will be a blessing to families who struggle with good insecurity. Please drop off regularly sized boxes of cereal (not the family sized boxes, please, as they are too big for the food bags) in the Loving Kindness Room outside of the church sanctuary. Our offering of cereal boxes is due by December 15.
Online Directory for Our Active Attendees
Not a full-time resident of Jackson County but still want to stay in touch? We invite you to join our First Baptist Church of Sylva’s online directory! You may have heard about our recent implementation of an on-line directory for church members. We have created a group to include those who may not live here year round but who attend our services and/or events when they are here. We invite you to be a part of the directory so that you can you access to contact information for members and active-attendees, alike.
Click here to join!