December 2020

We are not having an in-person Christmas Eve service this year. Instead, we had various members of the East Madison Baptist Church community video record songs, scripture readings, greetings, etc, and assembled them into a prerecorded streaming worship service.

You can find the service beginning at 12:00 midnight Thursday December 24 (between Wednesday and Thursday) at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz3FYC_yEVk

We would love to have you join us as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Merry Christmas!

Brothers and sisters,

Happy Monday to all! As we worshipped together, we considered the advent theme of love and remembered the Lord Jesus’ great love for us as we celebrated the Lord’s Supper. We looked at responses people make to Jesus from the story of the Wise Men in Matthew 2. Jesus can be met in three ways. Jesus is sometimes met with secret or open hostility, as Herod met Jesus. At other times, Jesus is meet with apathy and indifference, as the religious scholars met Jesus. However, the way to respond to Jesus is to respond to Him like the Wise Men. Fall before Jesus and worship Him as King and Lord. Give your life to Him, worshipping, adoring, and praising Him and then spend the rest of your life following Him wherever He leads. I pray this is how you and I will respond to Him today.

This year, we will send a YouTube link for worship on Christmas Eve. You will hear Christmas carols, Scripture readings, special music, a harpist, a short message, and Christmas greetings from church family.  We want to thank Pete Pokrandt for coordinating the videoing of all who participated and Jessica Pokrandt Bull, who edited it and put it all together. 

Remember to keep praying continually for each other.

Wishing all of you a very “Merry Christmas!”

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Sisters and brothers,

Happy Monday to all! It was great to worship with all of you as we thought about the advent themes of joy and hope. We rejoiced in the truth that the Lord has come, and earth truly can receive her King. We considered from Isaiah 9 about how every human being needs hope and how hope is necessary, especially in the darkest of time. Hope is the expectation and confident assurance that things will get better. Jesus provides the ultimate hope in that we know things will get better and stay better through Him. Do you need hope today? Do you need to regain a desire for something good in the future, and a biblical hope that is a confident expectation of that? Jesus is that hope for you if you are looking for hope in life. Jesus is the Hope of the world. Is Jesus the Hope of your life? He can be and He wants to be if you will simply turn from yourself and believe, trust Him with your life. Is there some seeming hopeless situation or problem that you see no answer to or solution for? Jesus wants to give you hope specifically in that situation. He wants you to know He can work in any situation and bring good out of bad if you will trust in Him. You can trust Him today no matter what you are going through. Jesus is God’s just and forever King who rules the world in righteousness and gives hope to all who look to Him. No matter how dark it gets, in Jesus there is hope. Hold on to the hope of Jesus! 

We will observe the Lord’s Supper during morning worship on December 20. If you are worshipping virtually, you will need a cracker and some juice for each person in your home who is participating. Also, if you would like to stop by the building and pick up the pre-packaged elements during office hours, let me know and I can put them out for you.

During December we take up the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. This offering is unique from other mission offerings in that 100% of gifts provide for missionaries all over the world. It is a valuable part of Southern Baptists’ 175-year history of reaching the nations with the gospel and vital to reaching the vision of a multitude from every language, people, tribe and nation knowing and worshiping our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remember to keep praying continually for each other.

Love being your pastor!

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church

Brothers and sisters,

Happy Monday to all! Yesterday we sang some wonderful Christmas carols that focused on the peace Jesus brings to those who know Him.  We considered from Luke 1 and the event of the angel announcing to Mary her part in the birth of the Savior how great our Savior is. We looked at the inherent greatness of Jesus, in that He is great in and of Himself whether people accept His greatness or reject it. We considered the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ in that Jesus has the greatest name, the name before which every knee will bow. We thought about the Lord Jesus’ greatness in that He is the one and only Son of God from forever to forever and has an eternal relationship with God the Father. We also considered Jesus has the greatest throne and heritage and Jesus fulfills all the promises the Word of God made about the Messiah. We thought about the greatness of Jesus’ miraculous conception with God as His Father and the human Mary as His mother. As we thought about these things, we realized we are not to reduce Christmas to merely presents and family and food. We are not to reduce Christmas to the to the birth of a child, or the birth of someone who made a huge impact on the world. We are to celebrate and remember this Christmas and every Christmas is about the Great One of the universe, the very Son of God Himself, becoming Emmanuel, God with us, to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. Jesus came to save us from our sin! The story of Christmas forever remains the story of the greatness of the only One providing salvation to the world, Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God with us.

During December we take up the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. This offering is unique from other mission offerings in that 100% of gifts provide for missionaries all over the world. It is a valuable part of Southern Baptists’ 175-year history of reaching the nations with the gospel and vital to reaching the vision of a multitude from every language, people, tribe and nation knowing and worshiping our Lord Jesus Christ (Revelation 7:9).

Here is a link to a wonderful new song that looks at the events surrounding Jesus’ birth and reminds us of this: “Do Not Fear.”  https://youtu.be/8YC7drPwWf4.  I pray it encourages you as it did me.

Remember to keep praying continually for each other.

Love being your pastor!

Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church