Update for Sunday, December 26th
Dear Church family and friends,
“Pleased as man with us to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
Hark, the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King!“
We hope that you are having a wonderful Christmas Day, celebrating and enjoying all that this time of year has to offer!
Just a quick note regarding tomorrow’s service:
Johannes A. will be bringing us the Word of God at 11am. You are invited to join us in this time of worship, so long as you can wear a mask and keep physically distant of others. If you are visiting others, isolating or otherwise not able to be part of our face-to-face congregation, you can join in via our livestream on Zoom. You can ask for a link to that by writing to office@ibc-giessen.org
Merry Christmas!
Update for Friday, December 24th
Dear Church family and friends
“God rest you merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day…“
The long wait for Christmas is finally drawing to a close and the promised birth of our Saviour comes ever nearer. In fact on Friday (Christmas Eve) we will meet together at 5pm to reflect and mark this event in a special service. If you would like to join us, please e-mail either Pastor Buddy or office@ibc-giessen.org , so that we may work out how many chairs we will need, and how we can properly manage the physical distancing requirements. This service will also be livestreamed, in case you are not local to Giessen, are ill, or do not feel comfortable with the government’s virus management policies; to get the link, please e-mail the address above.
As is typical for IBC Giessen, there will be no service on Christmas Day (Saturday 25th) itself, but there will be one on Sunday 26th at our usual Sunday service time of 11am. We will provide more information on that in Friday’s announcement. Until then – if you haven’t done so already – you can catch up with Pastor Buddy’s sermon from this past Sunday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQoIwsgiftQ
Tidings of comfort and joy to you for the remainder of this week!
Update for Sunday, December 19th
Dear Church family and friends,
“Come and join the celebration,
It’s a very special day;
Come and share our jubilation,
There‘s a new King born today!“
After last week’s Christmas Singing service, the special celebrations continue – but this one’s just for the children! The Birthday Party for Jesus is this Sunday! Bring friends, party moods and lots of energy.
What will the adults get up to while the children are having fun at the birthday party? After we light our fourth Advent Candle and watch the next video in our series (The Paradox of Christmas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH7VLXOryCk), we’ll be listening to Pastor Buddy’s sermon on “The Child who saved Christmas”. All of this will of course be livestreamed – you can get a link to that by writing to office@ibc-giessen.org – but we would love to see you face-to-face at 11am at the FTH facilities. You will need to wear a mask during the entire service, as well as maintain physical distancing.
Advent is drawing to a close, the time we have been waiting for is coming ever nearer, and our focus on Christmas ever sharper. To that end, we would like to invite you to our Christmas Eve service on Friday (24th) at 5pm. There will be songs, the story of Christ’s birthday and plenty of light. If you would like to attend, we would be thankful if you could pre-register your intention of doing so by writing to office@ibc-giessen.org . We would like to make that sure that we have enough seats for everyone!
We look forward to seeing you on Sunday, and wish you a blessed week ahead!
Update for Wednesday, December 14th
Dear Church family and friends,
We don’t know about you, but we really enjoyed Sunday’s Christmas Singing service! How wonderful it was to sing – and listen to others sing – in a variety of different languages. It was fascinating to hear well-known Christmas carols in another way, as well as uplifting to hear them being sung so joyfully by those who had the opportunity to worship in their mother tongue. Unfortunately we don’t have any videos of the music, but we do have a pre-recorded version of Pastor Buddy’s sermon in case you missed it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXj_DUp4ATs
Continuing our preparation for Christmas, the mid-week online Bible Study will take a break from its series on the Book of Revelation. Instead, you are invited to share some Advent and Christmas thoughts, pray for one another and listen to a short input – all on the same day and time as usual: Wednesday at 7pm. To get involved, please e-mail Pastor Buddy or office@ibc-giessen.org and you will be sent a link to a Zoom meeting.
We pray that you are having a peaceful Advent season, that your own personal Christmas preparation is going well, and that you are having a blessed week!
Update for Sunday, December 12th
Dear Church family and friends,
“Sing, choirs of angels,
Sing in exultation,
Sing, all ye citizens of heav’n above;
Glory to God in the highest…“
During Advent, we’re returning to one tradition as well as trying something new!
Making a return next week (19th December) is the Children’s Birthday Party for Jesus. We are so excited to be able to invite as many children as we can to this time of fun, games and crafts all centred on the Christmas story. All children are welcome – so long as they are in the mood to celebrate!
Our ‘something new’ will take place this Sunday at 11am: instead of a special Christmas choir, everybody is invited to sing – so start those vocal warm-ups now! Not only will we be singing well known Christmas carols, but we will also be embracing our ‘international’ side by including some verses in languages represented among our congregation. In keeping with our musical theme, the following video will also be shown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNDtHdG5mVk
As has become normal, there are a few rules that we have to follow – namely wearing masks all the time and keeping physically distant from one another. We do also ask that you sign in on arrival. If you are feeling unwell, or do not feel comfortable with government regulations, we kindly ask you to remain at home where you can take part via our livestream. To join in, please contact office@ibc-giessen.org for a link.
Come, let us gather together on Sunday and adore Him!
Update for Wednesday, December 8th
Dear Church family and friends,
It is a wonderful thing to be able to livestream our services and it is also a wonderful thing to be able to access the Bible on your mobile phone – however, we learnt this weekend that the two things don’t always mix together well. Fortunately, if you were having issues watching and listening to Pastor Buddy’s sermon on Sunday, we can provide you with a smooth running pre-recorded version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1pjBhP9bd0
We continue in good faith with technology, and hope that it will behave itself for our mid-week Bible Study this week. It will take place, as usual, on Wednesday evening at 7pm over Zoom. We will be reading onward through Revelation before praying for one another. If you would like to get involved, please e-mail Pastor Buddy or office@ibc-giessen.org for an invitation link.
Have a blessed rest of the week!
Update for Sunday, December 5th
Dear Church family and friends,
“See amid the winter’s snow, born for us on earth below,
See, the tender Lamb appears, promised from eternal years.”
Interesting as it is that even a traditional carol should romanticise Christmas with its mention of snow that is not its main focus – indeed we are encouraged in the song to look beyond the snow to find out what lies beneath. Had the lyricist lived in modern times they could have used easily used many other examples of distractions to make the same point: look deeper, go beyond the tradition and re-find the reason why there’s a celebration.
A particular example could be presents; we are all rushing about to buy them and all looking forward to opening them. Maybe we spend too much time wondering whether the recipient will like our gift, or are too overconfident in our choice – and while we may hope that we got that one special item… This Sunday’s Advent reflection video gives us a different perspective on presents, and is surprisingly realistic about our earthly treasures’ lifespan!
On Sunday at 11am you can also expect us to light the second candle in our wreath, as well as worship together and listen to God’s Word. We will be meeting together, fully masked and physically distant in the FTH facilities – or if you would prefer, via Zoom (please e-mail office@ibc-giessen.org for a link).
As the baking, organizing, decorating – and everything else! – intensifies, take the time to look deeper, to find what’s beyond all the hard work that happens in the run up to the season. May that discovery be a blessing to you this week!
Update for Wednesday, December 1st
Dear Church family and friends,
Is your advent calendar all ready and waiting to go – or are you reading this on Wednesday and you’ve already opened the first door?
There are no festive surprises in this update, just some reminders about some things we have going on at Church:
A new entry has appeared in our Catch Up! series. Rickey has given us an insight into his work at YoungLife, as well as things we can pray for. To find out what they are, you can read more here: http://www.ibc-giessen.org/catch-up/
Our midweek Bible Study will take place tomorrow (Wednesday) at 7pm via Zoom. If you would like to join in, please e-mail Pastor Buddy or office@ibc-giessen.org and they will send you an invite link.
Lastly, Pastor Buddy’s sermon from last Sunday is available if you would like to listen again, or even for the first time – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwLExGj2IRw
Have a great week, despite the blustery wintry weather outside!
Older information and online sermons are available here:
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