Christmas Eve service sermon

Luke 1: 39-55 and Micah 5:2-5

What are you hoping to be under your tree?? I received the Nieman Marcus catalog and planned on ordering a few things from it for Brandy and Julia. I’m sure you’ve heard of this catalog. I was going to buy the $40k 7ft tall pencil sky scraper. But I decided on the 150 acre Italian fortress for a cool $3.8 million. Unfortunately someone else had already bought it. But I started to think about what I have, and what we have here at the church.

Call down the kids and leaders

This is our Youth Group. This is a great gift we already have that is not under the tree. In a minute we are going to pray over them. Last week I talked about authority. Why are there 3 leaders?? One leader will quickly burn out no matter how dedicated they are. Two leaders can bounce ideas off of and help each other. 3 leaders can make sure they help each other, they lead correctly, and they hold each other accountable for this ministry.

All these kids are under the authority of the leaders above them. If they do something they shouldn’t like making crank calls or walking down the rail road tracks, these leaders have the authority and responsibility to lead them to correction.

And like the kids are under the authority of Melanie, Ed and Mike, these three leaders are under my authority. If there are problems with the youth, they must come to me, their pastor.
If they start to get burned out, they must come to me, their pastor. One reason for this is when someone comes to me and says “Did you hear….” I can honestly say, yes.

But the most important reason is as the pastor of this church, I’m responsible to and under the authority of Almighty God. I must go before God with everything from our church life.
What I want to do now is pray over this youth group. It might cause a little claustrophobia, but I want us to surround them. All of you who have the desire and are able to, please come up now. If you don’t come up, that is fine. Raise up a hand as we pray over them.

Prayer over the youth group….


Almighty and gracious God. I thank you for this group. This group that will be the future of the church. That we are charged to raise up. These kids are growing faster than we like and smarter than us sometimes. We are praying for these leaders that have the desire to raise these kids up in a Godly way. Who have the goal to make them deeper disciples. Jesus we ask you to go before them, behind them, on their left and right. Surround them with your power might love and strength. Lord there is nothing we can do without you. We are here because of that first Christmas gift. It was a child. It was raised up in the church to become the savior for us all. And that’s why we have a youth group Lord. To raise up these children. To make this world a little better than it was before. To give them a heart for God. Right now before you, this whole congregation comes before you to say they are going to support these leaders and kids and whatever it takes to raise up these children to be deeper disciples and be godly leaders and be children of you. That’s what our church will do right now. Sometimes it might be hard Lord. We know with your strength we can get this done. I’m going to ask you for the wisdom for Mike and Melanie and Ed so they will know what to say and how to say it and when not to say anything. And the wisdom of our congregation Lord so they will know that every time something comes up they will say “we support you” because we know this is our future. We know this is our church. Although some of these kids are not mine, they are all yours. And the fact they are in my church Lord, they became part of my family and the family of each and every person here. I’m here to say right now Lord that this congregation is going to surround them, lay a hand on their shoulder and help raise up these children. That’s what we are here to do. Amen.


Elizabeth says “you are blessed because you believed the Lord would do what he said.” I say that to you today. You are blessed because you believe. What we have in front of us now and what we have received 2000 years ago which we celebrate tomorrow is so much better than anything else we could ever receive.

Now pray with me. Thank you Lord for making us rich in all things that matter…and a lot of other stuff that doesn’t. We have all that we need for today, and even more on top of that. Amen.”