THE NEVER-ENDING STORY - Week 2

Session Two: participate in (Sunday, December 11)
The Christmas story is more than just one we respond to individually, it’s one we participate in—and we’re not talking bathrobes and kids in sheep costumes. The participation the Christmas story calls for is more earth shaking than a quiet stable and a clear sky with a bright star. This story shook the way the world operates when it started to unfold thousands of years ago. But it has the potential to do the same thing today when we become an active part of it. What would our world look like if we became a part of the vision God has for the world—a vision revealed with the birth of His Son, and rests on us now?
Session Two Parent Cue: What can we as a family do to respond to the Christmas story?

THE NEVER-ENDING STORY - Week 1

The NeverEnding Story:
Series Overview
A manger. A baby. Shepherds. Stars. The Christmas story is one we look at with great reverence. The peaceful scene is recreated and plastered on everything from phone backgrounds to lawn decorations. But the Christmas story is more than a just a story we look back on and remember. It’s ongoing. It’s active. It’s a story that required a response over 2,000 years ago, and one that requires a response today. It’s a story that invites us to participate in it even today—because the Christmas story is the neverending story.

Session One: invited to (Sunday, December 4)
When a story is small and distant, it really doesn’t have much impact in our lives, does it? It solicits a nod, a smile, a “that’s nice.” But it doesn’t affect us. It doesn’t move us. It doesn’t shake us. And while many people, us included, tend to approach the Christmas story, the story of Jesus’ birth, in a familiar, typical and remote sort of way, it’s not that kind of story. The Christmas story, at its very core demands a response—good or bad—from you, from me—from anyone who hears it.
Session One Parent Cue: How has the Christmas story become too familiar to you? Read the story together in Matthew 1-2 and in Luke 1-2:40. Did you notice anything in the story you may have forgotten about or ignored in the past?