Weekly Update// Pastor Chris

Dear Asbury Family,

 Happy New Year! I hope you are enjoying a blessed Christmastide (January 5 is the last of the 12 days of Christmas) and that your 2023 is off to a good start. 

 This Sunday in worship (January 8), we’ll be observing Epiphany Sunday. Epiphany comes from the Latin word for “appearance” or “manifestation.” On Epiphany Sunday, we remember how the grace of God embodied in Jesus appeared not just to the Jews, but to the Gentiles (non-Jews), too. The text that we traditionally read on Epiphany Sunday is the story of the magi in Matthew 2:1-12. Thus, my sermon this Sunday will focus on that story. In the message, I am going to seek to address three questions: 

1. Who were the magi? 

2. What did the magi bring? 

3. How did the magi leave? 

 Please keep these questions in mind when you come to worship on Sunday (in person or online).

During the New Year, we intentionally try to create new habits. Thus, I want to close this email by sharing with you the covenant prayer that John Wesley (founder of the Methodist movement) taught the early Methodists to pray. I encourage you to commit this prayer to memory and pray it (or a version of it) each day throughout 2023.

 Blessings,

Chris 

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.