Christmas Basket ministry

By Vicki Swyers, Buckner Director of Community Ministries
God worked through many to make last Saturday’s Christmas Basket food and toy ministry a great experience. About 60 church volunteers helped to prepare and distribute food and toys to about 120 families in our neighborhood.

Some wonderful community partners also made this ministry possible. Church
members’ generous donations were augmented by:

•St. Louis University students, who offered toys from their campus toy drive.
•St. Louis Area Foodbank, which donated chickens and produce.
•Boy Scouts of Greater St. Louis, whose food drive supplied canned goods.
•Target, Dierbergs and Schnucks, which donated bags.
•St. Louis Bread Company, which provided pastries.

My favorite spot on Saturday was Comet’s Café (a.k.a. Fellowship Hall), where coffee, muffins and bagels were served and Santa posed for pictures with the children. His elves showed kids how to make ornaments with their Santa pictures and kept them entertained while the parents picked out toys. Many thanks to our awesome Santas (Demetrius and Adam) and elves (Eric and Candace), and to everyone who served. We were especially glad to include about 20 families from nearby Cole E-mints Academy, our KidsHope school!

Christmas Greetings from Pastor Warren

This Christmas, I have a profound sense of gratitude for what we might call the simple gifts. I am thankful for my wife and our life together. We don’t have to do anything spectacular to experience real joy.

I am also deeply grateful for our faith community, Third Baptist Church. Its amazing how this congregation serves willingly and substantially as the presence of Christ in this place. I am honored to be a part of the life of this vital faith family.

And...I am hopeful for the future. Its not that I trust God any more for the days ahead than I have in the past, but this year is special for me for some reason. In my heart there is genuine expectancy that is rooted in the promise of God to give a future and a hope.

May your days be merry and bright.  I am blessed today, and I am excited about tomorrow.

Warmest Regards and Prayers through this Holy Season,
Pastor Warren Hoffman

Celebrating with Alpha

Alpha Family Development has been approved as a provider for Parents as Teachers, the nationally acclaimed early childhood education program. Alpha co-directors Angie Smith and Jennifer Carr will be trained Jan. 11-15 as parent educators and plan to begin their work with St. Louis families in February.

Alpha also is opening a parent resource center on the church's 4th floor. This will serve as a place for play and learning for parents and children. Our prayer is that Alpha's ministry to families will complement other ministries at Third, such as tutoring, the food pantry, Upward Basketball and KidsHope.

Angie and Jen are members of Third, along with two board members, Evelyn Kurtz and Allie Hamilton. We praise God for this answer to prayer!

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

By Laura Hoffman, minister to children and youth
The TBC Kids and adult volunteers have worked diligently since September putting together their Christmas gift to the church. Well, it was quite a success. The cast did an excellent job presenting The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Over 200 people showed up to cheer on the kids. The evening was filled with laughter and beautiful music as the Baby Angel Choir belted out carols. It was indeed, the BEST Christmas Pageant ever!

(Photo Credit: Tom Kurtz)

Caroling, caroling, now we go; Christmas bells are ringing!

By Leslie Limbaugh, minister of students and communication

The TBC Outreach Team sponsors an evening of Christmas caroling every year, sharing the Good News of the season with our neighbors in Grand Center. One tradition is to stand on the west edge of Strauss Park, clumped behind a TBC banner, singing to patrons arriving for holiday shows at the Fox Theatre, Powell Hall, etc.

Instead of staying in one place, this year we visited three of our neighborhood restaurants: Triumph Grill, Vito's, and Best Steak House. About a dozen of us, including a gradeschool child, a teenager, several middle-aged folks and a few senior adults wore Santa hats and carried candles as we went from place to place. Although we had made contact with management ahead of time, each host/hostess had a puzzled look as we walked in and asked to sing. But then, as we sang, how fun to see Christmas cheer spread across the room as people looked up from their dinner and conversation. Some even joined our songs! One hostess invited us back every night and at least one diner encouraged us to keep up the good work.

Our last stop was the edge of the park where a few concertgoers noticed us and the traffic through several cycles of the stoplight heard our tunes.

What an enjoyable evening! The fellowship among us, the sharing of familiar carols with our neighbors, and the sense of joy and triumph as we faithfully proclaimed Christ's birth!

(Photo Credit: Charles Sherwin)

Music at Third

This was a very musical weekend at Third Baptist Church. On Friday evening, members gathered to go Christmas caroling in the neighborhood (separate post coming soon).

On Sunday, the choir presented A Christmas Carol Gallery: Portraits of the Season, arranged and orchestrated by Larry Shackley.

That afternoon, Vox traveled to Laclede Groves to sing for residents and friends. Vox will sing this Sunday in Memorial Chapel at 5 p.m.

Sing we now of Christmas

On Wednesday night, TBC hosted a carol sing. Pastor Warren Hoffman, Pastor Leslie Limbaugh, Allyn Dault and Jennifer Harris led in discussion of the background behind familiar -- and not so familiar -- Christmas hymns.  We examined "O Come All Ye Faithful," "One Small Child," "O Sing a Song of Bethlehem," "Go Tell It On The Mountain," "Of the Father’s Love Begotten," "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "The Huron Carol" before singing them.    
Photo credit

TBC in the news

Laura Hoffman was recently included in the Word&Way Advent devotional guide. You can download the pdf of the guide at the Central Baptist Theological Seminary Web site.

Christmas the Cowboy Way

Riders in the Sky brought a taste of Cowboy Christmas to TBC last night.

Some thoughts from those in attendance:
"Thanks for hosting Riders in the Sky. My son and I had a great evening. It is a great thing you do having concerts and reaching out to the community. I participate in the Praise Team Band at our church and music is a great way to connect. Keep up the good work!!!" - Mark Lang

"It was especially heartwarming to see children and their grandpas and grandmas along with their extended families all enjoying a concert together. That's rare!" - Warren Hoffman

"A very attentive and appreciating audience. Great family Christmas music with down-home humor. Artist made it all seem so easy and natural." - Tom Kurtz

Were you there? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Photos courtesy of Tom Kurtz.

Candle of Peace

Last Sunday we lit the first candle in our Advent Wreath, the candle of hope. We light it again as we remember that Christ will come again to fulfill all of God's promises to us.

The second candle of Advent is the Candle of Peace. It is sometimes called the Bethlehem Candle to remind us of the place in which preparations were made to receive and cradle the Christ child.

Peace is a gift for which we must be prepared. God gives us the gift of peace when we turn to him in faith.

The prophet Isaiah calls Christ "the Prince of Peace." Through John the Baptist and all the other prophets, God asks us to prepare our hearts so that he may come in.

Our hope is in God, and in his son Jesus Christ. Our peace is found in him. We light this candle today to remind us that he brings peace to all who trust in him.
  
LET US PRAY - Loving God, thank you for the peace you give us through Jesus. Help us prepare our hearts to receive Him. Bless our worship. Guide us in all that we say and do. We ask it in the name of the one born in Bethlehem. Amen.

An Advent reading used with permission from Rev. Richard J. Fairchild - Spirit Networks, 1993 - 2006

Something is about to happen

Something is about to happen. What it is we cannot say. The details are hazy, but the outline is certain.  Something is about to happen.

The Long-Expected One will soon be here. Be on guard! Be alert! Something is about to happen.

Advent is a time of waiting for the yet-to-appear. Advent is a time of wanting the promised-yet-unfulfilled.  Advent is here. Something is about to happen.

Something always happens at times like these. It might be grand, it might be subtle. But something is about to happen.

God has entered the world once through Jesus. God each day enters the world anew through us. We are here, and so God is here. Something is about to happen.

Watch! It might happen suddenly. If you don’t watch, you may miss it. You don’t want to miss it. Something is about to happen.

A first Sunday of Advent reading by Allyn Dault.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Christmas has come to Third Baptist Church. And with the beautiful pink and silver tree near the ramp door, the upside-down tree on the first floor to the greenery and the Chrismon tree, Advent wreath and nativity scene -- featuring a special (but very temporary) angelic visitor -- in the sanctuary, the season is rather hard to miss. The staff, along with several dedicated volunteers worked hard this week to dress the building for Advent/Christmas.

This evening was the Hanging of the Green, led by the children. They shared readings describing the symbolism behind all the sanctuary decorations. Following the readings, they arranged greenery, placed Chrismons on the Christmas tree, lit the first Advent candle and carried in a nativity. In fitting with the child-directed service, we used a large, light-up nativity scene with a rather unusual Angel of the Lord. The set will be replaced with a smaller, more formal nativity for Sunday's worship service.

We hope you will take the time to admire the beauty of the decorations during this Advent season. May they help point your thoughts to the Christ we trust is coming again. 

Christmas Pageant

The children have been busy with rehearsals for "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." They stayed after church on Sunday to run through the show and rehearse the music. The performance will be Wednesday, Dec. 16 at 6 p.m. in Johnson Hall. You won't want to miss it.

Thanksgiving at TBC

Third Baptist Church and Father Dempsey's celebrated Thanksgiving together with a dinner and service on Nov. 25.

Tutoring hayride

About 40 tutors, children, teenagers, parents and grandparents enjoyed a fun hayride through Forest Park on Nov. 13. Afterward,
the group roasted marshmallows around the campfire and made s'mores. This year's after-school tutoring program meets on Mondays and Wednesdays in the Rose Holman Learning Center at the church. It's been a great semester with wonderful students and tutors.

Members of Third commemorated Kids Hope's National Day of Prayer on Nov. 21 with a prayer walk around Cole School. We
prayed for the St. Louis Public Schools, Cole, its administrators, teachers, children and Kids Hope volunteers. God promises to
honor the prayers of the faithful, and we celebrate this opportunity to bring these concerns and precious ones to Him.