The Family Table

Dear LEFC Parents,

Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent. This year’s LEFC Family Advent Readings reflect upon Jesus’ breathtaking claim to be the Light of the World. This week’s reading is “The Light of Joy.”

No Youth Group tonight!

Reminder! Youth Group will be taking a Christmas break tonight and next week and will restart on January 5th. Make spiritual growth a priority in 2025 and join us that week, and don’t forget to invite your friends to do the same!

Candlelit Worship on Christmas Eve

Bring your family to worship this Tuesday at 7pm. Our Christmas Eve Candlelight service will once again feature children, youth, and adults presenting special reading, prayers, instrumental and vocal music offerings about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is still time to get involved by sharing your talent. See Pastor Matt with your ideas.

Family Discipleship Conference

Pathway Church writes, “Join us for our 3rd Annual Family Discipleship Conference sponsored by Geneva College. For this year’s event we’ve invited back Cornerstone Wellness, who joined us at our first ever conference! This will be a day full of practical learning, fellowship with other parents, and encouragement for you and your family as we seek to support one another in parenting and discipling our kids to know and love Jesus. The event will take place February 1st from 9am-1pm. The cost is $20/individual and $30/couple. Our youth ministry will be offering a one-day VBS childcare option as a fundraiser for their upcoming Summer Mission trips (requested donation is $10/kid, please pay in-person at registration on February 1. We will accept credit card, check or cash). Registration is now open at familyatpathway.com.”

We would love to see parents from LEFC attend this valuable event. Maybe join up with another family to carpool together, or make it a day out for mom and dad! More information can be found at the link above.

Save the Date for Family Bible Week!

Family Bible week will be held July 7-13, 2025! Save the date and plan to join us for a week of spiritual growth and fellowship. We are also in need of volunteers to join the FBW committee and lead in various areas, from teaching to crafts to decorating. We will soon be recruiting people, so consider whether you might be led to fill one of these needs. See Jordyn Skacel if you would like to volunteer!

“God Provided for His People” Kids Bible Class Devotional

You have free access to a family devotional based on the curriculum our kids are studying each week in KBC! It’s called “The Gospel Project at Home.” Today’s Bible Study is “God Provided for His People” (Volume 1: Unit 4: Session 4), and the devotional can be found at this link.

Visit the Family Ministries page on our website for information about how to access The Gospel Project at Home for the first time.

Feeling Overwhelmed this Christmas?

Are you feeling like you have too much on your plate this week? Worried that this Christmas isn’t going to be just right for your kids? Stressed about the last minute details? Check out this article written by Courtney Reissig for Crossway for some encouragement!

Books as Christmas Gifts for Kids

What are you placing the under tree this year to enrich your children’s faith? Books can make great gifts. Both Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition have recently published their 2024 book awards which include books specifically for children and teens (including More to the Story by Jennifer Kvamme who some of our teens met at Challenge this Summer). Crossway is currently offering 50% off the price of their books. It’s a great time to find something that might delight, inspire, and instruct the next generation.

And for dessert…

This week’s recommendation for family discipleship is a lively song (and storybook!) about Jesus’ genealogy.

(Yes, you read that right.)

Twenty years ago, Andrew Peterson, the recording artist, songwriter, producer, filmmaker, publisher, and award-winning author of The Wingfeather Saga, wrote a bestselling album all about the coming Christ called “Behold the Lamb of God.” [Peterson has performed it all around the world and does it annually at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.]

The sixth track on the album is a jaunty guitar-driven tune that sings the story of Matthew 1:1:17–which tends to bore most readers until they study it more closely.

Peterson makes it fun! And along the way, you learn a lot about Jesus’ ancestors (good, bad, happy, and sad).

In the book version, The Ballad of Matthew’s Begats, Andrew Peterson teamed up with illustrator Cory Godbey to add expressive images to the words and music. The images have a “family photo album” feel to them, and several of the pages also have “Did you know?” facts about this unlikely royal family tree.

At the end of the book, Peterson writes a note to young readers, “The song ‘Matthew’s Begats’ was written one rainy summer afternoon when I was in that silly sort of mood that makes a songwriter want to put odd, often overlooked passages of Scripture to bluegrass music. Once the song was written, I set to memorizing it while I was washing dishes, perfecting my perpetual motion machine, pruning my bonsai tree, and eating apple crisp…Why am I telling you these things? Because the song in this book isn’t just a list of names. It’s a list of people. Real people. People who were good and bad, and somewhere in between, and who were a part of God’s great plan to redeem the world through another real person named Jesus…And the good news is, because of Jesus you and I are a part of that story, too.”

I (Pastor Matt) highly recommend both the song and the book (and the whole album!). We have the book in the church library, and it even comes with a CD of the song! The music is also available, of course, on all of the streaming sites, too. Play it on repeat this Wednesday. (Be ready to explain what “begat” means before you do!)

Pastor’s Challenge: I’d love to hear some kids sing “Matthew’s Begats” on Christmas Eve next year. So I’m going to issue this challenge: Any LEFC kid who memorizes the whole thing and sings it either on camera or on stage (or both) is eligible for a “Pizza Party with Pastor Matt” some time after Christmas Eve 2025! I hope that gives everybody enough time to memorize it (while consuming a lot of apple crisp).

We hope your family eats it right up!

Jordyn Skacel, Director of Family Ministry
Matt Mitchell, Pastor

P.S. Parents who want another musical take (more for grown-ups) on Jesus’ genealogy might enjoy the advent album “Firstborn” by Poor Bishop Hooper, especially the last song, “Christ.” Check it out.