A Thought from Interim Director of Missions / Moderator Barry
“Doing Together that which we cannot do alone, for the cause of Christ”

    December has finally arrived and another year is nearing a close.  Thoughts of the holidays and Christmas start to fill our hearts and minds.  Christmas songs are all around us reminding us of joy and cheer!  Some will start to look forward to the new coming year and what might be ahead of them, still other will look back at the past year and wonder where did it all go.  
    Some will see December as just another month – 31 days and nothing more!  But for the Christian, December brings great JOY!  It is the month we celebrate the birth of our Savior!  The time we remember His coming to earth as a baby and soon to be our Savior and King.  Churches will have special programs and singing to proclaim the King has come!  And all this will come to a head on Christmas Day!  Celebrating, singing, and joy will fill our hearts and life!  But somewhere in the shadows of all this celebrating, there are many who do not find or see the joy we know; often they are the ones that seem the closest to us – the ones we work with or live around us, family members and even children!  We get so excited about Jesus coming that we forget the reason why He came – to seek and to save the lost!  The LOST are the ones we miss, the ones in the shadows of our lives.  They are the one looking at us and silently asking why?  Why won’t they share this good news with us, so that we can experience that joy they are singing and proclaiming about!  We give and receive gifts at Christmas, wrapped in ribbons and bows, but the greatest gift came, was wrapped in swaddling cloth, then laid in a manger – a gift from God Himself to us, a gift that can only be accepted in our hearts if we only would believe in Him and trust Him with our lives!  
    It is His gift to us, but it is also a gift that we must also pass on to others.  
    This Christmas, stop and take time to look for those in the shadows of your lives and tell them about a Savior that has come to this world, and wants to come into their lives.  Let the greatest gift we can give this year be the message of God’s Great Love.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”  Isaiah 9:6
    My prayer is that you and your family have a very Merry Christmas!

Interim Director of Missions / Moderator Barry Pfister
Mt Salem-Wyaconda Southern Baptist Association
mswdom@marktwain.net
bppastor@yahoo.com
(O) 573-209-3064
(M) 660-734-2080
(H) 573-655-0172