Winter came early this year, with a good amount of snow already on the ground by the beginning of December. Now even though there’s been a lot of snow in North Bay it hasn’t deterred us here at Laurentian from worshiping and serving our Lord or for that matter enjoying each other as we grow closer to God together and to each other.

In November Laurentian held a special evening service in which Roger and Shirley Pavy of the music duo, “Lighthouse Ministries In Song” lead us in worship. Their message of hope and encouragement was well received and enjoyed by all who attended.

During the month of November I once again went to Houghton College in New York State to complete another course towards my ordination. You may be wondering how much farther I have to go to complete my requirements for ordination (I know I do). I have two more courses left and depending on when I’m able to take these courses I will most likely be ordained in 2011.

December is always a wonderful month here at Laurentian. The season of Advent is a time in which our excitement and anticipation for Christmas builds up to the climax of Christmas day. Here at the church we had a wonderful Christmas brunch early in the month. It was an enjoyable time of eating delicious food, having wonderful conversations, singing our favourite Christmas Carols and of course listening to the Christmas story read from the Bible. Later in the month the youth of our church presented to us a hilarious Christmas play during a special evening service. It just so happened that for the play both of my children were angels (I think they take after their father). As always the most memorable service was our Christmas Eve service. The weather was terrible and to be honest I thought that the turn out would be very low due to the weather. Instead we had a large group of people and it was truly a touching service. It was beautiful to sing praises to God by candlelight. I also want to mention how impressed I was by some of our youth who made our service even more special by using their musical talents to edify the body while giving God the glory.

Two more note worthy items I want to mention before closing. We have now purchased a laptop as a church and are using it with our multimedia projector for our choruses during our services. Also our 2009 edition of our Family Finder has been printed and is being handed out to our various families. Thank you to all of you for your contributions towards our multimedia system and for letting me add your name to our growing Family Finder.

Happy New Year to all of you and may God truly bless you in this coming year.

God bless, Pastor Chris