All right, Church family, happy Lord's Day. We had a good week in the Lord. It's always a joy and a privilege for us to gather together and to worship our God. We're going to begin our service this morning with the lifting of our voices and the lifting of our hearts to our God in worship.

All right, good morning. Welcome to Berean Community Church. Again, as you were entering, I want to remind you, you got these cards, and this is made for us by a media team to remind us of the Christmas service that we're having. And again, as I mentioned last week, use this as an opportunity to initiate conversations with maybe non-Christian friends, family, coworkers, and even if they don't end up coming, again, it would be great to use this to kind of break the ice and start conversations, okay?

So keep that in mind and just take as many as you need, and if we need more, we'll just kind of get more printed, okay? Again, a reminder, Lottie Moon Christmas offering is happening on that day on Christmas, Christmas Day, and this is for our missions offering that's taking place, and that will be used for our denomination to use to support our missionaries.

So again, we'll remind you as we get closer to that. Again, a ping pong tournament is happening on December 31st at 5.30 p.m., and so you can sign up for that, and then, as I mentioned before, our New Year's Eve service is going to start right at 11, and it's going to be done with everything by 12 o'clock, okay?

So that's this coming New Year's Eve, and it happens to be on Saturday, and the New Year's Day is on Sunday. On New Year's Day, we are going to be having lunch, a special lunch, tteokguk, which is rice cake soup, so you guys may know what that is. We are charging $1, and I want to explain why we're charging $1, okay?

It's not because we're cheap and we need your money. We don't want to make more than we need, okay? So we need to know if you're actually going to be there, because we don't want to make enough soup for 800 people and only 300 people eat, so we don't want to waste it.

So by charging you $1, we're hoping you'll take it serious, okay? Yeah, so that if you actually signed up, you will come and eat, okay? So please do that, and then the people are laboring. They're actually having test runs to make sure that we're doing good, and so a lot of people are laboring for that.

So please, if you are here that day, come eat lunch with us. And one last thing, our Bible study, the next round of Bible study-- this week is our last week of Bible study. The next round of Bible study is our study in Jude, 2 and 3 John, and Philemon.

And I know some people ask me, like, "How come we're not doing 1 John?" So those of you who've been here more than four or five years, you know, like 1 John is--we did that right before we got into this building. And so that's part of the reason. And the other reason is, you know, we're trying to fit it into the schedule, and so it's kind of hard for us to cover, you know, cover all the letters.

The next section, I think, is about 17 weeks. And so this way we can cover the shorter letters, and we'll be able to cover all of that. So we're going to start with Jude, then 2 and 3 John, and then Philemon at the end. So if you haven't signed up for that, please sign up for that so that we can get started.

After this week, we have about a--I think about six weeks off, okay, as a break. I think that's it for the announcement. All right. All right, one more thing. For our offering, I know some of you guys who give your offering through Zelle, or most of you guys give offering through Zelle.

Some of you probably got a kickback last week. Maybe about 40, 45 of you. That's what I was told by the finance team. And main reason why is because we stopped using Venmo and PayPal. Unless you absolutely--there's no other way to give. It's still open, but we're encouraging our church to use Zelle.

As a result of that, obviously we have a lot of offering coming through Zelle all at the same time. So the bank kind of wasn't able to digest all of it all at once. So if you happen to be one of those people who got rejected, your offering was not rejected.

So you can still give. If you waited a couple of days, it probably will try to redo that. But if it doesn't work, please let us know. So we'd have to contact the bank and kind of set something up. We are working on it to deal with this issue, but that's the main reason.

It's because everybody all at once is giving all at once at the same time. So we did have this issue. So we are dealing with it. So continue to do the same thing, but if you get a kickback, that's the reason. You're paying way too much offering. That's what's going on.

I was kidding. So we'll let you know if once things change, we'll let you know. And then if another avenue opens up, we'll let you know. But for the time being, that's the reason. All right. So let me pray for the offering. And then our offering basket is in the back if you're here and you want to give a physical offering.

It's stationed in the back over there in the box. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, we pray that as we have come into this room with various concerns, hardship at times, distraction, heavy hearts, and just sometimes just busyness in life, help us, Lord God, to see this sacred time, the blessing that you've given us, the joy, Father God, of being in your presence will be renewed week to week.

We come before you in celebration of your goodness, of what you've sacrificed for us, that it would never become mundane or old, but it would be a cause of celebration for the rest of eternity. Help us, Lord God, to lift up our eyes, our hearts, our lives. Help us, Lord, to worship you in spirit and in truth.

Even in this giving, Lord God, may it be given to you as an act of worship. Thank you, Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Church family, would you please stand with us as we continue our worship? Let's pray. Gracious Father, we pray that as you've sent your only begotten Son to suffer on our behalf, help us, Lord God, to recognize the tremendous gift that we have, that you would fill our hearts with joy, with worship, with holiness and obedience, that we would lift your name high, that we would burn brightly, Lord God, in this dark world, that this world without hope, without you, Father God, would know that there is salvation in the name of Jesus Christ.

I pray, Father God, as we enter upon the Christmas season, help us to remain sober, help us, Lord God, not to covet the world like the rest of the world. Help us to know that our true treasure is in Christ and Christ alone, that we would live day to day, Father God, adoring you, worshiping you, following you and declaring you, wherever it is that you send us this week.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. God sent his Son. They called him Jesus. He came to love, heal and forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon. He lived and died to save my life. He lives, I can face tomorrow because he lives. He holds the future and life is worth the living just because he lives.

Amen. Hello. Thank you.