IMAGINE (Candle lighting)
Today, we light the candle so that we can hear of your works and see your Light. We light this candle that your hope might shine bright in our lives. So often, we get caught up in what fills our schedules that we are unaware of your presence. If only for a few moments, we long for this day to be different. We light this candle to prevent our busyness from silencing and hiding you.
(The person lighting the candle can say, Jesus is here. Everyone else, by his spirit he is here.)
STORY
*As you read, instruct everyone present to listen for a word, phrase, or idea that captures your attention. Especially look for the imagery present and how the arrival of Jesus is depicted through everyday life. After reading, take a few minutes to share.
PHILIPPIANS 2:1-12 (NIV)
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
