Christmas Day

On Christmas morning, we decided to visit the church in The Villages where the couple that we had met Wednesday at the Getty concert are members, Live Oaks Community Church (https://www.liveoakschurch.org/). The pastor welcomed us to a "55+ worship experience" with the "Encore Generation" who have one mission, one passion: to glorify God.

Carl was mightily impressed with the state-of-the-art, 42'x22.5' LED wall in the worship center...

It was interesting to be part of a service that was made up of almost all "older" folks!

The pastor shared a message about two members of the "Encore Generation" who were participants in the Christmas story in Luke.

• Simeon, who was described as "righteous and devout", and whose response was "Lord... you may now dismiss your servant in peace". The message from Simeon is, "Be sure you meet Jesus before you die."
• Anna who transformed from a praying prophetess to a passionate evangelist, "she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all...". The message from Anna is, "It's never too late to tell others about Jesus!"
  

After the service, up closer to the screen... We got to reconnect with Bob who was part of the worship team.

The verse from which the name of the church is derived.

I found this information in the bulletin interesting -- with my friend, Janell, we used to collect materials for Samaritan's Purse shoeboxes throughout the year... I think at the point when we stopped, we were doing 50-75 shoeboxes. The information on the screens before the service indicated that this church provided 29,009 shoeboxes for 2022! Wow! And they are starting up again on January 31 for the 2023 collection!

We appreciated getting to join together our Christian family on Christmas morning!