• My Savior Lives – Glenn Packiam (A)
• Blessed Be The Name – Matt Redman (A)
• Mighty To Save – Hillsong (A)
• Came To My Rescue – Hillsong (A)
• Desert Song – Hillsong (D)

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• Like A Lion – Daniel Bashta (B)
• Glory To God Forever – Fee & Vicky Beeching (B)
• Reign In Us – Starfield (B)
• You Alone Can Rescue – Matt Redman (B)
• God Of This City – Bluetree (B)

• Happy Day – Tim Hughes (B)
• God Is Able – Hillsong (B)
• You Never Let Go – Matt Redman (B)
• Forever Reign – Hillsong (B)
• How He Loves – John Mark McMillan (B)

This week’s message was on Greed.  We explained how it’s one issue not many people will admit to be struggling with.  It was fun singing Ill With Want by the Avett Brothers (YouTube), and having Andrew sing with me for the first time.  :-)

photo credit: LivingOS

Wow!  It was such a powerful morning on Sunday.  The core of the message was the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.  You can read the whole story in Matthew 18:21-35.  Our Heavenly King paid our debt.  He wiped the slate clean.

Because of that we’re expected to forgive others who may wrong us.  The debt we think we’re owed does not even start to compare to the debt Jesus paid on our behalf.  If you read the parable, you can understand why the king was pretty miffed.  After the king showed the servant so much mercy, the servant went out immediately to chase some insignificant debt that was owed to him.

How could his heart not have been overflowing with gratitude for the huge burden he had just been freed from?

On Sunday, after the sermon, we gave an opportunity to the congregation to forgive someone in their lives.  We laid out some cards at the front for them to fill in with some details and ink stamps to stamp “PAID” over it.  The response was really great and people were deeply affected by taking part.

• Everlasting God – Brenton Brown (A)
• Our God – Chris Tomlin (A)
• You Are My King (Amazing Love) – Billy Foote (D)
• Beautiful Things – Gungor (D)
• Great I Am – New Life Worship (D)

While I listened to the sermon on Sunday, I couldn’t help be reminded of how the Queen talked about forgiveness in her Christmas speech.

• Your Grace Is Enough (G) – Chris Tomlin
• Your Love Never Fails (G) – Chris McClarney
• God With Us (G) – Mercy Me
• Came To My Rescue (G) – Hillsong
• How Great Is Our God (G) – Chris Tomlin

• Forever  - Chris Tomlin (A)
• Like A Lion – Daniel Bashta (A)
• God Is Able – Hillsong (B)
• Never Once – Matt Redman (B)
• Great I Am – New Life Worship (D)

• Joy To The World (Unspeakable Joy)
• O Holy Night
• O Come All Ye Faithful
• O Come, O Come Emmanuel
• Silent Night
• Light Of The World
• Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Wow.  Our best Christmas Eve yet.  It was great to see so many new faces even though a lot of our people were away.

We played O Holy Night this year for the first time since our first Christmas Eve service in 2009.  We didn’t have a train wreck this time!  Ha!  Face your fears, right?

One of the highlights was singing a couple of songs by candlelight – and let’s not forget Dan’s saxophone solo on Silent Night!

I’m looking forward to a new year with Story Church!

• Joy To The World (Unspeakable Joy) – Tomlin (A)
• Like A Lion – Daniel Bashta (A)
• You Alone Can Rescue – Matt Redman (A)
• How He Loves – John Mark McMillan (A)
• Jesus Paid It All – Kristian Stanfill (A)

• Forever – Chris Tomlin (A)
• Everlasting God – Brenton Brown (A)
• From The Inside Out – Hillsong (G)
• Because Of Your Love – Phil Wickham (G)
• O Come All Ye Faithful (G)

• Happy Day – Tim Hughes (B)
• God Is Able – Hillsong (B)
• Your Love Never Fails – Chris McClarney (G)
• Set A Fire – Will Reagan (G)
• Light Of The World – Tim Hughes (G)
• O Come, O Come Emmanuel (G)