December 2021 Newsletter
“Hey, Hey Anybody Listening?” by Sonja Hinderlie
As we enjoy the season of Advent, we want to share the Advent challenge with you. As you may have heard on our podcast, this was created by our Theta community pastor, Nathan Hoff. Johan and I have been practicing this daily. We have trouble limiting it to one person but it really has helped. One huge benefit took place a few days ago when Johan was talking to someone who had worked for him years ago. And almost as easily as talking about the weather, Johan asked this person to forgive him for anything he had done to hurt him or failed to have done (sins of commission and omission). This man forgave Johan. Let’s take the Advent challenge together. It is forgivin’ livin.’
Learn more at https://youtu.be/KwqY2geLqug
1. Absolve the person that causes you the most stress. "Lord, I forgive ______. I release them and their sin to you. I no longer hold the right to judge them, resent them, or retaliate against them. I release my own righteous and unrighteous thoughts about them."
2. Bless them 'far as the curse is found' "Lord, bless their day, their marriage, their kids, their work. Let no curse rest on them from me or anyone else!" Paul tells the Romans (12.14), "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”
3. Communicate only with God about this person (with the exception of a trained therapist or pastoral counselor/spiritual director).
4. Daily repeat for the same person throughout all of Advent.
Irish Advent Blessing!
Our good friends from Northern Ireland, the Robinsons, will be sharing the podcast this month. You have heard the voices of David and Cynthia several times. Now you will get to know them well as we have them sharing the Daily Texts message for Dec 8, 15 and 22. David and Cynthia are the reason we began this podcast. They asked us to send them Johan’s sermons in 2019. Then we created a weekly message for them. In mid-January of 2020, this became our daily podcast. They forward the podcast to 20 of their friends in Northern Ireland. They were in Minneapolis recently to see their new grandson, Asher.
Grant Request will help expand our ministry outreach
We have asked a church to provide us with a grant of $5000. We will use this to enlarge our online service. It will add teaching resources to our outreach as well as Zoom functions. We are confident that this grant will create new ways of sharing the message of forgivin’ livin’ with a much larger community.
We do receive donations from people. These give because of the blessing they receive. Even though we cannot give a tax benefit for your gifts, we do use them to create new outreach opportunities.
For year-end giving, consider a gift directly to our ministry partners.
Theta Community.
https://www.trinitysanpedro.org/Theta
Mount Carmel Ministries.
https://www.mountcarmelministries.com/
Hope for Ishmael
https://www.hopeforishmael.org
Oaks Indian Mission.
https://www.oaksindianmission.org/
Joining you in forgivin’ livin’ every day,
Sonja (and Johan) Hinderlie