Since we kicked off the fall with "Risk-Taking Faith" as our theme for the Gathering, for Advent we are focusing on the "risk" that ordinary human beings took (or failed to take) as they trusted God to play their part in the coming of the Messiah. Mary took a huge risk in trusting God to be the mother of Jesus, the irreligious Magi took a huge risk to follow the star to find the Promised One, Simeon took the risk of waiting his whole life in the temple for the one he knew God would send, and King Herod, rarely explored in teaching, refused to take the risk to believe that God was God and he was not. We will explore each person’s story as we walk through the Scriptural account of Jesus’ coming.

We will then challenge ourselves to ponder the risks God might be asking each of us to take during the Advent season - for some, the risk to believe for the first time, for others, the risk to love in hard circumstances, the risk to let Jesus be King over all of our life, the risk to believe God when he asks hard things of us, etc.