God’s “Shining” Gift
On the first Christmas, when God gave the gift of His Son, He thoughtfully and creatively wrapped his present with a radiantly beautiful display, filling the night sky with a multitude of angels proclaiming His glory and love for the world.
“Shining” @ LFC
During this Christmas season, LFC would like to illustrate for the whole Lake Norman area that special Christmas wrapping with a month long event called
During the evenings throughout the month of December, our Christmas trees will be lit up for folks to come and enjoy. The culmination of SHINE will be our Christmas Eve service.
Get Involved
Join us in making Shine happen! We are asking family groups – including individual families, community group families, neighborhood families, mission teams, ministry teams, college dorms, co-workers, friends, small groups, etc. - to consider decorating a tree that reflects your faith journeys that will shine from Saturday, December 6 through the Christmas season.
Specific details:
- There’s still time to get involved - bring your own tree on Saturday, December 6 and get it decorated by 4pm. OR contribute a 15ft. strand of lights for the center Tree of Light.
- Official “Tree Lighting” will be on Saturday, December 6 around 5:30pm ~ with a special dedication and carol singing around the trees.
- Trees will then shine each evening for the remainder of the Christmas Season.
If you have questions, please contact Jaye Soss via email info@lakeforest.org.
SHINE tree themes from 2007
Tornberg Community Group
“Thick and Thin” - We been together, a long time, through thick and thin. The good times of life and the bad. Our tree represents the thick, “Our Lord and Savior”, our rock, our foundation. The thin ornaments represent all of us in our group, together hanging on to our Lord and shining as a group with our foundation to hold us up. It’s the only way to live. -Merry Christmas to all!
Michel Family
Red lights on the tree trunk represent our lives without Christ. When Satan has us in his grasp. The darkest time of our lives. Blue lights represent our lives after accepting Christ. We are still human and are still living in the flesh. We are Christians in a house of blues but we have the knowledge that we are forgiven when we falter. White lights represent our spirits when we become Christ like and reign eternally with Him forever. This tree represents all Christians and how God works with us from the inside out to become like Him.
Chaos Community Group
We borrowed our idea for our tree from another community group. We have decorated a blessings tree. In an age where complaining and sarcasm seems to be the norm, we need to stop and remember what God has blessed us with and who he has blessed us with.
The tree is decorated in colors of purple and gold and each ornament has a blessing written on it from every member of the group. We also discussed how blessings come in many different forms and not just materialistic ones. Purple and gold are the colors of the King our blessings come from our King Jesus. Our goal is to remind everyone that God blesses us every day and He loves us beyond our wildest dreams.
Lewis Community Group
Theme: Feed the World… Let them know its Christmas time! Our community group has studied the teachings of Jesus this past year…specifically when He said the words, “I tell you the Truth.” Our SHINE tree is based on the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:34-36, 45, specifically, “I was hungry and you fed me…I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.”
At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade!
And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy!
Throw your arms around the world at Christmas time!
Feed the world, feed the world, feed the world
Let them know its Christmas time!
- “Do they know it’s Christmas?” by Band-Aid, 1984
Dale Callan Community Group
“Names of God” Christmas Tree - Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, often stated that our view of God really matters. We too believe that our view of God will ultimately steer how we choose to live our lives. The Bible discloses several names of God that reveal the truth of His nature and character. We wanted to decorate our tree with names of God to remind others and ourselves to believe what God says about Himself in His Word so that we can all have a strong, meaningful faith-walk.
Brumm Community Group
We are going with a Bolivian theme for our tree because our group became good friends on the initial Bolivian trip and in honor of the Althoff’s upcoming move to Cochabamba.
Whittington Community Group
The theme for the Whittington Community Group tree is “A tree fit for a King”. Our group has lost members and has gained new members so we are kind of starting over. We planned to have a tree as part of Shine, but had not planned on how to decorate the tree. The awesome thing is that we all brought gold ornaments and gold trimmings for the tree without knowing what each other would bring. The “gold” tree is a symbol of our group’s coming together to worship Jesus as we all continue our individual and collective spiritual journeys.
McConnell Community Group
Our tree reflects how, when we gather together in community, we become humbly transparent before one another, exposing all the junk and trash we’ve kept neatly hidden away all week long. As that “junk” is brought into the light, before God and each other, He works miracles, using the very “trash” of our lives in amazing ways, transforming it into beauty. That is the story of our tree: beauty from ashes… junk transformed.
James Gang Community Group
James Gang Community Group – We are a group of mostly 40-somethings doing life together, and we got our name came partly from the 1970s rock band. As either parents experiencing the delights and demands of teenagers or volunteers working with teens at LFC, we are disciples journeying together and trying to live out our faith. Our tree includes road signs (“Yield,” “Under Construction,” etc.) and ornaments depicting mission work (James 2:17).
Watson Community Group
“Pieces on earth, fitting together by grace (STB)”
Gray Family
Even when life seems cold and your situation frozen, God’s light still shines through.
Powell Family
This “Shine”Tree is dedicated to the memory of Helen Skinner - Loving Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Sister and Friend. She radiated from the beauty and warmth of her spirit. Her joy shined on all who knew her, and we loved her for it. She is a shining star in our hearts. We love her. We miss her.
Stewart Family
Hearts and Hammers - From its inception in 1989, Hearts and Hammers has been an exercise in faith. It began with the concept of a family construction/ mission project and was presented to the employees of J. Alton Stewart Construction, Inc. for their consideration and participation. Members of our church at the time (Independence Hill Baptist) were also invited to participate. When the idea was adopted by our company and our church, we had no idea what the project would be, where it would be, or how it would be funded so it was truly a step in faith. Each year since 1989 it has continued to be such. There have been challenges, obstacles to overcome, and new lessons to learn as we worked with people of different faiths and cultures. Each year, all needs have been supplied. Each year, our own “faith muscles” have been exercised and strengthened as together — young and old, “red and yellow, black and white” have worked beside each other and learned that we are more similar than different. Each year, we have experienced God’s grace, love, and provision.
The multi-colored lights on our tree represent the diversity of people with whom we’ve worked — together working to make a positive Christian difference in individual lives and communities. The cross at the top of the tree represents the love of Christ that we attempt to share, while the hearts and hammers ornaments represent projects that have been done over the past nineteen years. Peace, love and joy! - The Stewarts
Lake Norman Charter School
We shine through our children as they teach us!
Soul Sisters
“The purpose of the sisterhood is to establish lifelong friendships, to experience unity, and to seek spiritual growth and direction both individually and corporately. Our focus is first to develop a powerful and radical love-relationship with God, and second, to develop the same with ourselves, and one another, answering the call to deeper maturity, health, and wholeness. to provide a “safe place atmosphere” and validation for the stout hearted, brave, and heroic women who have lived at least 40 years. Listening and sharing our stories will serve to affirm and mentor one another, thereby creating intimate relationships within the sisterhood. Our mission is to build up and ultimately serve the universal body of Christ under the covering of Lake Forest Church.”
“For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which god prepared in advance for us to do” Ephesians 2:10
Burroughs Supper Club
Our Supper Club decorated this tree. Our theme is “Living Life Together”.
Soss Family Tree
Our tree is based on the scripture from Malachi 3:3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.
In the refining of gold and silver, the refiner knows he is done when he can see his image in the shininess of the metal. Likewise, the ornaments on our tree are in varying shades of gold, from dull to shiny – representing our lives in spiritual formation as God works on our formation. The scriptures on our tree represent how God’s word shines through and guides us through our refining moments.