Views from The Ridge 12.10.25
Sunset Ridge is a church that desires to follow Jesus, reach people, and radiate God’s love and hope to all.
Worship
Sunday
9 AM, Chapel, Acapella
11 AM, Sanctuary, Instrumental
Weekly Scripture: Luke 1:39–55
Formation
Sundays through December 21st, 10:15 AM, Advent Formation Class, This week will be in the Chapel to make room for the Christmas luncheon in the Fellowship Hall at 12:30 PM | We invite you to join us for this Teen & Adult gathering. These four weeks are a special season of reflection and anticipation—we’d love to share them with you!
Roots: Children’s Discipleship through Godly Play
Bible Story Focus this Week: Advent 3, The Shepherds
Key Verse: Luke 2:10
Room 102, PreK - Kindergarten
Room 122, 1st - 2nd Grade
Room 209, 3rd - 4th Grade
Wednesdays, 5:30 - 6:00 PM, High School Girls’ Bible Study
Room 220, Contact Den to join this group, open to 9th-12th Grade. No meeting 12/24 & 12/31.
Wednesdays, 6 - 7:30pm, High School Formation Time, Room 220, Contact Den to join this group, open to 9th-12th Grade | Food, fun, and group discussions. No meeting 12/24 & 12/31.
Community Connections
Christmas Luncheon
We’d love to gather together this Sunday for a connective and joy-filled lunch in the middle of this Advent season! With all the hustle of December, it feels good to pause, share a meal, and simply enjoy being together. So let’s gather, laugh, eat, and celebrate the peace and hope that Christ brings.
We’ll have a delicious lunch, warm conversation, and plenty of holiday cheer in the Fellowship Hall starting at 12:30 PM. Whether you’ve been here for years or are new to our community, there’s a place for you at the table.
To help us prepare, please take a quick moment to RSVP here.
Camelot Christmas Recap
Camelot Christmas was a joyful success this year, welcoming nearly 400 kids, parents, and volunteers who joined together to make the event meaningful. Families were able to choose gifts with dignity, kids enjoyed crafts and activities, and the entire event reflected the deep partnership between Sunset Ridge and Camelot Elementary.
Thank you to everyone who donated gifts, contributed financially, or volunteered your time. Your generosity made this celebration possible and ensured that every family who walked through the doors felt supported and cared for. We are grateful for the many ways you helped bring joy to our Camelot community this Christmas.
2026 Budget Review
Our 2026 budget is now posted and available for review outside of the sanctuary across from the children’s Roots 1 & 2 room. We share it with deep gratitude for the remarkable growth we’ve experienced this year — in participation, connection, belonging, and in the many ways our congregation continues to radiate God’s love into our neighborhood. Our budget reflects our commitment to be a place where community flourishes, where people find home, and where the hope of Christ shines like a light on the hill.
Key investments this year include:
Expanded youth and children’s programs, nurturing the next generation.
Continued investment in spiritual formation, worship, and mission partnerships, supporting our call to follow Jesus, reach people, and radiate God’s love and hope to all.
Strengthening staff care through fair, sustainable compensation, including living wages and the launch of a retirement plan.
Thank you for your generosity and partnership. We step into this year with gratitude and hope, trusting that God’s story among us is still unfolding in beautiful ways.
If you have questions on the budget please contact the trustees via email at trustees@sunset-ridge.org. The annual budget vote is open to church members and will take place Sunday, December 21st at 10:00am in the Chapel.
Upcoming Community Events
Friday, December 12th & 19th, 5 - 9 PM, The Holiday Night Market at Charis Park
Every Saturday, Sunset Ridge Farmers Market, Charis Park
Sunday, December 14th, 12:30 PM, Christmas Luncheon, Fellowship Hall
Sunday, December 21st, 5:30 PM, Longest Night Service, Chapel | A quiet, reflective service for anyone carrying grief or heaviness during the holiday season.
Wednesday, December 24th, 5:00 PM, Christmas Eve Service, Sanctuary
Wednesday, December 24th - Friday, January 2nd, Church office closed for Christmas & New Year’s
Beyond Sunday
The Sweetness of Community
Den Slater, Pastor of Belonging, Sunset Ridge Church
Scott preached this week on peace and repentance through the story of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1–12). John was a wild prophet who stood at the edge of an extraordinary transition. He called for repentance as a means of returning to God with all of one’s heart. He was a voice in the wilderness, and yet John was a little odd.
He ate locusts and honey. Scott noted that some interpreters understand “locusts” here to refer to carob pods, wild-growing desert food. There is a long history for that reading. Still, many people hold a more literal understanding (that John ate those crunchy little bugs), and I think there’s space for us to ponder that as well. In Scripture, locusts are often signs of devastation and judgment, but John takes that symbol and eats it with honey, which is a biblical symbol of promises fulfilled and divine generosity. It is such a strange, gentle detail: bitterness dipped in sweetness. Judgment consumed with mercy.
Scott also mentioned how the Enneagram personality assessment can reveal childhood coping strategies, the ways we learned to protect ourselves long before we ever had language for what we were doing. Whatever we may think about personality assessments, we might consider that they help us see our vulnerable places, and those are places where God loves to work. God does not reveal those hidden places to shame us. God reveals them so they may be healed, integrated, and held with mercy.
Repentance, in that light, looks less like punishment and more like nourishment. It is the slow willingness to taste what we would rather avoid, and let God cover our prickly truths with honeyed balm. Mercy does not erase what is hard; mercy transforms it.
I am an Enneagram Five, which means I learned early to stay quiet and to keep my feelings internal. Exposure was dangerous, and “being known” was risky. Many of us carry deep stories shaped by our childhoods. We may have rehearsed our coping strategies for decades. We learned to eat locusts.
Those responses allowed us to survive, but God invites us to live. A healthy, Spirit-shaped community is the place where God’s sweetness is tasted. Our community is meant to know us at our core. As we gently let ourselves be seen with all our quirks, gifts, and protective instincts, our vulnerability allows others to become honey to us. We are designed to give mercy and grace to one another. May our community be a place where we bring our whole selves, where we learn that fear and bitterness never have the last word, and where Christ forms us into one fully loved body.
