{"id":4457,"date":"2023-12-22T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegateway.press\/?p=4457"},"modified":"2023-12-22T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T19:00:00","slug":"choosing-worship-this-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/choosing-worship-this-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing Worship This Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My favorite time of the year is the Christmas season. I love the lights, the smells, hearing familiar carols in various places, and going shopping in attempts to find just the right gifts for my kids and others. I am thankful that we get to spend a few days leading up to, and the day of Christmas with our family. I find what prepares my heart for the season the most, is the music. I don’t mean the fun Christmas songs, though those are ok. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love the songs that focus on the reason we celebrate for weeks, that reason being the birth of Jesus Christ. Once Thanksgiving is over, I don’t let a day pass that I am not listening to and singing along with the Christmas songs that lead me into worshipping Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have an 18 year old son with special needs named Micah who is non-verbal and cognitively around 3 to 4 years old. His communication skills are very limited, but he loves music. He watches preschool music videos on his iPad, but on our TV he only wants to watch Christian worship music videos. If we are watching something, which is often sports related, he will hand us one of his communication cards that says “different.”\u00a0 He’s telling us he wants to watch his Christian music videos. During the Christmas season, he also has certain songs he wants and they’re all Christmas worship. He will walk up to the TV and point to the one he wants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am so thankful that though our son is limited in what he can communicate, he chooses to listen to the songs that talk about the gift of God given to us in Christ. Though he doesn’t fully understand it, he is worshipping Jesus. And as those songs echo through our home, I worship along with him.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n \n Theology\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
\n Posted by: Philip O. Hopkins<\/span>\n |<\/span>\n April 7, 2026<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

\n Iran: Further Reading<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

Read through this helpful bibliography of resources on Iran gathered by Dr. Phil Hopkins.<\/p>\n

\n Read Article<\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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\n Philip O. Hopkins<\/a>\n
Professor of Missions<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
Philip O. Hopkins is a professor of missions and chair of the Missions and Intercultural Studies Department at Gateway Seminary. He earned Ph.D. in applied theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and a second Ph.D. in Iranian history from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland). He is also the associate editor of the IRAN: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies.<\/div>\n
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\n \n Read more by Philip O.\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>
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\n Posted by: Daniel M. Gurtner, Ph.D.<\/span>\n |<\/span>\n March 26, 2026<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

\n Protected: Book Excerpt – Engaging the First Christian Historian<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

Read an excerpt from Daniel M. Gurtner’s article in this festschrift in honor of Dr. Steve Walton<\/p>\n

\n Read Article<\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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\n Daniel M. Gurtner, Ph.D.<\/a>\n
Professor of New Testament Studies<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
Dr. Gurtner has a passion for making Christ known through careful, deliberate, and worshipful study of the Bible, and training students to do the same.<\/div>\n
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\n \n Read more by Daniel\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>
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\n \n Theology\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
\n Posted by: Philip O. Hopkins<\/span>\n |<\/span>\n March 4, 2026<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

\n Persecution and Protection of Iranian Christians<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

A closer look at the history of Christianity in Iran may be helpful in understanding the current war in Iran.<\/p>\n

\n Read Article<\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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\n Philip O. Hopkins<\/a>\n
Professor of Missions<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
Philip O. Hopkins is a professor of missions and chair of the Missions and Intercultural Studies Department at Gateway Seminary. He earned Ph.D. in applied theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and a second Ph.D. in Iranian history from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland). He is also the associate editor of the IRAN: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies.<\/div>\n
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\n \n Read more by Philip O.\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My favorite time of the year is the Christmas season. I love the lights, the smells, hearing familiar carols in various places, and going shopping in attempts to find just the right gifts for my kids and others. I am thankful that we get to spend a few days leading up to, and the day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":4463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[139,64,441,445],"class_list":["post-4457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-voices","tag-christmas","tag-jesus","tag-music","tag-worship"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raincrossdev2.com\/gateway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}