2025 J2B Announcement
We praise God for the funds and volunteers that have sustained Journey to Bethlehem
and continue to make it possible! Over fourteen years we’ve served an estimated
20,000+ people.
Every summer, our Journey to Bethlehem team meets to prepare for our December
event. Each year, we have evaluated the previous year and made improvements for the
next year to better serve the community. This summer, after much deliberation and
prayer, we have decided to take a sabbatical year, a year off from offering our
production, to plan, improve, and prepare. We want to keep doing J2B in a way that is
sustainable and continually improves. During this sabbatical, the coordinators will
continue to regularly meet. We will be improving many areas such as actors, costumes,
scripts and scenes. We have many things that have been on our Journey to Bethlehem
to-do list for probably a decade! While there won't be Journey to Bethlehem 2025 in the
traditional sense, there will still be work, thought, energy and leadership put into Journey
to Bethlehem to improve it.
We want our community to know three things: One, our vision hasn't changed. We still
feel called by God to share the story of Jesus and the Good News through the mission
of Journey to Bethlehem. Two, there is still a way for all of us to be involved and
participate in Journey to Bethlehem this year. Please pray for us during this time that
the improvements we make will glorify God. And third, we’d love to hear stories of your
J2B experience. Please share these with us through email at
j2bnewmarket@gmail.com.
We appreciate your understanding. We appreciate your support. We appreciate all the
hard work our church will be putting in over the next eighteen months to improve our
telling of the story of Jesus. And we look forward to continuing to tell the story in 2026!
If you were to take a peek behind the scenes of Journey to Bethlehem you would see New Market Seventh-day Adventist church members from all walks of life using their gifts in order that they might share the story of Jesus each holiday season.
It all started in 2011 with a belief in the power of the story of Jesus and the desire to share that story with others. Over 500 volunteers from the church united their gifts to create what is now affectionately known as “J2B.” Many put their skills to use to build the Bethlehem village complete with a marketplace, blacksmith shop, synagogue, school of the rabbis, apothecary, carpenter shop, bakery, and of course an inn and a stable. Others sewed costumes while still others wrote the script, cooked food, composed music, created original pottery, assembled props, learned lines, coached the acting, studied first-century history, planned, organized, advertised, prayed, prayed, and prayed more!
All the work for Journey to Bethlehem has been done on a volunteer basis by people who made space in their already full schedules in order to share Jesus. That first year they hoped to host 700 guests. They were happily surprised by more than twice that many.
This year we look forward to again journeying to Bethlehem with you! The set, script, and process have gone through some changes in order to add interest, increase impact, and streamline production. Again we are awed and humbled as we witness God’s hand at work, enabling, empowering, and inspiring us. We hope you will join us on this Journey, December 5-9, 2024.
Here are just a few behind the scenes images:
If you were to take a peek behind the scenes of Journey to Bethlehem you would see New Market Seventh-day Adventist church members from all walks of life using their gifts in order that they might share the story of Jesus each holiday season.
