A LETTER FROM OUR PASTORAL STAFF
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Hello Church,
The last time I wrote to you I told you about High School Ministry’s fall series, The Family in which we hear from members of our church family on what it means to be a church family. I want to report to you that the Lord continues to do AMAZING things through this series.
I want to give you one specific example. A few weeks ago we hosted a Night of Worship on a Wednesday night instead of our usual program. On these nights we spend the entire hour and a half worshipping the Lord through music. We also give our students three response stations. The first one on this night was a response to some biblical art in which the students were able to come down to the stage and ponder on some art we had set up for them. Some of the depictions included Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, the crucifixion, and Jesus showing Himself to the disciples after He was raised from the dead.
The second response station is our chalk wall, which is one of the walls in our room that we painted with chalkboard paint. It’s like a chalkboard, only HUGE! For this station, we set some chalk down by the wall and invited our students to write any lyrics they heard from the worship songs throughout the night that they feel jumped out to them. This is an incredible sight. This is your official invitation to come by the High School Room whenever you’re free to see this wall. It is covered in lyrics, verses, and drawings from our students responding to God in worship. It’s amazing!
Our third station for the night was my favorite. During our worship nights, we always have a part of our room where our students can go and write down prayer requests and then our staff will pray for them later in the week after we read through them. But this night we did things a little different. In the weeks before this night, we invited the adult fellowship classes to come and pray over our students’ prayer requests. When it actually came to our Night of Worship we had almost 30 people from outside of our ministry there to pray for our students!!! So we told our students that they would get to see their church family actually pray for their prayer requests that they had just written down. About 30 minutes into the night I grabbed the prayer requests and brought them down to our guests who boldly went before the Lord as advocates for our students. My eyes filled with tears as I watched these church family members act as spiritual grandmas and grandpas to these students. But it didn’t stop there. Students continued to write prayer requests and our guests continued to pray. When they had prayed over one request they would grab a new request from Kelsey Crowe, our prayer request distributor for the night, and pass their old request to their neighbor, who would pray over it again. By the end of the night, I would estimate that every single prayer request had been prayed over four or five times!
The Spirit’s presence was very apparent that night. It was one of the best nights in my experiences in this ministry.
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Joshua Fasold
High School Guys Director
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We Need Your Help! Sign-up to serve at CHRISTMAS BLVD.
There are dozens of volunteer positions that need to be filled by hundreds of people. Please click the link below to join the CHRISTMAS BLVD team.
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Sunday Night "Service"
THIS SUNDAY, December 2, 6:00pm, Worship Center
The heart of Sunday Night “Service” is to serve our community. Most of the time that will take place off our campus in our city, but sometimes we’ll the get the opportunity to serve people at home. For our next SNS we’ll have the privilege of greeting friends and guests for our Special Needs Ministry on the night of their Christmas Program, “Simply Christmas.” Volunteers at SNS will be greeting our guests with cookies, coffee, and a warm welcome. For more info or to sign up please contact Mitch Fierro.
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OC United’s
Affordable Christmas Store
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You can make a difference and bring joy and hope to those who are hurting this Christmas season. Stop by the OC United table on the Plaza to pick up a list of items needed for the Affordable Christmas Store they are hosting and bring dignity and cheer to foster families, domestic violence victims and families from at-risk neighborhoods. A list of items to bring can also be found here.
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Thanksgiving Offering 2018
$50 Thousand Days of Christmas
We are excited to announce our annual Thanksgiving Offering campaign called the "$50 Thousand Days of Christmas"! As we strive to be a church of radical kindness and generosity, it is our goal to COLLECT $50,000 to CARE for the greater community around us. And while we encourage you to give financially to this effort, we also encourage you to COLLABORATE with us in suggesting ideas on how to distribute the funds to those in need. As you submit ideas, a task force will meet to determine how we can put the entirety of the collected funds to use in blessing others.
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Simply Christmas – Special Needs Ministry
THIS SUNDAY, December 2, 6:00pm in the Worship Center
Join us for our Special Needs Christmas Program, Simply Christmas! Our students have been practicing since September to bring the message behind Simply Christmas to all who attend. Simply Christmas shares the message that Jesus is simply what Christmas is all about!
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Prayer Somewhere
THIS SUNDAY, December 2, 5:00pm, Sunday Prayer Room
Join us in prayer weekly for "Prayer Somewhere" – a weekly gathering in an ever-changing location. To find out more about each week's location, please sign up for the "prayer" Push Notifications in the Set-Up section of our new app.
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Christmas Eve Services
December 24, 3:00pm | 4:30pm | 6:00pm
Join us for our Christmas Eve Services. These services will be approximately one hour and family oriented. Childcare will be provided from birth to kindergarten. We can't wait to celebrate together as a family!
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Clothes for Mongolia
We are now accepting gently worn items to be sent to Christians in Mongolia. Our donations will allow them to purchase affordable clothing, clothe the poorest of the poor and support their ministries for a year. The collection bins are located in the Chapel parking lot and open for contributions on Sunday mornings, during office hours (8:00am–5:00pm M–F), and at CHRISTMAS BLVD. Donations will be collected until January 2019.
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Budget—Year to Date
Budget: $3,735,000
Received: $3,375,475
Surplus (or deficit): ($359,525)
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Actual—Year to Date
Actual Income: $3,375,475
Actual Expenses: $3,245,890
Positive Cash Flow: $129,585
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Christmas at EvFree – Last week the 30-foot Christmas tree went up in front of the Worship Center. Lifts, ladders, and motorized booms installed new Christmas banners, garlands and lights up and down the Plaza. After months of preparation, a crew of volunteers and paid contractors started loading the Commons with the set for this year’s Bethlehem Walk. Other volunteers and staff continue to prepare for all the various elements that make up Christmas Blvd: Snow, food trucks, inflatables, slot-cars, crafts, concerts and a ministry marketplace, just to name a few.
As you might imagine, the investment is huge but God has provided the volunteers and finances to make all this possible, and because of those blessings thousands of people will visit our campus this Christmas season and hear the story and celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Numbers are based on an annual budget of $7 million dollars.
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Some students took time during their Thanksgiving holiday to load Boxes of Love to bless our neighbors. A total of 645 families enjoyed a meal because of your generosity. Thank you EvFree!
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