12 december newsletter 2014

DECEMBER 2014

Week at a Glance

10am Café 10:30 Service

Kids Church 10:30 am

Girls Bible Study noon

Home Groups 6:30 pm

Tues: Ladies Coffee Hour 10:30

Wed: Ignite Youth Group

Thurs: Celebrate Recovery 7pm

640 Grosvenor St. London Ont N5Y 3T4 519-858-4123

[email protected]

Twitter: Abundant Life Church

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@LifeALCC

Home for Christmas Dec. 7 Baptism & Membership Sunday

Dec. 7 ALCC Leadership Christmas Party

Dec. 9 Men’s Movie Night

Dec. 11 Celebrate Recovery Christmas Party

Dec. 14 ALCC Christmas Party/Program

Dec. 21 Birthday Party for Jesus

Dec. 24 Christmas Eve Service

Christmas is a time of cheer, celebration and for some, just really crummy . . .

The Christmas story had crummy times. Joseph wants a quiet separation (Matt 1:19), dealing with gov-

ernment paperwork (Luke 2:1), away from home & no place to be (Luke 2:7), death & trying to ruin

Christmas (Matt 2:16) and Mary is afraid to star in Teen Mom (Luke 1:34). The Christmas story was

messy, bothersome, it involved people leaving town, people who got upset or wanted answers. Sound

cheerful or pretty crummy?

Good News: the story doesn’t end there! Christmas may feel like the above but it doesn’t have to be. God gives comfort &

peace (Luke 2:35), God brings companionship (Luke 1:39-45), God restores (Matt 1:24), God provides direction (Matt

2:19-21), God causes cheer (Luke 2:8-20) and God is with us (Matt 1:23). All of this is available for you!

You are not alone this Christmas. There are others at ALCC feeling the same way and maybe, you should connect with

them. Do something! Celebrate Jesus with each other!

How do I do that? If this resonates with you, please connect with Kathy or I; we’d love to jumpstart this opportunity to turn

crummy into cheer! We would like for you, with the help of others, to make this happen. What will this look like? God only

knows, which is exciting! Operation Christmas Ambush is another way to bring Christmas cheer to others! Endless possi-

bilities!

Wishing you a very merry Christmas, The Mejias

Home for Christmas….

Home can mean different things. For some of us, when we think of Home, we think of the time growing up when snow was 10 feet high, road hockey was every-where and lots of gifts. For others Home could mean a very sad time. Looking back to a harsh parent, very little in gifts and sad memories of loneliness and pain. Still Home could mean a warm cup of hot chocolate in Tim Horton’s watching the

snow fall and admiring the beauty of the season before us. Being Home for Christmas meant this for Jesus…he left His Home to take up residents with us…. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7 Home for Jesus was a manger…a place that wasn’t the best of circumstances but that didn’t mat-ter. All that mattered to God was that His son left home to be home with us. Over this month of Christmas Celebration, I want to encourage all of you to make room for Jesus in your Home…that could be from putting up the tree, making cookies or putting on Christmas mu-sic. Don’t let the season get past you without enjoying Jesus at Home wherever you find yourself. I am so glad that Jesus came to take up his Home with all of us…let’s celebrate ! From our home to yours, Merry Christmas! PB and Kathy

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Welcome!

Welcome to Abundant Life! We are glad you are here. We trust that wherever you

are in your journey of faith, that you will find something for you and your family at

ALCC.

It is our hope and prayer that you will join us as we share our lives, celebrations and faith to-

gether. We believe our life is about discovering who God is, using this faith to live out His purpose

and His plan and to live it with passion.

We call ALCC our HOME. We are intentional about relationships with God and each other to bring

the message of HOPE to our community.

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See William Peacock for details

Home

ALCC

FAMILY

Christmas

Potluck & Party

Sun Dec.14

@ 5 pm

Christmas

Tuesday

Dec. 9

for

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Cookies & Cider 6pm

Service @ 6:30 pm

Jeff & Tamara Neely

Samuel and Jaela

Consultant and Facilitator

Phil & Donna Williams

Servant’s Heart Ministries

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Sunday December 7

10:30 am

Celebrating Jesus in you

HOPE

A Ministry of self-examination based on the eight principles from the Beatitudes.

Step 2 :"We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

Step Two is often referred to as "The Hope Step". In coming to believe that a Power greater than ourselves

can restore us to sanity, we will remember what it was like to live sanely and have the faith to hope that san-

ity can return.

"What is faith?" the Bible asks. Hebrews 11: 1 "It is the confident assurance that what we hope for

is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.” The Bible also tells us that the

key to this hope is in the nature of the God we look to. We are told that "anyone who wants to come to

Him must believe that there is a God and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him"

(Hebrews 11: 6).

Without Hope we are miserable. Hope is the driving force behind all recovery. If we had no Hope, there

would be no possibility of recovery. Understanding who Jesus is gives each of us a Hope that can transcend

even our deepest despair. Jesus' resurrection forms the basis of our Hope because in it God demonstrated

His power over death.

We may have learned a long time ago that hoping only brings disappointment. Our hopes were dashed. The

promises we believed were broken. We were left feeling like fools for ever hoping in the first place. But

perhaps we were devastated because we put our hope in the wrong place. Turning our life over to God

means placing our Hope and confidence in Him instead of people, who will disappoint us. When we place all

of our hope and trust in other people, it's like expecting a tree to flourish in a barren desert. People will dis-

appoint us and are unable to satisfy our deepest needs. Trusting God changes everything. In John 4: 14

Jesus says "the water I give becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life."

When our hope is in God and our life is in His care, we are sustained when we otherwise would

be devastated

Thursday’s @ 7 pm

Christmas Pockluck December 11 @ 6:15

A remedy for life’s hurts, hang-ups and habits

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FindingConnectingBelonging Student ministry 11– 18 years