Awesome Christmas Eve Service

We had a fabulous Christmas Eve Service last week. The band did a fantastic job with the music. Andrew, as normal did good job getting everything ready for the evening. Our church family brought their friends and family. In fact, we ran out of room for people. The band stayed on the stage, greeters and volunteers did without a seat, and everyone pushed in close as we added rows of extra chairs. It's always hard to get an accurate count at a service like that but the best we could come up with was about 125!

Also, I have to share how truly blessed I am by our church's generosity. I know the people in our church are not immune to all of the economic bad news. People have lost jobs, had hours cut, or are under employed. But I was amazed to see the Christmas Gift for Jesus Offering totals...just over $2,000! That money will go a long to helping our missionary partner, Tim Ekno, to provide lepers in India with a Christmas dinner, change of clothing, and the message of hope in Jesus Christ.

For all of you who served, gave, and invited...Thank you! Cecil and I are truly grateful to pastor this church. Your passion to follow Christ in all areas of life encourages us to keep serving the Kingdom.

Christmas Eve Service

A Christmas Party For Jesus

You won't want to miss church this Sunday! We have some fun stuff planned because it is the Sunday before Christmas. I will be interested to get your feedback afterwards to hear your thoughts and perspective. For some reason, Christmas sermons/services have always been a little bit stressful for me. On one hand, people expect to hear something that is Christmas oriented but on the other hand it's not like they haven't heard the Christmas story before. So this Sunday we will definitely try something totally different and also very relevant to our lives. See you then!

PS - don't forget to come back here and share your thoughts after the service.

Christmas Survey

I was curious about how much people spend on average for the people on the Christmas list so I setup a poll (it's on the right margin). It's totally anonymous so help me satisfy my curiosity and answer the question. Thanks.

Life Change

During a recent conversation with a friend, the topic of life change came up. Basically the conversation centered around how do you change who you are? For example how can you change from being an angry person to a kind person? Or a lazy person to a disciplined person? Or a person that loses their temper to one who is patient? Now I don't for one second think that what I will share in this post is the complete or final answer. In fact if I really knew a simple solution I would be making lots more money that I do currently :) and as a side note I would be a much better person. But I do believe that the Bible gives some great insight on how we change who we are. First we have to realize that life habits are developed over long periods of time, so if you have been in the habit of losing your temper for the past 10 years don't think that somehow you are going to break the habit in 1 day. Real life change takes time and lots of patience. So give yourself both. Second, I truly believe that real meaningful life change can only happen through the power of God working in agreement with our own desire for change. It is a partnership. Not either, or but both, and. Lastly, we can harness the power of the mind and it's ability to focus, to empower us for change. Simply put: where you focus your thoughts will dictate your desires, and your desires will always dictact your actions. This is why I believe in starting each day by spending time with God in His Word and in prayer. Not that reading the Bible and praying in some way magically changes you. Instead, I believe that when I focus my thoughts on what is good and important (God, my relationship with my wife, my children, my ministry, etc....) then those thoughts produce desires that become actions. We all focus our thoughts somewhere, the important question is where. The old saying is true, "What you think about, is what you are."

Don't Forget

Church Volunteer Christmas Party

Saturday, December 12 at 5:00pm

Getting Ready For Christmas

Christmas Season is here and it sure feels like it. My kids got a huge kick out of seeing all the snow on the hills Monday morning. After more than 25+ years of living in the East Bay, I had never seen anything like I what I experienced on a drive over to Stockton for a meeting last Monday. It looked like a winter wonderland driving over the hill from Livermore to Tracy.

This week has been filled with planning and preparing for Christmas. Hopefully we will finish up all of our Christmas shopping this week (this is the best we’ve ever done). On Monday night we made a gingerbread house with the kids. Although Ethan’s interest in building the house quickly faded and all he wanted to do was eat the decorations. We got our Christmas pictures finished and Christmas cards ordered from Costco (on a side note: Have I ever mentioned how much I love Costco ).

Here are just a few quick thoughts that I hope will help you this week:

1. Don’t forget about Jesus in the busyness of Christmas – if you don’t make time each day to celebrate his birth, it will never happen

2. Spend time doing things with your family and children – don’t buy this culture’s philosophy of Christmas…buy…buy…buy

3. Make your motto: Presence not Presents

4. Give your spouse and kids a big hug and kiss every morning and every evening – it will make your day better