Christmas Celebration Service Introduction We live in a community where many people exist without hope. There are endless opportunities to touch these people, to lift up their eyes, and begin to instill in them the hope of Christ. Christmas is an amazing window of opportunity to double our efforts, to put together our resources, to again, take our eyes off of ourselves and extend mercy to those in need. As a church we gave each of our small groups $300.00 and told them: “This is seed money, double it or triple it, seek God together on how you can use this money and this window of opportunity at Christmas, to make a difference in the life of an individual, a family, a neighborhood, and collectively together a community. We want to show you a power point presentation right now. This power point presentation highlights some of what God did through us in loving our community. Powerpoint Outreach Motivation For God so loves each child and family represented at Ross Elementary. For God so loves the young father dying of cancer. For God so loves the 7 year old girl losing her father. For God so loves the drug addict living on East Hastings. For God so loves the grandparents trying to raise 5 grandchildren on their own. that He gave them His one and only Son that if they would believe in Him they would not perish but have eternal life. God’s love is a voluntary, spontaneous and deliberate choice of His will completely free from any obligation on His part. God’s love for poor, oppressed, people without hope in our community and world is immense. It is breathtakingly practical. It is undiscriminating and non-judgmental. It is extravagant and timely. 1 John 4:8 “8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Watch this! These are some of the things we did this Christmas. They are a story of God’s love for our community. Testimonies Ross Elementary Video Challenge Psalm 24:1-2: “The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.” Psalm 24:7-8 “Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. A difficult and trying situation or circumstance, a time of need for a family or individual is often a wide open door for effective ministry. Caring for the needs of people can open up doors for the king of glory to come into their lives. Doors that have long been closed, closed even for generations. Matthew 25:31-36 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Matthew 25:41-43 41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' We will not be judged by how well we could argue a point from scripture or how eloquently we could verbally present the truth of Jesus. We will be judged by how well we fed the hungry, clothed the poor, visited those in prison. In essence how well we loved our community and our world. Why is this true? Think of parents with children. The parents love each of their children immensely. But when one of their children is physically sick, or hurting in some way they receive more attention, more concern than their other children for a duration of time. It is not that God loves the sick and the poor and the hurting in this world more then others His eyes are on them because they are more in need of His love. And so Jesus says that in Matthew 25 that if you have loved the least of these my children you have loved me just as if you helped one of my own children who were in need you have helped me, you have cared for me. Conclusion: Three times in Revelation 22, the last book of the Bible, Jesus warns us “I am coming soon.” There is a battle waging for the souls of men. The Devil’s time is short. He knows his sentence, the pit of hell, and he wants to take as many men and women with him as he can. The latest Canadian trends and statistics. [Reginald Bibby: sociologist, Lethbridge] People are not attending church but are claiming to have experienced God and do not feel that they need to come to a “church” to experience God. People are not looking for churches but for ministry and there are three things that are worthwhile for them. • Relationships: groups that touch their lives. • Spirituality: it must be worth their time and resources • Personal needs met The purpose of the powerpoint pictures, the posters highlighting all the ways we reached out together, the testimonies, the video of Ross Elementary’s principle and this whole service really is the in the end leave you convinced of this one point: We need to keep this going! We need more individual people and small groups that are strategically thinking about, praying about, preparing for and then loving our community and world. Our vision, our strategy is the same as that of Jesus Christ. To gather our people for training and equipping to do ministry and then send them out. To gather them in for worship and the Word of God and sent them out. Not to live alone, to grow alone, to reach out alone but to live together, to grow together, to reach out together in groups of 8-12 people. We realize that not all of you are in a small group. Our goal is that all of you will have that opportunity. The biggest focus of our adult ministries pastor job description is to raise up leaders, and training and equipping us to love each other and love our community and world. We need to keep this going! Let us not lose focus. We are the body of Christ. Why does God not take us home right after we give ourselves to Him? He tarries not willing that any should perish but that all would come to faith in Him.