Merry Christmas! I can’t believe it’s already December! What a joy it is for us to worship our Lord at this Advent Christian season! We anticipate Christmas Day, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the same way that the Old Testament followers of God anticipated the coming of the Messiah, we too as believers in Jesus at Christmas time anticipate the coming of Christmas Day and the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are going to study Surprises in the Lineage of Jesus. You will be shocked to realize some of the names of people that are ancestors of the Lord Jesus Christ. It gives us all hope. No matter what our background, no matter what our family history, God can use us, and God loves us and has a plan for our lives. Don’t miss a single Sunday as we study God’s Word together digging into the lineage of our Lord.
We have some amazing events planned for our church family to celebrate Christmas. Here are some of the highlights. On December 3, this coming Sunday, our Women’s Ministry will have their Christmas Celebration. This event is put together by our Women’s Ministry and is for all the ladies of our church from 6:30 to 8:30 PM. Don’t miss this, ladies!
December 10 our Children’s Ministry will have Christmas parties during the Life Group time at 9:30 AM. Also, our College Ministry will be having their Christmas celebration as wellduring Life Groups. What a special day this will be for these departments!
December 17 is the Smoky Mountain Christmas concert beginning at 6:00 PM. The Smoky Mountain concert is partnering with Foster Florida and asking that, if you can, bring a $25 gift card to your favorite restaurant or to a grocery store that can be given to foster families during the Christmas season. This is not an admission into the concert and there is no charge for the concert. Please invite all your friends, and if you can be a part of the partnership this will be a great blessing to many families in our community.
December 24 is Christmas Eve. We are having our special Christmas Eve Candlelight and Lord’s Supper service at 5:00 PM. You don’t want to miss this special evening as we sing Christmas carols and worship our Lord together.
All of these special events are in addition to our regular Sunday morning services where we’ll be studying Surprises in the Lineage of Jesus.
Our Lottie Moon Christmas Offering goal for international missions is set at $25,000. All ofthis Lottie Moon offering goes to the foreign mission field. There’s no better time than the Christmas season to give to foreign missions. Please pray about what you can give and give it one of the Sundays in December to add together to help us to reach our $25,000 goal.
We will have a Special Called Business Conference on December 10 at 10:20 AM to vote on the 2024 ministry budget for our church. Our Stewardship Committee has worked hard to giveour church a committee that is within our means and is focused on the priorities of our church. These budgets are available in the exits of our church for you to review. There will be a special meeting on December 6 in the Conference Room where Patrick Inglett, our Stewardship Chairman, Pastor Calvin, and other members of the committee will answer any questions you may have about the budget. Please look over the budget and if you have any questions, you can contact any of the committee members or come to this special meeting on the 6th between 6:00 and 7:30 PM. Our goal is to vote on the budget on Sunday morning December 10.
Praise the Lord we have received our building permit! Our building contractor ForesightConstruction informed us just days ago that they have received our building permit. They are procuring the proper supplies and scheduling the project to commence in January/February 2024. We are so grateful and thankful for this!
Many of you have asked about giving toward this project. We will need all of our North Central family to be a part of the giving to complete this project. We are so blessed to have a large portion of our need already in the bank, but we will need an additional $250,000 in order tocomplete the project. Would you please pray about your part? If you would like to give a gift in the 2023 tax year, feel free to do that. Just mark your gift, “Building Fund” and it will go towards this project. Any additional funds that perhaps would be given over and above our current need would be used for future space to be built. We need it already!
What a joy it is to be your Pastor! May you and your family experience the glorious joy of all that Jesus brings during this Christmas season! God bless you!
Love in Jesus,
Pastor Calvin