New Hope Community Church

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1 New Hope Community Church December 2018 Volume 22, Issue 12 Inside this issue: Pastor s Article 1 Jack Bracy New Hope Praise 2 Kari Collins Community Group List 3 Project Hope 3 Christmas Eve Service 3 Student Ministries 4 Jenny Bussee Children s Ministry 5 Sandy Sooter Pastor s Article cont. 6 Jack Bracy Weekly Programs 6 December Birthdays 6 There Is No Power Without Faith There Is No Change Without Prayer There Is No Obedience Without Action You Are a Gracious People (Merry Christmas!) Definition of Grace: In the Greek, grace refers to the quality of the gift and the attitude of the giver. It is unmerited favor, with the idea of the favor being granted from a superior to an inferior thus unearned and not deserved. The Hebrew word is similar, it refers to the action of stooping or bending in kindness. Overall, it is the way one gives (graciousness in manner and action) from one who has, to another who has need. You absolutely amaze me. It is such a privilege to pastor a group of people like you. Over the last couple of weeks, I have been encouraging giving to Project Hope and you have been responding with grace and cheerfulness. Toys for kids have been pouring in wait until you see them all this Sunday. Money is being donated and you are signing up to prepare the Christmas dinner baskets that we will hand out. I am having to find people to go out and buy more toys and food baskets from the money that has been given. Its like, Hey, here is $500.00, go buy more toys or food baskets! For a guy like me, those are great conversations to have. Project Hope is 1 week away and you are being the true Body of Christ. As we Give Work Pray and Faith God, we are doing exactly what A Body of Christ should be doing. And what I love most is your attitude: giving and serving in Joy of the Lord. We live in a community that struggles with the basics for life. Many of our neighbors don t have jobs or the kind of jobs that can support their family. Some have made unwise decisions that contribute to their situation. And their social and economic problems are just the tip of the iceberg of a deeper and more tragic problem. So many of them live without hope that life can be any different. Many of you can relate to this, because this is the life that Jesus brought you out of when He set you free. Project Hope is our opportunity to demonstrate to our community that we care and we want to help. We cannot solve world peace that s Jesus job. But we can offer a caring touch, a smile, a bag or two of food, and some toys to make their Continued on page 6

2 New Hope Praise Kari Collins 2 Holy SMOKES it's December!!! Hello my New Hope Family, New Hope Praise is in full swing of rehearsals for Project Hope. It's Monday as I write this letter to you and I'm recovering from Sunday. New Hope Praise committed their entire Sunday to getting the show built. We all arrived at 8am Sunday morning and left at 5pm. We learned choral parts for two of our songs and did a rough sing through of the 10 songs in our show. We worked!!! But before we worked, we prayed. We spent about fifteen minutes or so huddled in the front of the Worship center chairs and just spent time talking with the Lord about our church family and making intercession on behalf of our Project Hope Families. The Worship Center felt so still while we prayed together and I admitted that prayer time was the sweetest moment of Sabbath I had tasted that day! I was so relaxed before we all got to work. This year's show is special. I love the divine messages of the script that Jack wrote. I really think it'll hit home with everyone on some level or another. The storyline is a heavy one- which is the weight we choose to write every year. Like experienced people, we write for the audience we will have and this script is tailored for them and us. But what I think is most special about this year's story is that it will really resonate with all our youngest children in the audience. There will be enormous ministering happening with our youngest guests. Pray with me that we get to see the Holy Spirit do His healing! Following Project Hope we look forward to our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service! My favorite! Because like the stillness and sweet taste of Sabbath mentioned above- Candlelight becomes my moment where I personally experience Christmas in its purest form. It is the one hour of Christmas where there is no other focus but on God. It's the best! I hope to see you all there. Merry Christmas ~Kari Monday, December 24 th 6 p.m.

3 3 Find a group that is right for you OR start one of your own. Just ask us how DAY & TIME LEADER(S) LOCATION GROUP Sun. 8:45 am Jean Bracy & Erin Kirk NHCC Mixed Sun. 8:45 am Kari Collins NHCC Men & Women Sun. 6:30 pm Sean & Sandy Sooter AV College age students Mon. 5:00 pm John Grace & Matt Briggs AV Veterans Mon. 5:15 pm Debee Steinhouse One of Life s Perks Coffee House Women Tues. 7:00 pm Fay Masters NHCC Mixed Wed. 6:30 pm Jean Bracy NHCC New Believers Wed. 6:30 pm Pastor Jack NHCC Men Wed. 6:30 pm Anja Powers NHCC Women Thur. 7:00 pm Paul Harvey & John Crisanti AV Men Fri. 6:00 pm Terrell Dotson & Darlene Russell AV Women Fri. 6:30 pm Paul & Gracie Cowley AV YA Project Hope: December 14 th - December 16 th Friday, December 14 7pm Saturday, December 15 3 pm followed by Christmas Food Basket Distribution. Sunday, December 16 3 pm followed by Toy Distribution. Christmas Eve Candlelight Service Monday, December 24th 6 pm

4 Student Ministries Jenny Bussee 4 Merry Christmas! November has come and gone, can you believe it? November at ReSet was awesome! The students participated in our 30 Hour Famine and had the opportunity to feed and pray over those in need. Several of the students heard from the Lord speak to them during this experience! So exciting! We also got to have some fun at our Pie fellowship fundraiser. The highlight of the afternoon was watching our strapping young contestants strive to finish their (pumpkin, rookie mistake) pie first. What fun that was! Cody Gierisch came out on top finishing his ENTIRE pumpkin pie first! All together you helped us raise $984 to help send our students to Haiti! THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! Lastly, please be in prayer for the 13 students attending Ignition Student Conference at the end of the month. I ask that you pray for this time to be a time of revival, commitment, worship. I m excited for you to hear the stories of how God moved during our time there. That s all for now, I leave you with some pictures from our last few months of events! Merry Christmas!

5 Children s Ministry Sandy Sooter Merry Christmas! Our kids are all very excited about the Christmas season. This is a great time of year to talk about what a gift Jesus is to us and to the world. God s great gift inspires so many to give at this time of year. In the children s department, we are helping the children to focus on the joy of giving. Tonight in TeamKID, the kids made special ornaments to give to their families. The Sunday School class will be working together to donate a Christmas Dinner to a family in need, and the Children s Church kids will be picking a World Vision project to fund with the tithes we ve collected in Kidz Church this year. It is times like this that we can really learn from the kids. They are so excited to participate in the season of giving -all they need is an opportunity. Here is the schedule for the month of December: Sunday School 8:45 9:45 will be rehearsal for the Project Hope Children s Choir Children s Church will be meeting 10:30 11:30. Kids will stay in service with their families on Sunday, Dec16th. Team KID will meet on Dec 5 th and Dec 19 th. No TeamKID on Dec 12, 26, or Jan 2. I am including some pictures of the Children s Sunday School class from last month. In November, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and did prayer walks around our church. The kids would walk two by two and pray for anything that they saw. Occasionally, the kids would ask if we could stop and pray for something that they felt God wanted us to pray about. At that point we would stand in a circle on the side of the road and pray. The kids prayed for animals, homes, people, churches, cars driving by, birds, you name it! I was interested to observe how much the kids prayed for the earth and the environment. They are sad to see God s creation getting hurt. Audrey Kirk had the fantastic idea that we should pick up trash on the prayer walks! What a great idea! We outfitted ourselves with gloves and trash bags and brought back an average of four trash bags every Sunday throughout November! What a great ministry! On the prayer walk, the kids took note of the bizarre structure on the side of our parking lot by the basketball hoop. We asked Pastor Jack and he said it was there before he came and that he thought it was intended to be a picnic area but no one used it. Well...we made it A BIBLE STUDY FORT! We read the entire book of Titus in the fort. It was a great day! This month we will be reading full books of the bible in Sunday School 8:45 9:45. Last week we read James and Philemon. The kids are so proud to say that they have read an entire book. The goal is to build up their confidence in reading the bible so that they have a thirst to continue to read on their own. If you have not read the bible and lack confidence come to Sunday School and read with the kids. You are always welcome! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas! Blessings, Sandy Sooter 5

6 New Hope Community Church Weekly Programs Sunday: Sunday Morning Bible 8:45 am for Children, Students and Adults. Sunday Worship: 10 am Children s Church: Immediately following the 10 am music portion during worship. Wednesday 6:30 pm TeamKid (1 st - 6 th grade) ReSet: Jr & Sr. High Men s Bible Study New Believers Bible Study Women s Bible Study See Page 3 for a list for weekly community group information. Continued from page 1 6 Christmas time just a little bit brighter. And we do more than that: we offer them Jesus and His grace, healing, and forgiveness. We are offering them the True Hope of Christmas. In this remaining week let me encourage you to follow through with your Project Hope commitments. If you haven t already started, commit to serious time in prayer for Project Hope. We would be foolish to believe that Satan will not challenge us corporately and personally as we prepare to proclaim Christ. This is a spiritual battle for the lives and souls of our community. Our goal is never just to hand out food and toys, but to give true Hope in Jesus Christ. Further, I ask you be prepared to work. We need MORE childcare workers, and smiling people greeting our guests as they arrive. Because so many of the people we help will have disabilities, we need people to help them get to their cars with their food baskets following the Saturday show. On Sunday afternoon, we need people to sit with the kids in the worship center as their family picks up their toys. We need people to provide security during the different show times. We also need others to help provide counseling for those that respond to the message of Christ. There is so much yet to be done. As you have done so well in preparing for Project Hope, I ask you to also serve with the same attitude that you have given: freely, graciously, and with love. I am excited about what Jesus is going to do through you. See you next Sunday, Pastor Jack December DorAnn Harvey 12/1 Erin Kirk 12/5 Samuel Sooter 12/6 Cody Gierisch 12/8 Steven Gary 12/21 Serena Sooter 12/22 Robert Thomas 12/25 Jesus 12/25 Amanda Scott 12/27 John Grace 12/31