The service will be our Christmas Eve service this year, and will include favorite Christmas carols and hymns, as well as Communion.

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2 I Am Family Choir at Westview, December 24th I Am Family Choir I Am Family Choir brings a colorful, vibrant performance rich with African culture and tradition. This choir will more than entertain you. These children, some of whom were orphaned by AIDS and civil war in Uganda, will be sharing a message of Love and Hope in an effort to create awareness and mobilize support for many more African children. The choir is currently on a performing tour through Washington, Oregon, and California. They will be performing on Christmas Eve morning at the 10:15 worship service. This is a choir that beams with joy in their hearts and smiles on their faces. Their music is lively and animated with choreography in the style of traditional African dance and music. The service will be our Christmas Eve service this year, and will include favorite Christmas carols and hymns, as well as Communion. For a preview and more information about the I Am Family Choir, you may go to their website: choir.iamfamily.org/about Benefit Concert for Sonoma County Fire Victims December 15, 7-9:30 pm: AN EVENING WITH FORMER NEWSBOYS SINGER PETER FURLER First Baptist Church of Windsor Starr Road For more info: FBCwindsor.com (707)

3 All-Church Family Christmas Party! Sunday, December 17th, Following Morning Worship Everyone is asked to bring a finger food to share and a gift for the gift exchange. The gift should be in the price range of no more than $7.00. Also... we need volunteers to help set up before the party and/or clean up after the party... and to help with various other little chores. Please speak to Cindy LaNier and/or sign up on the sheet on the Welcome Desk in the main entrance. Prayer Ministry Every Thursday Morning at 10:30 A.M. Everyone is welcome to join. If you have prayer requests, please communicate them to Dick Charles ( ) or the pastor by contacting the church office ( ). You may also communicate requests by writing them on the back of your Sunday Welcome Card and place the card in the offering tray as it is passed Nominating Committee The Nominating Committee for 2017 has been formed, and consists of the following members: Sue Barrass Diane Hoch LaVerne Stanley Dan Tinney Anthony Chavarria (elder not completing a term) Rod Bowman (pastor)

4 From Our Pastor On September 15th of this year, Diane and I were blessed to become grandparents for the fourth time. Luke Fai'a'ai Fraser was born to daughter Allyson and son-in-law Joshua. Ally has been sending us pictures of the little guy almost every day. Anybody want to see some? I'll show them to you... for free, even! I have to say it: I think little Luke looks more like a Fraser than a Bowman. Whenever it is that I'll finally get to meet him, I'll need to assure him that us Bowmans won't hold that against him. He looks just like a miniature version of his dad. Still, I can't help but marvel, as I stare at his little face, his little hands and body, of the wonder of the incarnation: God with us in human form --and that, not as a readymade adult, but in the form that all humans begin life, as a baby! A baby? Think of it: God the Son came to conquer the power of sin and death as a little baby. Babies are such helpless little creatures. But that's how He came, as a baby. The Christian writer, John Henry Jowett, wrote from his own pondering at this wonder in one of his devotions: Who would have had sufficient daring of imagination to conceive that God Almighty would have appeared among men as a little child> We should have conceived something sensational, phenomenal, catastrophic, appalling! The most awful of the natural elements would have formed retinue, and men would be chilled and frozen with fear. But, He came as a little child. The great God "emptied Himself"; He let in the light as our eyes were able to bear it. What a genius God is! Who would have thought it? A baby! The sin-conqueror came as a helpless, innocuous looking little flicker of life, probably no more than seven or eight pounds or so. Yet this is what God sent into the greatest of all conflicts --the great cosmic conflict of evil versus righteousness, of death versus life. Eternity hung in the balance in that conflict. And God sent a baby into it! And He won! He won, not with the usual weapons of war, but with the nails of a Roman cross. That baby lived on to win your salvation and mine by taking the debt of sin upon Himself to His own death, and by rising again from death as the confirming seal to all of His claims. Don't ever underestimate what God can do. Rod Bowman

5 From the Field: News from Zimbabwe, Africa, and Kathy McCarty, RN, Chidamoyo Christian Hospital A sower went forth... The nearly forty years reign of President Robert Mugabe over Zimbabwe came to an end in November with an apparent coup led by his former vice president. Mugabe, 93, had ruled with an iron fist, and had been Zimbabwe's only president since the country gained independence from the British in Mugabe and his wife are under house arrest and he has formally resigned. As such an event can become the occasion for upheaval in an unstable country, let us pray for the continued safety and unhindered ministry of our missionaries in Zimbabwe, remembering among them Kathy McCarty and the staff at Chidamoyo Christian Hospital. Thus far, the word from Kathy has been positive. The hospital is located far from Harare, the capital, where most of the action has been happening. Over $3,000 Received for Westviewers Affected by Recent Fires Several of our own church family and friends of our church lost their homes in the great fires that ravaged our county and city. Since that time, we have received monetary gifts totalling $3,162.00, to be disbursed to our fire victims. A special account separate from our general fund has been opened for this purpose. Any additional funds designated for fire victims will go to that account for disbursal. The Book of Acts Study to Begin in January Our current study of the Gospel of Mark will be ending soon, and a new study through the Book of Acts is set to begin on January 17. A sign-up roster will be posted at the Welcome Desk in the narthex. This study will meet in Rm. 3 on Wednesdays, at 10:30 a.m. Anyone is welcome to join us.

6 Here's the Church, Here's the Steeple... The long awaited tower project is now almost completed, awaiting a few touch-ups. On November 30, the cross was mounted on the spire, which can now be seen throughout the neighborhood. The tower houses antennae for Verizon. Upcoming: Sunday, December 10: Gideons Sunday (Brief presentation during morning worship) Friday, December 15, at 7 pm: An Evening with Peter Furler (First Baptist, Windsor) Sunday, December 17: All-Church Christmas Party (following worship) Sunday, December 24, at 10:15 am: Christmas Eve Service with I Am Family Choir Monday, December 25: Christmas Day Tuesday, December 26: No Bingo Brunch Wednesday, December 27: No Gospel of Mark Study Sunday, December 31: New Year's Eve Westview Christian Church of Santa Rosa 3950 Doubles Drive Santa Rosa, CA (707) Rod Bowman Pastor Sunday Worship: 10:15 a.m.