CCC Gainesville | Blog
This year we will hold one service on Christmas Eve at 6:30pm. All ages are welcome, and there will be care provided for infants through age 3. We’ll observe the Lord’s supper, sing carols and be reminded of the true meaning of Christ’s advent into the world. As the Christ candle on our advent wreath is lit to symbolize the birth of Jesus, we’ll fill the room and the sky with its light.
I hope you will make this special worship service a part of your Christmas celebration!
Note: This post was edited to correct mistaken information about childcare. Cutoff is age 3, not 3rd grade as previously stated.
Are you wondering where all those pennies go that your children bring to church each Sunday?
Here is an update on where your child’s Giving is going. In the past 6 months the children’s giving or offerings have gone to four different places.
1. July-During VBS each year one of the rotations each child gets to participate in is called Service Projects. We took Thank You packages to 5 different fire stations around Gainesville. Cookies and care packages were sent to the Ronald McDonald House. We painted posters to welcome kids back to school at our adopted school near downtown. And like in the past, the children made flower arrangements for the residents at a local assisted living home. Many of the supplies we use to make these care packages are donated, but children’s offering from the Spring contributed $70 to the flowers and other care package supplies.
2. Operation Christmas Child-This year CM contributed 14 boxes to the CCC collection. Most of the supplies that go into the boxes are brought in by the children. But their Summer offerings contributed $98 to the shipping costs. Covering the total expense to ship each box!
3. Missions-This October the Missions Committee hosted a Global Missions Conference. During this time two presentations were given to the children focusing on our own CCC supported missions, especially the families with Children. During the Friday evening program the Robinson’s started the conversation about what it might be like to experience missions as a child. Growing up on a “missions field” and the joys and struggles the children might go through. During this time one of our supported families came and talked with the group. Getting to meet “real” children who are missionaries was a great experience for children. On the following Sunday the kids got to learn about one of our families who served in China for several years. During this time their son was born and spent the first two years of his life living there. We also got to read a letter written to us from Lydia who is one of our supported missionary daughters. The children’s giving from the Fall sent $50 to the Connor’s (in India) mission account to go towards something to encourage the four children. We also wrote them Christmas letters during the October conference so that they would get some Christmas encouragement from their friends back home.
4. AQJ our adopted school-In November we had one of the women who is part of the AQJ team go to each class and tell them about the school we have adopted, ways we are helping them and why they need extra support. During this time the children wrote “Thank You” notes to the teachers. We also explained to the children that their monies would be going to basic hygiene products and into take home care packages for the children at the school. Their offering (along with the donation of several local dentists) contributed $55 to help make over 60 soap, wash cloth, deodorant, toothbrush, tooth paste packets for the children. They also were able to contribute several boxes of school supplies.
Their offerings spent over the past six months have totaled $273. We hope you can use this information to share with your children the variety of ways their giving has been used both in our community and around the world. Also in the coming months we will post both here and on the boards across from the Welcome Station the locations of where our OCC boxes landed.
James and Rachel welcome:
Elizabeth Grace Schrader
9 lbs 1oz. 21 inches
Born 12/14/13
Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my infant heart conceived
From whom those comforts flowed.
–Joseph Addison, 1700’s
In the end, the Incarnation is not for analysis but for worship. –Jared Wilson
Man’s maker was made man.
-Augustine
Good people all, this Christmas time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His belovèd Son.
–Wexford Carol, 11th c.
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.
–John Donne, Nativity from La Corona (1610)
There’s more info on this poem:
—to see the entire larger poem of which this is an excerpt (the italicized first and last lines give us a hint)
— brief commentary at Harper’s
