CCC Gainesville | Blog
All Middle School students are invited to the Lock-in this Friday! We will meet in the main building at Christ Community Church and will stay there from 8pm Friday night- 7am Saturday morning. We will have fun games, tournaments, great food, late night movie on the big screen, and a giant inflatable! It is going to be an awesome night!
Parents please check in your student, or students you are bringing, to the Sign-In table upon arrival.
Cost is $15 per student.
Contact Drew Donovan for more information or for any questions: ddonovan@christcommunitychurch.com
Next Week our Middle School students will be packing Christ Community for the annual Lock-in! It will be an action packed night with games, tournaments, food, and even an inflatable game. Your student won’t want to miss this night! Cost is $15 per student.
Contact Drew Donovan for more information: ddonovan@christcommunitychurch.com
Q: What does God require in the first, second and third commandments?
A: First, that we know and trust God as the only true and living God. Second, that we avoid all idolatry and do not worship God improperly. Third, that we treat God’s name with fear and reverence, honoring also his Word and works.
As John Lin says in the video this week, the first three commandments show how we can point to the only true and living God. The first one requires that He is to be the exclusive object of our worship, love, and desire. The second one asks that we worship who God really is, not what we want Him to be for us. The third commands that whenever we speak of God, whether through words or lifestyle, we fully respect who He is. These commandments are in place to check our motives for worshiping God. If we look to our goals in life to provide us with deeper comfort than God, we violate the first commandment. If we only worship Him because he will provide us with comfort, we violate the second commandment. John Lin describes such violations as creating a “designer” God. The first two commandments ask that we look to Him as the only true and worthy candidate of our worship. As we recently reviewed in Foundations, our chief purpose for living is to glorify God. He deserves to be worshiped for who He is, not who we think He should be. He created us to desire Him. If we constantly try to replace God or change who He is, we will never be at peace. True comfort, true significance, true joy, and true love can never be grasped without the only true God. If God is at the center of our lives, and as we seek to honor these three commandments, we can begin to know true satisfaction.
This is week 9 of 52 catechism readings from New City Catechism. Christ Community is reciting an entry from the catechism each Sunday in 2013.
The women’s ministry at CCC is hard at work ramping up their commitment to A. Quinn Jones School by providing unique fellowship opportunities for women in the church. This Sunday, all women are warmly welcomed to attend a cooking fellowship at the church from 3 to 5pm. The group will provide a meal for the Foundations class participants, as well as preparing part of the meal that will be delivered to the A. Quinn Jones student advisory committee meeting this Monday.
Read on below for more information on the partnership with A. Quinn Jones, how was it was established, and for details on this opportunity to serve.
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Earlier this year, we sent a letter to all those who gave financially last year. In it, we shared some of our encouragements from 2012. We also indicated that there are countless activities by various ministries in our church that are hard at work making an impact in people’s lives. This is our first “Recap 2012” installment, filling us in on the excellent partnership our women’s ministry has established with a local school. This recap comes from Paige French. (Note: If you have a story to help share, please email Chris.)
Recap 2012: A Quinn Jones
In Spring 2012, CCC’s morning women’s bible study went through an eight week study called Gospel in Life: Grace Changes Everything, and we were challenged to serve our community better. We looked at how the gospel can change our community and influence how Christians live in the world. Acting justly and loving mercifully, we are to be engaged with our community. Who is our community? On the basis of Jesus’ teaching, we are to love in word and deed anyone we find in need.
The group prayerfully considered what this looks like for our Tuesday morning ladies and A. Quinn Jones happened! AQJ is a Title I, county-wide school that serves a population of children (K – 12th grade) in Alachua County who have behavioral and emotional needs. A member who lives near AQJ stopped in and asked if there were any needs at the school that our group might help with. From the first interactions with AQJ, our relationship was ignited by the Holy Spirit and fueled by the teachings of Jesus!
The teachers and staff at AQJ are a group of dedicated and passionate people who have incredibly difficult jobs. They work as a team to provide an environment where the child can be successful. The goal of AQJ is to provide the child with intense therapy while at school in hopes of returning to their zoned school or graduating.
Teachers and staff rarely receive encouragement for their work as there are not many parents involved in the school. Our Bible study decided to hold an appreciation lunch for the teachers at the end of the 2011-2012 school year. The appreciation lunch was wonderful for CCC members and AQJ teachers/staff alike. When you go to AQJ and meet the people who work there, the love and concern for helping these kids is evident. However, the overwhelming need of the children and their families is apparent as well. Because of these needs, several of those involved in the appreciation lunch felt called to make a longer term to commitment and so our relationship with AQJ continues.
The staff at AQJ are amazing people. They have helped us identify some specific NEEDS:
- Individual child tutoring. There is a staffed volunteer coordinator at the school.
- Continued support for supper during the SAC meetings. These meetings take place the first Monday of every month. We have seen the number of families triple since our involvement.
- Food donations for the backpack program where over long weekends many of these kids go hungry. The school receives assistance from Jesse Schmidt, of the Gator Back Pack Club. The club owns the backpacks and assist with filling them. Approximately one-third of the school population is served by the club. The guidance counselor suspects that many more could be served but they don’t have enough donations to fill the current 40 backpacks that they have assigned to children. Another option is to assist the school with locating funding for feeding the children.
- Providing transitional skills or vocational skills after a student graduates. These young adults need short or long term mentoring to help them navigate the job market and achieve financial stability and independence.
- Attending school wide functions as some parents are not able to attend, as in the case of a foster child. There is a Family Field Day the last day prior to Spring Break.
INVOLVEMENT to date:
- June 5, 2012 Teacher Appreciation Dinner (65 in attendance)
- October 1, 2012 provided dinner for the SAC (student advisory committee) meeting
- November 5, 2012 provided dinner for the SAC meeting
- November 13, 2012 Collected donations for Thanksgiving weekend backpacks
- December 18, 2012 attended the holiday presentation and provided a reception
Potential upcoming DATES, and Opportunities to Help:
- March 2013 – We will collect donations for Spring Break Week backpacks. The donation box is in the foyer of the church, along with a list of needed items.
- March 3, 2013 – “More Than Food” – 3-5PM at CCCAll women are invited to serve within the A.Quinn Jones outreach ministry. We will be cooking and serving both our church (meals for leadership training/outreach) and A.Quinn Jones SAC Meeting (approximately 100 people). Please join us in preparing food for our church and for the SAC meeting the following day.
- March 4th – SAC Meeting – 4-9:00PMPlease join us part of the time or the whole time! From 4-6:00PM we will be at the church to bake, pack, and transfer meal to A.Quinn Jones. From 6-9:00PM, we will deliver, set up, eat, meet and clean up at A.Quinn Jones. To get connected, email Paige!
- TBD, Teacher Appreciation Dinner. To get involved with upcoming events, please contact Paige French at pbemfrench AT gmail.com.
Q: What is the law of God stated in the Ten Commandments?
A: You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below—you shall not bow down to them or worship them. You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. You shall not covet.
Why did God give us the law? Does he simply expect us to follow a set of rules? God is our creator and he intimately knows exactly what we need to flourish. When He gave us the law, He revealed to us his character. To break the commandments is to go against the very nature of God. And because we were made in God’s image, when we break the law, we go against our own nature. The first four commandments are vital to our relationship with God. The last six are vital to our relationship with each other. Because we are sinful in Adam, we cannot help but break the law of God. But because Christ redeems us, we are made perfect in him. As 2 Corinthians 5:17 states, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Since the Spirit is within us, we are free from bondage to sin and given exactly what we need to trust our Father’s wisdom; ie to keep the commandments.
This is week 8 of 52 catechism readings from New City Catechism. Christ Community is reciting an entry from the catechism each Sunday in 2013.
