CCC Gainesville | Blog
Yesterday at the end of the service I asked everyone to join me in praying this prayer aloud each day this week. Have you guys started yet?
From the women’s Bible study leadership team:
AMONG THE MAJOR POINTS that Paul has been making in our study of his letter to the Romans is the sheer gratuity of grace, the amazing measure of mercy that has won Jews and Gentiles alike. Alike we are guilty; alike we are justified, forgiven, renewed, owing to the measureless mercy of God.
In view of such mercy, Paul urges his readers “to offer their bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. (Romans 12:1) The idea is that in the light of the matchless mercy we have received, the least we will want to do is to be pleasing to him. Please join us this Winter for a 10 week study of Romans 12 – 16!
- New Relationships: To God and Church
- Spiritual Gifts Project
- New Relationships: To Friend and Enemy
- Forgiveness and Reconciliation Project
- New Relationships: To the World
- New Relationships: To the Weak
- Ministry and Mission
When? Tuesdays! 9AM – 11AM Jan 7th – March 11th
Where? Christ Community Church
Cost? Free
Childcare? YES, with registration. pbemfrench@gmail.com
Please contact sstankunas@gmail.com with questions. We hope to see you next Tuesday!
~ Lauren, Paige and Sharon
Anyone interested in applying for this position may email a resume and cover letter to chiatt AT christcommunitychurch.com. No phone calls please!
Job Opportunity: Maintenance Personnel – Janitorial
Christ Community Church seeks an immediate, part-time team member to clean church facilities year round. Our maintenance personnel provides weekly janitorial support for the church buildings, maintaining cleanliness in the church offices and in a 12,000-square-foot worship and education facility. The incumbent will follow a detailed checklist weekly, advising supervisor of maintenance needs, supply levels, and additional ongoing needs required to maintain the facilities. In addition to the weekly checklist, the incumbent will assist with preparation for and/or cleanup after special events as assigned.
Preferred candidates will have some experience cleaning in a commercial environment, although extensive experience is not required. Some paid training will be provided.
Required Qualifications:
- An eye for detail and aesthetics
- An understanding and appreciation of the local church
- Willingness to learn and to follow direction
- Reliable transportation
Schedule:
Weekly schedule varies based on church events, and hours are flexible. Some nights/weekends.
Compensation:
10 hours per week, $10.25/hour, with bonuses for some special events.
A prayer from The Valley of Vision. . . ponder it and may it bless you as you celebrate the birth of the Savior. .
O Source of all Good,
What shall I render to Thee for the gift of gifts,
Thine own dear Son, begotten, not created,
my Redeemer, Proxy, Surety, Substitute,
His self-emptying incomprehensible,
His infinity of love beyond the heart’s grasp.
Herein is wonder of wonders:
He came below to raise me above,
He was born like me that I might become like Him.
Herein is love;
when I cannot rise to Him He draws near on wings of grace,
to raise me to Himself.
Herein is power;
when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart
He united them in indissoluble unity, the uncreated and the created.
Herein is wisdom;
when I was undone, with no will to return to Him,
and no intellect to devise recovery,
He came, God-incarnate, to save me to the uttermost,
as man to die my death,
to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
to work out a perfect righteousness for me.
O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds,
and enlarge my mind;
let me hear good tidings of great joy,
and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore,
my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose,
my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father,
place me with ox, ass, camel, goat,
to look with them upon my Redeemer’s face,
and in Him account myself delivered from sin;
let me with Simeon clasp the new-born Child to my heart,
embrace Him with undying faith,
exulting that He is mine and I am His.
In Him Thou hast given me so much that heaven can give no more.
Incarnation. If you understand the word incarnation, you’ll understand what Christmas is about.
Christmas is frankly doctrinal. The invisible has become visible, the incorporeal has become corporeal. In other words, God has become human.
This is not only a specific doctrine, but it’s also unique. Doctrine always distinguishes you. One of the reasons we’re afraid to talk about doctrine is because it distinguishes us from others.
Here’s why the doctrine of Christmas is unique. On one hand, you’ve got religions that say God is so immanent in all things that incarnation is normal. If you’re a Buddhist or Hindu, God is immanent in everything. On the other hand, religions like Islam and Judaism say God is so transcendent over all things that incarnation is impossible.
But Christianity is unique. It doesn’t say incarnation is normal, but it doesn’t say it’s impossible. It says God is so immanent that it is possible, but He is so transcendent that the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ is a history-altering, life-transforming, paradigm-shattering event.
Dorothy Sayers
D.Sayers
It is not true at all that dogma is ‘hopelessly irrelevant’ to the life and thought of the average man. What is true is that ministers of the Christian religion often assert that it is, present it for consideration as though it were, and, in fact, by their faulty exposition of it make it so. The central dogma of the Incarnation is that by which relevance stands or falls. If Christ was only man, then He is entirely irrelevant to any thought about God; if He is only God, then He is entirely irrelevant to any experience of human life. It is, in the strictest sense, necessary to the salvation of relevance that a man should believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Unless he believes rightly, there is not the faintest reason why he should believe at all. And in that case, it is wholly irrelevant to chatter about ‘Christian principles.’
On Christmas Eve at 6:30pm we’ll worship this King and revel in his incarnation.
