CHRISTMAS EVE CANDLELIGHT
Our Christmas Eve Candlelight Worship Service will be fun, meaningful, and memorable. Our service will be less than 40 minutes in length, so plan to bring the entire family. It starts at 5p.
CHRISTMAS DAY WORSHIP
Our Christmas Day Worship and Communion service will be special as we celebrate Jesus’ birthday and experience Communion with family and friends. Our service will be less than one hour in length, so please make adjustments to your normal Christmas Day activities and come. You will not regret it. It starts at 10.30a.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services are not the same service, but distinct and different services. We hope you will join us for both because they are unique to the moments and experiences. However, if you can only join us for one, try to come Christmas Day, as this is the Lord’s Day and Jesus’ birthday.
REMINDER — There’ll be no small groups until January 08, 2017 when we kick off our Beginnings Sermon Series and 2017 The Message Bible Reading Challenge.
INVITE EVERYONE – BRING SOMEONE
Who are you bringing with you to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services at Cross Church? Many of us will have family visiting, and it is a marvelous time to let our lives be a testimony by worshiping the Lord on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Invite others to join you and let’s be intentional during this wonderful time of the year.
YES, WE GIVE AT CHRISTMAS
Giving is part of worship for Christ followers. Therefore, we will receive our normal offering for our Ministry Budget and other ministries during both our Christmas Eve and Christmas day services. We never ask our guests to give, only members and regular attenders. In fact you can click this link and give today (especially if you will not be with us December 25).
The key question for each of us at this time of year is: Have I been more than faithful to honor God by giving at least the first one tenth of all God has given to me through my local church? Be sure you follow through on doing this on or before December 31.
Churches like ours rely on end of the year giving. Our giving is currently less than our expenses. As we shared in our member meeting our savings have covered these extra expenses. Also, our Stewardship Team reduced the budget compared to the previous year. We anticipate and pray new families will become faithful givers and servants in 2017. Would you make this a matter of daily prayer? Your staff is working hard to plan and promote events on smaller budgets. Your end of the year gift could help us finish 2016 strong and begin 2017 in greater position. There are still more souls who need to hear the gospel in Flower Mound.
To date we have given $14,530 toward our goal of $25,000 for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. Let’s finish strong!
GOD IS ON THE MOVE, CHURCH
Our word for 2016 was movement. It’s been a year to rejoice in the movement of God here. Look how God has used your giving in 2016! (We’ll talk more about this January 01, 2017 at 10.30a. We have a special service planned.)
- We have baptized more this year than the previous three years combined
- We had almost 50 kids responded to the gospel through children events
- We loved our neighbors through numerous efforts like the Community Garden, Timber Creek initiatives, Soccer Camp, Adventure Week (aka VBS) & Wild West Fall Fest
- We partnered with outside groups and parachurch ministries like ESL and YoungLife
- We began a unified spiritual process of reading the Bible together and hearing the Word of the Lord for our church through our church revitalization process.
- We added another staff member to engage the teens in our neighborhood.
- We gave approximately $100,000 to mission causes outside of the church.
- We summarized the four building blocks of a healthy New Testament church as authentic worship, Christ-centered instruction, intentional fellowship, and messy evangelism.
You were part of this. We did it together. There is more work yet to be done. People are broken and life can be messy. Through the cross Jesus puts us back together and makes us whole.
Since we won’t be meeting as Small Groups you can download a Bible Lesson for week four here (Advent Week Four | Love). You can also download an Advent devotional guide which follows our sermon series (Advent Guide).
