Giving to Others

Happy New Year!

 

Isn’t it amazing how we are able to give to others what we, apart from God, have no ability to impart?  We get to bust out of our comfort zones and share this truly free gift of God’s love with others.  Salvation comes from God.  Salvation comes through living, speaking and sharing the Truth with others.  What a cool mission we’ve been given! New Year’s Outreach ·  We started the year off with a park outreach. ·  We had a drama presenting the gospel.  We talked about forgiveness. ·  We preached the gospel.  ·  But more than that we shared the gospel individually with people and showed them we cared by praying for their needs and giving them a great time with their family and neighbors.  ·  In our planning meeting leading up to this event we continued to equip and prepare our church to be the one that would share the gospel – so it was fun to be able to present it from up front, but also hear the Good News proclaimed before and after the upfront stuff by our own church members.  ·  We had games, bounce houses, food, prizes, face painting, crafts, nail polish galore…and lots of smiles! ·  We also gave away over 100 thermal mugs with our church information written on it…as a gift and reminder of how they can stay connected with us and God.

Work/Building Projects

This month we removed the carpet from our youth room (which is also our reception area for the tutoring program).  This allows us the option to expand our Sunday church meeting further back - adding more chairs.  

You can see the before picture (above), stripping nails and sanding phase (below), 

 ...staining (above), and then the glossy sealant (below).  

 
 We also put up new white boards in our classrooms (below) and did a little work outside (above) making a pathway and barrier to solve some of the problems the rain had caused. 

Please Pray with Us…

SMALL GROUPS.  We are training our church right now how to do small groups so that they can grow in their faith through this process and so that we can expand and reach more people for Christ in the community.  Please be in prayer over the next couple months as we focus on training, equipping and releasing groups into the community.

PRAYER  MINISTRY.  Prayer is what moves the mountains and opens the doors.  We know that ministry cannot function without prayer.  The couple that we raised-up and released in our prayer ministry at church is moving to San Diego this week.  They have grown so much and are excited to start some new ministries down in their new city, but obviously this is a big loss for our Los Angeles church family.  Pray with us that our church would step-up and continue to grow in and press into prayer. 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

·         Finance Conference – January 17

·         Winter Youth Camp – January 17-19

·         Tutoring/ESL  (Start of Winter Quarter) – January 18

·         Filming for World Impact (Fuente church plant focus) – January 22

·         Men’s Night (Bible & Billiards) – January 23

·         Church Ministry Planning Meeting – January 25

·         Pastor Felipe & Judy (special guest preacher) – February 1

·         Membership Class – February 7

We thank you for being a part of this mission.  A mission to hand over what God has given us to others – especially the gospel message of Christ’s redeeming love.  May your 2015 be full of God, full of love and full of giving to others!

Chad, Fabiola, Rebecca, Justice and Beniah

Beniah, 9 months, enjoying a swing at the park.