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12/20 Virtual Service

Due to the bad weather our church service has moved to your house today! Check it out:

12/20/09 Christmas Service (LIVE) CANCELLED

Due to the severe weather, our church service for tomorrow has been canceled. A "Virtual Service" will soon be posted...

Vision Sunday

Calvary Fellowship's final service of 2009 will be dedicated to looking forward to what is ahead in 2010. If Calvary is your church home; you don't want to miss service on 12/27/09!

The Sacrifice of Sharing

In this past weekend’s message (“A Humble People”) we focused on the proper response to our humble King –worship! By following the biblical Christmas narrative we examined 7 ways (by no means all of the ways) that we can offer the sacrifice of worship.One of the things we mentioned modeled by the shepherds was the sacrifice of SHARING:

"Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child." (Luke 2:17, NKJV)

As an act of worship they used whatever influence they possessed to tell as many people about Christmas (the birth of Christ) as possible. They did this because they were so enamored with Jesus, that they wanted everyone they cared about to know about Him as well. I would like to encourage each of us to do the same this year.

If you are part of Calvary Fellowship, a very practical and timely way we can offer God the sacrifice of sharing is by inviting the people in our sphere of influence to join us for our Christmas celebration service this Sunday (12/20). The service will include Christmas music, an original Christmas drama and the final part of our “Humble Christmas” series, “The Biggest Barrier to Christmas.”

What I have discovered is that people are more open to visiting a church on Christmas and Easter than at any other time, so it is a perfect opportunity. Here are a couple of practical and easy ways you can do this:

1. Distribute the printed invite cards (for ideas on HOW, Download 10_ways_to_use_your_invitation_cards.doc)

2. Facebook -Click here to get to our Facebook event. Once there you can do the following:

• Add yourself as a guest
• Click the "Share" box under the event and you can post the event on your profile
• Under the "Share" box you can also invite more people

 

Let's offer our King the sacrifice of sharing and invite as many people as possible to hear about His birth and the hope that provides this Christmas!

A Humble People

Today at church was part 2 of our "Humble Christmas" series. Last week we examined our humble King and this week we examined our proper response to Him in a message entitled "A Humble People." A humble people respond to their humble king with worship. Today we followed the biblical Christmas narrative to discuss 7 ways we can humbly offer the response of sacrificial worship to our King.

To hear the sermon you can click here to download the podcast from iTunes or click here to download it or listen online from our church website.

Getting into the Christmas spirit

Are you feeling the Christmas spirit yet? One of the challenges given in this past weekend’s message was for us to remember that Christmas is all about Jesus! As simple as that is to say, it is increasingly harder to do. I’ve often thought and heard people say that this would be much if Jesus would simply reveal Himself by coming to Earth right here and right now in our time. He’s already here…that’s where you and I come in.

As followers of Jesus the Bible teaches us that we are Jesus’ body and that His Spirit takes up residence inside of us guiding us, and empowering us, to be more like Him. Considering that let’s take the three aspects we looked at on Sunday of Jesus being a humble King and consider how we can apply these to ourselves in order to reveal God’s presence to the world this Christmas season:

Where He came –We talked about the lowly and dark places that Jesus came to when He condescended His form from God to a man and stepped into our world. In the same way, we should humbly be grateful for wherever God has placed us. In our families, our jobs, our communities, our state…wherever we are is a great place to serve God.  This begins when, even in our current surroundings, we stop complaining and start thanking God.  The difference between thanksgiving and complaint is not our circumstances, but our perspective.

What He became – Jesus lowered Himself to become a common person and then eventually revealed Himself to be God’s promised Messiah to save His people.  We too should follow Christ’s example and humble ourselves so that there is nobody that we are unwilling to associate with because we somehow feel above them. God places us around people every single day…let’s take a minute to notice them, talk to them, listen to them and encourage them.  On the flipside Jesus became the Messiah who will ultimately reign as King of all. While we are not the Messiah or kings and queens, as adopted children of God, we are royal princes and princesses. Let’s also take the time to focus inward and ask God to help us make any internal or external adjustments needed to help us think, act and look more and more like the King we represent.

Why He came –Jesus came “not to be served, but to be serve.”  Let me ask you an honest and difficult question. Has your life become all about you? Your convenience, your preferences, your ambitions, your agendas? If so, it is time to repent and ask God to help you become more God-centered and others-centered. I have to do this on a regular basis. Jesus came to serve and to give His life so that many would be saved. As servants of our King, we should be willing to do no less. Our purpose on this Earth is to serve our King and point others to Him through our actions and our words. We have to continually be intentional about this or our lives will naturally drift towards serving ourselves.

If we will do these things then we truly experience the “Christmas spirit” in a way that eggnog and Santa Clause just can't deliver!

A Humble King

Today we kicked off our new series "A Humble Christmas" with a message entitled "A Humble King." We examined how Jesus demonstrated His humility in:

• Where He came
• What He became
• Why He came

To hear the sermon you can click here to download the podcast from iTunes or click here to download it or listen online from our church website.

"Humble Christmas" begins this Sunday

Christmas can be a crazy time! There is the decorating, the cooking, the shopping, the wrapping, the parties, and (just to keep things lively) the relatives! As the song says, Christmas may be “the most wonderful time of the year”, but often it is also the most chaotic time of the year.

God did not give us Christmas to create more chaos in our lives, He gave it to create peace and hope in the midst of our out-of-control world. Christmas is not about what we have to give. It is about what (or Who) God has given us, and our response to that gift.

This is what we will talk about in our new series “Humble Christmas” beginning this Sunday (December 6^th) at Calvary Fellowship. The series will culminate with our Christmas celebration service on December 20^th that will feature Christmas music, a drama and a message examining what a “humble Christmas” is and how we can experience that and the joy that comes with it. Click here to confirm your attendance on FaceBook and to invite your friends electronically.

This Christmas season, let’s not get so busy with peripheral issues that we forget the reason for the season! I hope you will join us this year for “Humble Christmas.” And don’t forget to bring your family and friends! 

The Six Pillars of Biblical Power

This morning at Calvary Fellowship guest teacher John Rankin taught a message entitled "The Six Pillars of Biblical Power." The Bible teaches us to love God and love one another. This is John's take on how that works.

Click here to purchase the book this message was based on.

Click here to visit the Theological Education Institute's website where you can purchase more of John's resources and/or learn about his upcoming forums and debates.

To hear the sermon you can click here to download the podcast from iTunes or click here to download it or listen online from our church website.

Loving God's Family -the lost episode

The audio for last week's message ("Loving God's family") is now available.