Weekly Updates November 4, 2023

Today while at the dentist I heard a faint but familiar sound. Yet it felt out of place. This couldn’t possibly be what I thought it was. Only, yep. It was as clear as day: Christmas music was playing on the radio. With it being 85 degrees and sunny outside, I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it. But the reality is we’re turning the corner toward the holiday season! And Christmas will quickly be upon us!

One of our favorite things this time of year is the opportunity to tangibly come alongside our community partnerships. Here today you’ll have two opportunities to embrace two initiatives we love endorsing! Our church consistently invests in both of these through our Community Partnership fund. And we highly encourage you to as well!

Snuggle Day

Our sister, Alicia McCormick, is inviting us this year once again to join in Snuggle Day, an initiative to buy gifts for social workers who will in turn purchase Christmas gifts for their case families. You are welcome to bring new and unwrapped gifts to church, suggested price range of $15-30, for ages 0-18 year olds, and Alicia will get them where they need to go! The deadline to bring gifts is Sunday, Dec. 3rd!

You can simply purchase gifts online through a Snuggle Day Amazon Wish List Alicia has created. This initiative not only supports social workers but foster moms like Alicia who do the work day in and day out the rest of the year!

OC United Christmas Store

Our brother, Caleb Parker, works with teenagers at OC United in Fullerton. Caleb and his team have put together an OC United Amazon Wish List here where you can buy gifts for teens and they will be shipped directly to Caleb. The deadline to receive these gifts (please check shipping & handling times) is December 10th.

OC United is also hosting an event this year at Hangar 21 at the Fullerton Airport from 3-7pm on December 17th! Families will have the opportunity to purchase gifts at affordable prices as well as enjoy food trucks, kids’ activities, live music, and dancing, and even have Santa flying in on a helicopter!  But an event like this takes many volunteers to pull off! So if you’re interested in coming and helping out that day, you can email Caleb here to let him know! The OC United team would love to see our church show up again this year like we did last year!

Sunday Sabbath Dates

Just a heads up that we will not have Sunday services on November 26th (Sunday after Thanksgiving) and December 24th (Christmas Eve). Also, we are planning to gather together via Zoom on New Year’s Eve (December 31st), but there will be no In-Person Service that day as well. For the visual folks, here it is:

11/26: No Sunday Service
12/24: No Sunday Service
12/31: Zoom Service / No In-Person Service

These decisions are made with intentionality and care, especially in this holiday season. Both to support our leaders and volunteers, but also to give space for our familia at large to rest and have slower rhythms through the busyness of November and December.

May you have a sweet weekend, Beloved. We look forward to seeing you again this Sunday as Pastora Inés continues to lead us in our Field Notes sermon series in the story of Ruth.

Bobby