My wife Jeanniel and I with our children, Rachel and Matthew started attending Christ Community Church in late January of this year. During our first visit, we were drawn in by the warmth and grace of Christ reflected by the congregation.
When I say warmth and grace, I don't mean this figuratively.
After attending a few times, we went through a very difficult time with my Mother passing away suddenly and unexpectedly from cancer.
So many people supported us in a variety of ways. People called to encourage us and reminded us that we were being prayed for.
Many families brought by meals. Words cannot express our
gratitude for all of the help and support that we received. This
experience further confirmed us that Christ Community is where God wanted us to serve and worship Him.
We felt led to serve in the area of children's ministries.
Because we have two small children, we know first-hand how vital this ministry is to any church. The quality of the children's ministry program was also one of the major factors we considered when we were looking for a church home. At our previous church, Jeanniel served in the children's ministries by herself and I felt like I was missing out something. Given our new start, I wanted to jump in and help out. This experience has been a real blessing for both of us. It is a privilege to help the children learn about Jesus. From a practical perspective, it has helped both Jeanniel and I to meet many people in the congregation and accelerate the process of becoming fully "plugged in".
We especially loved the "church-community integration" of Vacation Bible School. It was a great demonstration of how Christ Community Church serves the community collectively in a Christ-centered manner. The kids not only learned about Jesus via "study", but were also part of "applying" Christ's teachings. In the morning, the children's crafts were focused on serving local ministries like Bread of the Mighty, Arbor House, St. Francis House. It was explained to the children how the respective ministries served the Lord and tied it into scripture. For example, the kids went packed groceries for the Bread of the Mighty and the scripture was story of Jesus feeding 5000. In the afternoon, the youth group, which assisted all day with VBS, then brought the items from the craft time to the ministries and then served them usually by performing hard labor. In the evening, the Community Groups, in our case the Gallagher group, then prepared and brought food to Frank and Sharon's guest house to share dinner with the youth group. This made the VBS more Kingdom-minded and provided a great demonstration about how the body of Christ comprised of many different parts comes together to bring Him glory.
As you have heard and read, there are plenty of opportunities to serve, especially with the new dual service schedule coming up. I would like to encourage anyone who is considering serving, but may be a bit shy about doing so like I was, to give it a shot. I think that 1 Peter 4:10 sums up the call to become engaged and serve each other,
"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms."
In our brief time here at Christ Community, it has been a great encouragement to see God's people using their various gifts to build His kingdom and extend His grace to the surrounding community.
