The Christian Messenger

Fifth Avenue Church of Christ

115 W. Fifth Ave. Lancaster, OH 43130 740-654-0626
Brad Seevers
Senior Minister (740-550-9882)

December 12, 2011

Christmas Eve Service

Saturday, December 24th at 7:00 p.m.

David Tingler
Associate Minister

Christmas Worship
Sunday, December 25th at 10:00 a.m.
(one combined family worship service) Nursery, Hosanna, and Sunday School will be suspended so the entire family can worship together

Glen Shady
Youth Minister (740-438-5257) Sunday Services

1st Worship
8:00 a.m.

2nd Worship
10:30 a.m.

Bible School
9:15am

Evening Worship
6:00pm

Special C hristmas O ffering The C hristmas offering will be sent to C incinnati C hristian U niversity to be used in their Beyond the W alls campaign for campus renovations of current buildings, construction of a L eadership C enter, funding of new preaching scholarships, and additional funding to existing scholarships.

SPIRITUAL STATISTICS December 11, 2011

Sunday School 1st Morning Worship 2nd Morning Worship Total Morning Worship Evening Worship Family Reunion (12/7) Weekly Budget Budget Received Christmas Youth Van
At the Table 1st Serving 1st At the Table 2nd Serving 2nd Pastor of the week PM Deacon

76 107 76 183 36 45 $ 4,471.00 $ 7,196.31 $ 140.00 $ 404.26 $ 520.00

BITS FROM BRO. DAVE

KEENAGERS EVENTS: Our next event will be in January. Watch for announcements. WEDNESDAYS: II Corinthians is the current focus of study at our 10:00 am and 6:30 pm meetings. This week, it is chapter 11. We are meeting on December 14 and 21 but will dismiss for the 28th and resume on January 3. SUNDAY EVENINGS IN THE SANCTUARY: The Hard Sayings of Jesus series continues this week (12/18) as we look at Jesus words of Matthew 20:1-16 and consider Unequal Work For Equal Pay. We will not be having evening service on December 25. I have, however, decided to continue the series into the new year. On January 1, we will take a look at Luke 22:36 and The Case for Concealed Carry. GIANT PRINT BIBLES: I now have, on hand, a new supply of GIANT PRINT BIBLES. They are soft cover in the New International Version and will sell for $12.50. You may purchase one by contacting me or stopping by the church office. If you want to pay by check, make the check payable to me. FINAL THOUGHT: There are two kinds of cleverness, and both are priceless. One consists of thinking a bright remark in time to say it. The other consists of thinking of it in time not to say it.

SERVING SCHEDULE December 18, 2011

Tom Puckett and Larry Bussey Dale Rose, Carmel Marsh, Dick Shumaker, Ray Ayers Tom Puckett and Larry Bussey Dale Rose, Nick Hinson, Patrick Hinson, Neal Rudolph Tom Puckett Dale Rose

COMMUNION PREPARATION 1ST Worship Dan and Janet Brown 2nd Worship Fred Griffith GREETERS 1ST Worship 2nd Worship NURSERY Sunday School 2nd Worship Sunday School Helper Visitor Center 1st Worship Visitor Center 2nd Worship SECURITY 1ST Worship Bible School 2nd Worship Evening Worship

Dan and Janet Brown Debbi Hoagland

Shirley Marsh and Reta Conrad Kim Seevers and Cindy Cox Ruth Andrews Judy Gardner Deb Cooper

David Will Bill Kelly Jim Puckett Dick Shumaker

OFFERING ENVELOPES AND CALENDARS FOR 2012 Offering envelopes and calendars for 2012 will be available in the parlor this Sunday. If you do not currently receive offering envelopes and would like to, please contact Marg Shumaker or the church office.

Book Nook News

The Book Nook will be having a Christmas fellowship gathering on Monday, December 19th at 6:30pm in the parlor. This gathering is open to everyone in the church family. Bring a plate of cookies to share. Coffee and punch will be provided. The next meeting of the Book Nook will be Monday, January 23rd at 6:30 p.m. The book to be discussed is Her Daughters Dream by Francine Rivers. A copy of this book has been purchased for the church library. If you have been thinking about coming to a Book Nook meeting, check out the book to read and then join us for a great time of Christian fellowship! If you pre-ordered Her Daughters Dream, it can be picked up in the church office. The cost is $8.50. There are quite a few books in the library from past Book Nook meetings that are available to be purchased for $3 each. All money received will be used to purchase more books for the library.

Pastor of the Week Occasionally we get a question about a particular ministry. Allow me to explain why we have a Pastor of the Week. This ministry includes (1) Being the designated person to take home communion to shut-ins; (2) and it also includes ministering to those who have a spiritual need during the week. If you need someone to pray about your spiritual need, then call this person directly. Something new for 2012 Beginning January 1st, we will no longer produce a bulletin and a newsletter separately. Rather than being redundant, this will allow us to be better stewards of the financial resources that God entrusts to us at Fifth Avenue. We will combine the two and distribute them on Sunday mornings for all to enjoy. This means there will be no newsletter distributed on Mondays. This newsletter/bulletin will be made available on Friday on our webpage and Sunday mornings as our hard copy.

MAYWOOD MISSION FOOD PANTRY

Maywood Mission provides a food pantry for community members in need. Donations for the food pantry can be left at the entrance by the nursery door on Sunday, December 25th.

Items needed for the pantry:

Canned soups Corn bread mix Navy beans Hamburger helper Cake mix Deodorant Toilet Paper Beef Stew Pinto beans Mustard Tuna helper Brownie mix Soap powder Paper Towels

SERVING SCHEDULE December 25, 2011 (combined family worship at 10:00 am)
At the Table Serving Pastor of the week Fred Griffith and Tom Puckett Larry King, Dale Thornton, Ned Tomlinson, Rod Troutman Fred Griffith

COMMUNION PREPARATION Dan and Janet Brown GREETERS Jim and Bev Puckett VISITOR CENTER Cindy Cox SECURITY George Lambert

Dorcas Christmas Luncheon at Golden Corral Tuesday, December 20th 11:30 a.m. Everyone is welcome to join the Dorcas Ladies for a great time of fellowship.
A sign-up sheet is on the bulletin board.

Greeter and Visitor Center schedules for 2012 If you would like to be added to or removed from one of these schedules, please make a note on the back of your Silent Roll Call Card or contact the church office by Sunday, December 18th. Peggy Elkins 96 Day Lilly Lane Dunn, NC 28334
(Peggy will be spending the winter months in North Carolina with family and will return to Lancaster in April)

Moving Help Needed Men and trucks are needed on December 16th and 17th! Anyone who can help move lots of boxes, totes, and some furniture December 15th, 16th, or 17th 10:00 a.m. or 1:00 p.m. Please contact Juanita Harmon. All help is much appreciated!

Prayer Requests

Donnie James Liz Reed Ron Young Anne Watson Jan Foss Pam Brewer

Elisha Brown Sharon Britch Pam Dykes David Grimm Debbie Wright Carol Clum

Reta Conrad Ed and Norma George Dorothy Henderly Ron Ogden Larry Tipples Family Bruno Dipietrio

Mark Conrad Wanda Dickson Jeane Goldfarb Dorothy Herman Our Troops Angela Buckner

A Note from Brad

This Christmas, I do hope you remember to keep Christ in your celebration. Every year Christianity is under attack. The time has come for the Body of Christ to become more outspoken when it comes to defending Jesus in this season. I see and hear every day the liberal rant in the media as they attempt to minimize or eliminate the Christians right in America. May we do as weve sung for years, Stand up stand up for Jesus ye soldiers of the cross, Lift high His royal banner it must not suffer loss. I hope you will faithfully attend this month as we edge ever closer to the celebration of the birth of Christ. Its going to be a great month as we anticipate December 25 th. As a reminder, we will be collecting a Special Offering on December 24th & 25th for Cincinnati Christian Universitys Beyond the Wall campaign. As we learned in November, beyond our tithe each week, we should look for ways to share generously with others. I look forward to seeing how God works through you to meet the universitys need. As we near the New Year, I want to encourage our men to consider participating in our Tuesday evening Life Group. As indicated in my last article, we will begin this new phase of mens ministry studying the book, What Men Need to Hear. It is open to men of all ages so please join us. David Murrow writes in his book, Why Men Hate Going to Church, You cannot have a thriving church without a core of men who are true followers of Christ. If the men are dead, the church is dead! Our Life Groups will begin the week of January 15-21st. Look for more information about all our small groups soon at the Nursery entrance. This week we are going to unpack more of the story of grace as we travel further into the Book of Ruth together. Why not bring a friend with you who needs to hear about grace. I was so excited to meet new friends Sunday. I am excited that some of you are going out of your way to invite people to Fifth so they can learn more about Jesus. We are seeing God work and grow more of you as Disciples of Christ every day. Allow me to encourage you to keep on keeping on. Dont allow others to discourage you. As we reach new people, keep in mind that the Lord came for the sick not the healthy. That means that you will continue to see people here that may not look like you. Welcome them Christian. In His Service, Brad Seevers, Eph. 3:20-21

Children of God...
"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." -Proverbs 22:6

Hosanna
By Glen Shady If you are walking through the church on a Sunday morning during the 10:30am worship hour, you may run into some strange things. You may hear someone yell, Attitude Check! with a response of, Praise the Lord! You may catch a line from a song about the fruit of the Spirit not being a coconut. If you peak in the window, you may see some crazy dancing or someone being thrown into jail as part of a story. If this happens to you, you will not have stumbled across some crazy charismatic movement hiding in the basement of our church, but you will have discovered our Hosanna worship hour for kids. This hour of worship takes place every Sunday during the 10:30am worship service and is for preschool kids (3 years and potty trained) through 5th grade students. We have only had a full hour worship service for kids for about 15 months now, but we have seen great things happening with it. It used to be that kids would leave after worship, offering, and communion and head downstairs for their own lesson while the adults listened to the sermon. As recently as 18 months ago, we were probably averaging less than 2 kids per Sunday. Even so, we moved to establish a full hour worship time and this past Sunday we had seven kids, which is an average week. It is rare that we have less than 5, but not unusual to have as many as 10. Obviously God knew what he was doing. Now it is time to decide, as a congregation, if we think that all of this is a good thing. Do we think it is good for the children to have their own worship service? Is this something that we want to continue? If so, more people need to get involved. Currently every aspect of this hour is planned and executed by one person. This involved leading songs, leading offering, leading communion, teaching the lesson, having worksheets ready, and trying to keep the kids focused and behaving well. There is a lot of responsibility with this hour of worship. As things stand, though, there needs to be other people getting involved or this service is going to go away very quickly. So what is needed from people in order for Hosanna to continue? Our first concern is with the workers themselves. As gratifying as worshipping with kids can be, this hour is not designed for the growth of adult believers. So we either need people who are willing to go to first service and stay through Sunday School to then serve during this time, or we need multiple workers so that, as a part of a rotation, workers can still attend adult worship a couple times a month. We do not need people who can do everything, merely people who are comfortable within their strengths. You may not be able to lead singing, but can you do meditations for offering or communion? Can you be a presence to make sure kids are behaving? Maybe you can sing and would love that but do not feel equipped to teach lessons week in and week out. That is fine. If enough people step up to decide that this worship hour is worth having as a part of this church, it will not be a problem. So I encourage you to prayerfully consider whether or not you are someone who can serve these kids. If you think you might be, please contact me by email (glenshady@live.com) or with a phone call (740-438-5257). These are great kids and amazing blessings await those who are willing step forward to worship with them.