Thank you

To everyone who participated in the ServeFest gathering this past Sunday, "Thank You!" We had a wonderful time reaching out to bless our neighbors. Several people have shared some great stories with me and it seems that God used serving others as an avenue of blessing the servers.

So thank you to all of the planners and team leaders who helped make this event a big success!
Here are some pictures:

Living It Out

If you read the accounts of Jesus' life, you can't help noticing that Jesus did the stuff. He didn't just talk the talk, he walked the walk. Jesus came as a servant. As a church, we want to do the same.

As a church we've been very blessed. I've noticed this especially in the last few months. This last Sunday was particularly rich with tastes of God's goodness, little expressions of His Kingdom coming to us. This blessing isn't for us alone. We're blessed so that we might be a blessing. These gifts from God are meant to be shared.

This Sunday, April 27th, we're going to do just that. We're having our inaugural ServeFest. In the place of our Sunday service, we're going out to serve. We'll be gathering at our regular time, 10:30AM. We'll have one or two songs of worship to connect with God. Then, after a welcome and an explanation of what's going on, we'll break down into our service teams and head out to bless the people of Royal Oak with simple acts of kindness done in Jesus' name. We'll serve people in non-threatening ways; we won't demand anything of them. Jesus' grace is free. Our goal is to stick within the outlines of a regular gathering, so we'll gather back at the building by Noon so that we can ask God to bless what we've joined with Him in doing, hang out and pick up our kids.

Speaking of which, for PARENTS: we will have childcare during the whole event. This childcare will be staffed by workers who regularly work with your children. When you sign your child in, please provide a cell phone number (yours, or someone in your team), so that the workers can contact you, if necessary.

I'm very excited for this opportunity to bless our city. We'll be feeding the homeless and hungry, giving away groceries and planting flowers, cleaning up trash, saying thank you to those who serve us every day, and sharing the free grace of God's love in simple, tangible ways. I hope you can join us!

Book Review

If you're interested in reading some thoughts about the wildly popular book by Eckhart Tolle, called A New Earth, then check out a recent post on my blog. --- jim

Community Lunch Thank You

Thanks to Vic, Kash and the crew who helped out this past Saturday in making our service at the Community Lunch such a great success. I heard a great time was had by all.

Community Lunch is a great way to bless our community and serve the hungry and homeless. We serve a full-spread lunch to our friends several times a year. To help out with the next outing, contact the church office.

Next Step Lunch

I'm pretty geeked about our Next Step Lunch coming up this Sunday after the morning gathering.  The Next Step Lunch is a great way for new(er) folks to connect with others, share some stories about the church and our lives, and ask any questions.  I always like our time there.  So if you're newer to the church, then I'd like to invite you to join us this Sunday around 1PM.  --- Jim

wednesday night homegroup

hey all!

baby eleanor is born and we want to thank everyone for your support and prayers. our homegroup plan for april is posted here: http://flowerdalegroup.blogspot.com/

check it out and we look forward to all of you meeting nora.

~joshua & zena