MONTHLY FELLOWSHIP DINNER

Tuesday, November 27, 6:30 p.m.

Mandarin Bay Restaurant

(formerly Capital Seafood Restaurant) 

1015 S. Nogales St. at Gale Ave.

Rowland Heights, CA 91748

Greetings!

Next Sunday, December 2, is the day all volunteers from Gospel Life are to turn out in force. We need all who can, to help.

Gospel Life will provide and serve food for the homeless of our local community in collaboration with a group of area churches known as the East San Gabriel Valley Coalition for the Homeless. This annual winter program was kicked off last week at the St. Christopher Church  in West Covina.

The thirteen-week program runs from December 1 to March 15. In addition to the feeding program, the non-profit coalition has booked several churches to provide winter shelters with beds, showers, meals and dental clinics.  Last year it served about 17,000 homeless people.

Nancy Alano, Lelit Luciano and Maria Avena are coordinating this volunteer effort for our church. Your donations for this project are much appreciated. Venue for Sunday's event is St. Christopher Church at 629 S. Glendora Avenue at 5:00 p.m.

Please get in touch with any one of the three coordinators above for further details, and to let them know you will be a volunteer.

As part of the November theme, "Transforming Impact," Pastor Joannie's Good News Hour message yesterday centered on the above topic where she challenged the congregation to ask themselves whether they are "prudent investors or risk takers for the kingdom."

She prefaced her message with a premise that the principles of God's kingdom are many times opposite to that of the world's culture, which is important if we are to have a transforming impact in the world around us.

In brief, Pastor Joannie reminded us that "an investment in the kingdom requires you to risk everything," saying that "investing in our own God-given dreams has an impact beyond what we can see," and that "investing our lives in others can transform the world."

We're stewards of everything God gives us, she said, and He wants us to put out and to share what He gives us as we go about following our dreams to transform the world.

Pastor Joannie gave us a short list of how we might invest our lives in others by 1) risking ourselves by being vulnerable to cultivate real relationships, 2) speaking words of life and encouragment, and 3) being generous with our time, talents and resources. When we do these, we are not giving them away, but rather, we are investing our life.

The closing text she used is found in Galatians 5:13 - "It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life...use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows." MSG

First, the banner headline up above at the beginning of this Newsletter, and now, this!  It's a double reminder of tomorrow evening's monthly fellowship dinner, Tuesday, November 27,  at 6:30 p.m. It will be held at the Mandarin Bay Restaurant (formerly Capital Seafood Restaurant) in Rowland Heights, at Gale Ave. and Nogales St.

The dinner will also serve as a welcome party for Pastors John and Jessie who are taking a couple of months' furlough from their missionary work in the Philippines.

Please invite others to come with you, such as an additional family member, friends or members of your small group who do not attend church at Gospel Life. This will be a good night out for all.

Our Christmas Tree in church, fashioned out of a good number of individual poinsettia plants, is on display again.  This tree has been used during the Christmas holidays for the last several years.

Many a family or individual picture has been taken around this tree and to some the sight of it might even bring nostalgic thoughts and emotions.  The important thing is that we do not forget the reason for this season: the birth of the Messiah as a human being who paid the ultimate price on Calvary's cross, so that you and I can have life eternal.

Changing Our Paradigm of Experience
  

"So Moses thought, 'I will go over and see this strange sight-why the bush does not burn up.'"Exodus 3:3

-

Have you ever heard someone say, "God doesn't work that way? He would never do that." Well, there are times when God chooses to confound the foolish in order to change our paradigm of experience. Moses had never seen a bush that burned but did not burn up. It got his attention and it drew him to God.

-

When Jesus appeared on the water in the middle of the night during a storm, the disciples exclaimed, "It's a ghost!" They had never seen a man walk on water. This led to a great miracle-Peter walked on the water, too. When Jesus asked Peter to catch a fish and get the coin from its mouth to pay their taxes, you can imagine what Peter must have thought about those instructions. When Moses got to the Red Sea, he ran out of options. God had an unexpected solution to the Israelites' problem-He parted the Red Sea to demonstrate His power and allow the people of Israel to cross over to flee the Egyptian army.

-

Each of these new paradigms was a stepping-stone of an encounter with God so that the individual would experience God in a new way. God used these times to enforce the principle that His ways are not our ways. Whenever we try to predict that God will act in a certain way, He changes the paradigm to keep us from becoming our own little gods.

-

Have you ever been guilty of judging someone for an experience they've had that you've never had? Did you dismiss it as extreme or something not of God? God is in the business of changing our paradigm from no personal experiences to God-experiences. However, if you operate on a level of rigid logic, you may never have the privilege of having the God-experiences. Keep your heart free to experience new paradigms with God today. 
 

(Today God Is First (TGIF) devotional message, Copyright by Os Hillman, Marketplace Leaders.)

http://gospellifecommunity.org

www.thelionsdenschool.com

gospellifecommunity@gmail.com

thelionsden.glc@gmail.com

MAILING ADDRESS:

436 Crestwood Lane

Walnut, CA 91789