Holiday Update

Praise God for a great holiday season at Oso Creek . . . Here are some highlights and I'm sure you have many more in your own life . . .

- You gave $5,500 to Advent Conspiracy! That's resources to help Mission 911 feed and care for the local homeless. Money to build water wells in 3rd world countries through Living Water International to give people clean drinking water. And the resources to partially pave in front of the school in Ban Ho, Vietnam - and watch God open doors!

- Our Christmas Eve Eve Celebration was our biggest and best ever! And praise God for all of you who brought your friends and neighbors - keep loving and inviting.

- On Christmas Night a group of Vietnamese in our community had a service at our building. I wasn't able to be there but heard it was awesome and 4 individuals gave their lives to Christ that night!

- Then on New Years Eve we had a great gathering of students at our building with lots of pizza, coke, dodgeball and we learned who all can karaokee!

Hit comment and share your holiday victories . . . .

It Starts with $5

In 1950 Bob Pierce was in Korea. He helplessly watched as children orphaned by the Korean War stood in endless food lines. One day a child literally dropped dead because there wasn't any food at the front of the line.

Bob Pierce made a decision that day to do something about it.

He began to raise money and awareness. On a trip back to Korea he gave an orphan girl named White Jade everything he had in his wallet - $5. And he promised to send her the same amount every month.

From that $5 gift World Vision was birthed. Today a hundred-million people in about a hundred countries receive support from World Vision.

You still have an opportunity to conspire with us this holiday season to make a difference in our world!

We want to do something about the plight of the homeless through Mission 911, those without water through Living Water International, and families in Vietnam who are desperate for hope.

It begins with your $5! Check out our info about Advent Conspiracy by clicking here . . .

And then bring your gift of compassion this Sunday and let's join Bob Pierce and do something about the pain and suffering in our world!

AC

Pretty cool . . . Advent Conspiracy is on the front page of yahoo.com this morning . . . Thanks for the hook up Nathan L.

Check it out: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091215/us_time/08599194759000

What Are You Conspiring To Give?

This Sunday we are going to Celebrate Advent Conspiracy together by taking part (or all :) of what we would normally spend on Christmas consumption and giving it to compassion!!

If this is new to you or you need a reminder of what we are doing, click here to watch the video we made. .

. . and/or click here to read more about the How's of Advent Conspiracy.

The bottom line is that we want to celebrate Christmas in a way that truly honors the King - the One whose birthday it is.

So we ask you on Sunday to bring your Birthday Gifts and together we will give them to many whom the King loves and cares for.

Advent Conspiracy How's . . .

I've had some great questions this week from some fired up folks about the 'How's' of Advent Conspiracy!

First of all, if you didn't see the video that has the Vision and Why's of Advent Conspiracy then click here and watch it first.

Then, here's some of the How's:

1) Do we right one check to FOC indicating it’s for Advent Conspiracy? Or, do we right separate checks to FOC for Living Waters, Mission 911 and the Vietnam mission?

Yes, one check. We are asking you to write one check and give it to Oso Creek on or before December 13th with 'Advent Conspiracy in the re: line. We will then split up all the resources between the 3 causes.


2) Is that it? We ask you to pray and to get involved! Yes, in the process of AC God is largely working on our hearts to give back to Him. At the same time maybe your group wants to get involved locally with Mission 911 or support one of the folks going to Vietnam, or go yourself next time!

3) Is is there a more creative way to “give” to our friends and family - i.e. Giving someone a greeting card indicating that in honor of that person we gave to one these missions.

That's awesome! YES, there are many ways to get others involved in the cause and as this person said if it's 'done early enough, others may want to join in the conspiracy!'

Keep conspiring for Jesus and compassion!

Conspiring Together!

Worship More, Give More, Spend Less, Love All.

That's the heartbeat of Advent Conspiracy. As we join in that heartbeat for the third straight year, check out this video that shares how we'll be a part and how it will impact lives!

Advent Conspiracy from Fellowship of Oso Creek on Vimeo.

What a Day . . .

It began with a great day of Celebration this morning!
And if you weren't at the 11am celebration it was great fun to give Tony Reyes of Mission911 half of the Advent Conspiracy $7,000 that you gave . . .

This afternoon I joined of group of Creekers going door to door at the Saratoga Cove Apartments . . . we passed out cookies and invited folks to the neighborhood party that we're having there on March 7th (more about Saratoga Cove in a post later this week) . . .

Then I watched the first 3 quarters of the Super Bowl at the Student Crossover event . . . can say it was fun but I didn't hear much of the game with 40 students/adults there!

Finally, an incredible crazy finish to Super Bowl 43 . . . wow!

And o'yeah (you'll understand this if you were at Celebration today) . . . imagine, I just checked my facebook and had about 7 friend requests! :)

Advent Conspiracy Results!

I can't believe that I got all caught up in the new year, etc and didn't blog about how much Creekers gave to Advent Conspiracy!

You gave $7,045! And I know from hearing your stories that many more of you gifted to Living Water as well for Christmas gifts! Way to go Creekers!

Half of this will go to Living Waters International . . . and half to Mission 911 here in Corpus!

Finishing the Conspiracy!

I'm excited and thankful about all of you who have given to Advent Conspiracy!

And even more excited about how God is going to spread compassion in our City and around the world with those resources!

If you still haven't had an opportunity to give your Advent Conspiracy funds . . . . . Or, need an opportunity to finish your regular giving for the year to Oso Creek - the office will be open Wednesday (Dec 31st) from 9am to Noon just for you!

Your Vote Please . . .

Today we got an Advent Conspiracy dog for the kids for Christmas! All the kids got one gift together -- this pup (actually 1 1/2 yrs old) from Pee Wee's animal shelter . . .

Now we need your help. We haven't yet decided on a name and decided to take a day to pray and think . . . and get your input .
The two nominees at this point are:

1) Raider
2) Dash

What's your vote? Or do you have some other spectacular name??

Contagious!

We're in the last week of giving for Advent Conspiracy and I pray that you still seeking to give all you can to compassion.
What a blessing to be able to bless those in need!

And the impact of living compassionately is contagious. Check out this story of one of our Creekers - Jenny McDermott - when she shared AC with her family . . .


Over thanksgiving we had gone home to Chattanooga to spend time with our family and I began to tell them all about how our church was doing this advent conspiracy thing. I went on to tell them how we were spending less on presents this year and having more compassion on those who need it the most. I told them how were giving the money we saved to living water international and to mission 911, a local shelter. I also told them that Matt and I were going to give money in all our families name's instead of givng presents to them. They were all fine with this and we soon came back to TX. About a week or two ago I got a phone call from my sister telling me that she thought that what we were doing was awesome and let me know that she and her family were giving money in our names to samaritan's purse. My mom also called and my parents are now doing the same for us and her brothers. My sister in law (Matt's sister) also called and told me that they are giving money to the local homeless shelter in Chattanooga in all our names. And this is all from me spreading the news about advent conspiracy to them. So, we are now all giving the money we would have spent on each other to different ministries. It feels great that we all are in this together.

Way to go God!

Spend Less . . . Give More

I pray that you are still seeking ways to spend less on consumption and give more to compassion!

If you missed Sunday's message on how we are going to redistribute the resources you give to those in need, you can click here and listen.

I'm excited about giving all we can - locally to Mission 911 - and globally to Living Waters International! (Click on them and check out their websites)

How are you going to enter the Great Reversal?

OCC Dedication Tomorrow!

Don't forget your Operation Christmas Child boxes tomorrow as we'll have our OCC Dedication!
Who are you bringing with you to show what it looks like to love families around the world?

We're also going to begin Advent Conspiracy tomorrow! It's gonna be an awesome day of Celebration! Don't miss it!

Mission 911

This afternoon I had the privilege of hanging out with Tony Reyes for a couple of hours and hearing his heart for Mission 911.

I love this guy because he's doing it! He inspires me. He gave up his hat as an Office Depot executive 9 years ago when God called him to care for the homeless and hurting and love an entire broken neighborhood. He's on mission - it's written all over his life.

Mission 911 is one of the ministries we are going to support as we give to compassion through Advent Conspiracy. I'm pumped that we get to engage with guys like Tony as they seek to change the world right where they are!

Christmas???

Yes, it's hard to believe but I've already seen Christmas stuff in Hobby Lobby and I'm sure that the celebration of the almighty Santa dollar will soon begin all over the marketable world :)

My heart this Christmas season is that we learn to practice more and more giving ourselves away as Jesus would want us to! We are going to have three unique opportunities as a body to do that and I hope that you will consider being a part of all three! I wanted to preview them all as we get close:

1) First and very soon (like this Sunday!) you will begin seeing Operation Christmas Child decorations. We have participated in OCC for about 6 years now and it is such an easy and powerful way to impact children and families around the world. It is also a great way to begin to teach your children to give themselves away. More info will be coming at you this week and OCC collection will be November 23rd.


2) Many of you remember Advent Conspiracy from last year! This is an incredible way to use our resources for compassion instead of consumption. The gist of AC is that we will be asking you to forgo some of your normal Christmas consumption (i.e. don't buy so many gifts!) and give that money towards the poor and needy.
What makes this even cooler is that this year we have 6 or 7 other Corpus Churches participating with us! More info will roll out soon . . .


3) Compassion Trip to Mexico - What could be better than giving ourselves away by going to the Pan de Vida orphanage in Querataro, Mexico.
This trip will be December 26th-January 4th and there will be the opportunity to join in various projects with our hands as well loving the children and staff of Pan de Vida!
Because of passport and other preparation needs, this is an opportunity that you need to begin preparing for now! Tim Klaus is leading the trip and you can get any information you need by emailing him (click here to email Tim).

Conspiracy of Compassion

I'm pumped about how God is going to use Advent Conspiracy this Christmas season in our City!
Today I met with several other pastors to cast vision for how we as the Body of Christ can together impact our city and world!

If you weren't here last Christmas season - or don't remember AC - then you can check out the posts here, here and here as an intro/reminder.

I'm hoping that at least 10-15 churches will join us this year as give up Consumption for Compassion . . .

Advent Conspiracy Update

Remember how we conspired with other churches around the country to express less consumption and more compassion over the Christmas season?

Here's what happened. Collectively over $2.5 million was redistributed around the world to those whose needs are greater than ours!! And those of you who participated were a huge part of that!

Check out this link out for an Advent Conspiracy update . . .

And get ready because 2008 is gonna be bigger and better!

God's Prophetic Call to the World

I've been reading in the book of James the past couple of weeks as we've been in the midst of Advent Conspiracy and the holiday season.

James 1:22 says: "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

How easily we just become spectators - listeners - of truth. And the truth is we're just fooling ourselves. Thinking that because we show up to church - or to a small Group - or drop a few bucks in the basket - or go to a Christmas Eve (Eve) Service - that we're living the life. God says, 'DO IT!' Do it man! God's not looking for our vote of confidence, He wants our lives!

And as we journey together through this holiday season, we want to do it! To be those who are pointing the world to the Risen Christ. To be those who are celebrating this season in a way that honors a King.

To that end one of the ways that I'm going to encourage us this Sunday to give ourselves away sacrificially is by giving to Living Water International.

How are you going to live it out? Will we BE God's prophetic call to the world?

Spend Less!

Last Sunday Nathan Lindell did an awesome job bringing the latest message in our Advent Conspiracy series - Spend Less. (If you weren't there, you can click here and listen.)

Our heart is to focus this holiday season more on Compassion and less on consumption. And Nathan encouraged us to find ways to spend less on gifting by being creative (and personal!).

My wife has done awesome at this for several years. Just yesterday she finished up a DVD of our kid's year - some video, some pics of them playing sports, hanging out, working, etc. She sets it to awesome music and the grandparents love it! It gives them another way to be part of their grandkids lives and collect memories.

Another thing she has done is make calendars for an upcoming year with pics of our kids above each months calendar. She just cone binds it and again the grandparents love it as they get to look at their (genetically driven) beautiful grandkids all year!

The Advent Conspiracy has some other great ideas - click here to check them out.

But now we want to hear from you. What great gifts have you created for folks? Please help us and inspire us!

Don't Miss It: Advent Conspiracy!

I'm excited about the Christmas season series that we are going to begin on THIS Sunday -- Advent Conspiracy! It has the potential to change Christmas for every single one of us!

Don't miss it. And don't let anyone around you who needs to hear the real message of Christmas miss it.