Midweek Announcements 11.11

Parents, this Sunday is also a Baptism Sunday!
We are excited to have our Kindergarten through 4th-grade classrooms join our church family in the sanctuary to watch and celebrate together again this week! Following the baptisms, our teachers will guide the children back to their regular classrooms, where you can pick them up at the end of the service.

Pine Collective Lunch - canceled
Due to unforeseen circumstances Pine Collective is canceled this month. We will start the quarterly lunches again in January.

An Evening of Giving Back - Women's ministry event
On Friday, November 20th we will be putting together small goody bags & cards for women who come to Pregnancy Resource Center for ultrasounds, to pick up diapers/clothes, and for the women at Merci’s Refuge.
The bags will contain things like chapstick, chocolates, tissues, a notepad, pen, and hand sanitizer. The director of PRC said these bags would be a little gift that lets the women know people are thinking of them, they’re valued, and they’re seen.
If you would like to donate towards these bags, you can venmo Christ Community and write "Women's Event 11/20" in the note section. Any extra funds collected will be used to purchase giftcards for Mercis Refuge women.
CC Venmo: https://venmo.com/u/christcommunity
Register for the event here: https://christcommunity.subspla.sh/k5xwth2
 
Womens Rest and Reflect Retreat
Come away for a weekend of solitude, stillness, and time with the Lord. This retreat is an opportunity for women to step away from the busyness of everyday life, quiet their hearts and minds, and meet with God in an unhurried and intentional way.
When: Friday 12/4 through Sunday 12/6 morning
Cost: $200 per person
The cost includes Airbnb lodging and all meals from Friday dinner through Sunday breakfast.
For more info - contact Kim Kellenberger: nealkim1921@gmail.com
For scholarship info - contact UnChong Berkey: unchong@christcommunitycu.com
Register

Christ Community Christmas Party - Tuesday, December 8
Let's celebrate the season with our annual Christmas party! Come out to Briks in your most classy & festive attire for an evening of pizza, dessert, drinks, live music, and games. This event is for high school-aged and above. Cost is $15/pp that covers dinner, dessert and a drink, but if this is cost-prohibitive please let us know because we want everyone to be able to come! (Beer & wine available for additional purchase)
Tuesday, December 8, 6-8:30 @ Briks.
For more info - contact Pat: patfroelich@gmail.com
Register

Midweek Prayer
Every Tuesday, 12:15-12:45p at the church, is midweek prayer, and we invite you all to join us for 30 minutes of connecting with God together!

Pre-service Prayer
Everyone is welcome to join in every Sunday morning prior to the Renewal Gathering, 9:30-9:50am in the conference room (behind the stage) for a short prayer meeting lifting up our church.

Midweek Manna:
1. Church membership quote: https://x.com/MattSmethurst/status/1963579013273727052
2. Dane Ortlund's new book on heaven: https://x.com/daneortlund/status/2118708762630410278?s=20
3. Dane Ortlund quote on Leviticus from Gentle and Lowly, "This is deeper than saying Jesus is loving or merciful or gracious. The cumulative testimony of the four Gospels is that when Jesus Christ sees the fallenness of the world all about him, his deepest impulse, his most natural instinct, is to move toward that sin and suffering, not away from it.
One way to see this is against the backdrop of the Old Testament category of clean and unclean. In biblical terms these categories generally refer not to physical hygiene but to moral purity. The two cannot be completely disentangled, but moral or ethical cleanness is the primary meaning. This is evident in that the solution for uncleanness was not taking a bath but offering a sacrifice (Lev. 5:6). The problem was not dirt but guilt (Lev. 5:3). The Old Testament Jews, therefore, operated under a sophisticated system of degrees of uncleanness and various offerings and rituals to become morally clean once more. One particularly striking part of this system is that when an unclean person comes into contact with a clean person, that clean person then becomes unclean. Moral dirtiness is contagious.
Consider Jesus. In Levitical categories, he is the cleanest person to ever walk the face of the earth. He was the Clean One. Whatever horrors cause us to cringe—we who are naturally unclean and fallen—would cause Jesus to cringe all the more. We cannot fathom the sheer purity, holiness, cleanness, of his mind and heart.The simplicity, the innocence, the loveliness.
And what did he do when he saw the unclean? What was his first impulse when he came across prostitutes and lepers? He moved toward them. Pity flooded his heart, the longing of true compassion. He spent time with them. He touched them. We all can testify to the humaneness of touch. A warm hug does something warm words of greeting alone cannot. But there is something deeper in Christ's touch of compassion. He was reversing the Jewish system. When Jesus, the Clean One, touched an unclean sinner, Christ did not become unclean. The sinner became clean.