Take the online Spiritual Gifts Assessment , print your results, write your name on it and bring it to the church office (or Pastor Marc’s box in the Gathering Room).   You may take the Assessment online OR you can print a copy and circle your responses… and submit your responses.   Turn in your responses by August 25!

As a part of our Strategic Planning process, the team wants to get a “picture” of the variety of gifts which God has gathered at Advent.    Let’s have fun… EVERYONE… in discovering the gifts God has given us!

For more information, contact Pastor Marc.

Also, registration is open for two summer sessions.

For more information, please contact Anne Yarmchuk at 817-465-0181 or visit the church’s website at: www.alctx.org and click on Preschool.

God has played a big part in my addiction. He just won’t let me quit. So I’ve asked why and he has answered: it is time for me to start a prayer shawl ministry. Since the inception of the prayer shawl ministry in 1998, many in this organization have lovingly donated their time and talent to create hand-knit and crocheted shawls for those in need.

Over the past couple of years, I personally have made four prayer shawls. The first was for a friend and her twin sister, with whom I work. Connie’s son died unexpectedly on Mother’s Day two years ago of a heart illness. He was 11 years old. This literally broke her heart. I was overwhelmed with prayer for both of them. I presented Connie and Vicki with their prayer shawls one month later. It was a time of tears, love and prayer. Even today they tell me how their shawls comfort them. They feel God’s arms wrapped around them.

Months later I was asked at work to assist with a family coming into the Admirals Club. They were traveling to their son’s funeral. He had been serving in the Marines, so of course this situation really hit me in the heart. The mother wanted to share pictures and a bulletin board the family had made. We talked, laughed and cried. I listened to her anguish and I knew what had to be done next. As we parted I asked her for her address, and a week later I sent her a Marine Corps blue prayer shawl. The letter I received from her left me in peace, knowing that God was giving her strength.
I have a close friend at work who is undergoing chemo treatments for her second bout with breast cancer. I crocheted her a soft pink shawl you could literally melt into. She takes it to wear at her treatments because they keep the office area so cold. Many have asked her where she got her shawl. She tells them an angel from God made it for her. Vicki continues with treatments, and I continue with prayer.

You see, the added blessing in a prayer shawl ministry is that those who make the shawls pray for the recipient as they are making them. The promise is that this praying for one another will continue after the shawl has been presented.

Prayer shawls can also be presented to those experiencing one of life’s joys. Baptismal shawls, confirmation, high school graduation, new mothers; and right now I am working on a wedding prayer shawl for my daughter-in-law, Brittany. June 26 is Casey and Brittany’s first wedding anniversary. Casey has been deployed more than he has been at home in their first year of marriage. With this shawl I will include a prayer for love.

Do you like to crochet or knit? Would you like to learn? Contact Kristi if you would like to be a part of this ministry: kristi_durst@yahoo.com
If anyone who does not crochet or knit, and who, after reading this heart-felt “confession,” would still like to help Kristi other ways in her addiction, she will gladly accept yarn donations. You may drop off your donations at the church office or give directly to Kristi on Sundays.

We don’t know much about Lydia. Perhaps she was a well respected business woman in her community. She was a dealer of purple cloth which was used for garments for royalty and the rich. More importantly, with hearts turned toward God we hear that she was a worshipper of God (presumably a Gentile following the Jewish teachings and rituals).  This ladies circle must have shared stories of the faith of Noah and the flood, Joseph and the famine, Moses and the Israelites, Ruth and Naomi, Queen Esther and so on.
In the midst of all the teachings there’s a likelihood Lydia and the women discovered that people of faith honor God with gratitude and joy and thanksgiving for everything God does and for who God is! As they grew in an orientation to God’s laws of the First Testament, their hearts began to grow in healthy relationships with others and in relationship with God.
Their orientation to God’s laws led them to respond beautifully – so that others would see God through their gratitude and joy. I’m guessing that as they learned of faithfulness and gratitude toward God and others, they learned about the faith practice of tithing. As the message of Jesus came to her, she was further freed and maybe even convicted of being God’s child. As God’s child through Jesus, she must have learned she was different, and the Lord expected her to show it… as difficult as it may be.
Maybe Lydia as a businesswoman already had the financial skills to be respected among many. But what she likely heard is that her ―check book‖ (as a matter of speaking) reflected her priorities. As she grew in the foundations of faith, she grew in honoring God with all of her resources. She must have realized the abundant ways by which God had blessed her — which as a worshipper of God she could not have ignored the attitude to be a blessing to others.
I’d go out on a limb to say that Lydia was a joyful giver to the church of her day. She realized the resources she had and with the message of Jesus weaving into her heart, the Spirit opened her heart so that she saw at least a portion of her resources were for use in God’s kingdom.
Here, I’ll insert a lesson on tithing and financial orientation to help us relate to the resources we have for God’s kingdom. As a starting place for faithful financial management (note that I am a faith advisor), what I teach is the  “10–10–80″ principle. Based on your income, the first financial priority is a 10% tithe to the church (to God) as a faith response of gratitude and joy for all that God provides in our lives and for the world. The First Testament talks about this as “first fruits.”   The second financial priority is to save 10% to prepare for the future, whether that’s a rainy day (or season) or retirement. The third financial priority is that of daily living on 80%.   80%… wow! It’s amazing to realize how God gives us an abundance to live on! (Remember the purple cloth image in worship  which illustrated the point?)

Being a joyful giver is a response of gratitude for the awesome and wondrous works of God through Jesus. However, when anxiety and fear settle in, evil tries to get a foothold and tells us to circle the wagons, and hold on tighter to what we have. Maybe we even hoard a little more so that we gain a sense of security. When we foster and act out of attitudes of scarcity, our hearts are hardened to the Lord and we forget that our security is in Christ Jesus.
We need reminding time and time again of that which God gave up for us – all of himself in Jesus – so that our anxiety, fears and burdens would be transformed into something of blessing and a glimmer of hope for others.  Through the renewing waters of baptism and through the body and blood of the risen Christ, the love of God comes to us in Jesus and frees us and creates a new-found joy and peace … so that we are re-oriented and so that we re-prioritize, not based on anything that we have done, but what God does for us. What might this re-orientation and re-prioritization look like in our lives?
Gratitude and honoring God with a portion of the abundance which has been entrusted to each of us is a tithe. When we tithe (or grow toward a tithe), the Spirit grows an awareness that God abundantly provides for every need.
So, my friends in Christ Jesus who prepare for our annual and individual reviews of our financial commitments to our church and our God, how will we grow together in faithfulness toward God and one another in terms of our financial joy and gratitude to God? I pray that the Lord opens our hearts like Lydia’s so that we will continue to witness to the awesome freedom with which we’ve been gifted through Jesus our Lord and Savior.

Advent-uring with Jesus,
Pastor Marc

President: Cyndy Rearick

Vice-President: Al Peet

Secretary: Karen Dittmar

Treasurer: Kent Besley

Congregational Life: Tom Hilsberg

Education: Teresa Thigpen

Finance: Sonja Kraus

Parish Life: Linda Ness

Personnel: Linda Guidry

Property: Tim Bartin

Servant Ministry: Jane Owens

Stewardship: Pete Carlon

Worship & Music: Kristi Durst

Youth & Children: Joe Carpenter

Endowment: Dave Butcher

Benevolence: Dick Wentzel

Advent Christian Preschool (ACP): Judy Treacy

You may also find a link to the newsletter on the homepage under the RESOURCES tab.

Blessed browsing!

You may also find the calendar under the RESOURCES tab on the homepage.

Blessed browsing!

High School:

HILLARI BARNES

CHRISTOPHER BODE

BAILEY BROWN

TREY CARPENTER

MELISSA CATHERMAN

KARA MANGUM

MARIANNA OWENS

HEATHER BROWN

Undergraduates & Post-Graduates:

LAUREN DOW WEGNER

LEAH DOW

AARON FENTON

LANDON LUDWICK

LIBBY RANDALL

TERESA THIGPEN

JONATHAN WIMPY