Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

December 18th, 2008

Hey everyone,

Hope all of you are doing well. This Thursday was the last Connect Downtown of 2008! Next week is Christmas, and the week after is New Years, and we are closed both of those weeks. But we will be back and better than ever on January 8th, 2009! 

This Thursday, December 18th, Abbey Moore was the speaker. Her talk was titled "Worship = Service."

Worship is an everyday thing, and it's not just about going to church on Sundays and singing songs. Everything you do should be an act of worship. 

Abbey mentioned that when she was a small kid, she used to give her things away to her friends. This was especially a weird thing to do, since she says her family was "po," poorer than poor. But she would still give her things away to people who needed them more than she did. This is what serving others is all about.

Teo great examples are Mother Teresa and St. Nicholas. No not santa, St. Nicholas. Mother Teresa's whole life was about serving those who were poor, or hurting, or hungry. She dedicated her whole life to serving others, true worship.

St. Nicholas was truly a great man, but not too many people know the real guy. St Nicholas was born into a wealthy family, a very wealthy family. Both of his parents died when he was young due to the same illness. He chose to dedicate his whole life to serving people. He took all of his inheritance, and would give it away. He gave food to people who were hungry, he helped people who were in jail and wrongly accused, he would give presents to people (not through there chimney though), and he would just give his money away to those who were needy. What's amazing though is that he did most of it anonymously, all for the glory of God.

Basically, serving is something we ought to be doing. Jesus did it when He washed the feet of His disciples, He did it all the time. It's just something we should do because it's what's right.

Hope you all have a good and safe holiday season. Remember, the season is supposed to be about Jesus and serving others. 

Hello all, bringing you the Thursday update.

This week Whitney Dellinger spoke, and her topic was " The real recession." 

What she was speaking about was how we here in America think that we are in a recession, but the real issue is how people in other countries are starving, or going thirsty, or being stolen and put into militias, and how it's not right how we as Americans just sit around and let it happen. Here are some facts she gave us.

-At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

-More than 800 million people around the world go hungry each day.

-The United NAtions Development Program estimates that the basic health and nutrition needs of the world's poorest people could be met for an additional $13 billion a year. Animal lovers in the U.S. spend more than that each year on pet food.

-Only 8% of the world own a car.

-Each year more than 5 million people die from a water-related disease.

-84% of water-related deaths are in children ages 0 to 14.

-The average American family uses 100-176 gallons of water daily. The average African family uses 5 gallons.

What she was trying to say was that we here in America are blessed, and as Christians, and just as human beings, should try and help out the least of these. There are a lot of organizations out there, from Habitat for Humanity to the Wherehouse, Compassion Internatrional to World Vision. It may seem like there are too many out there to just pick one, but that's all you  have to do. Just pick one and start helping out someone less fortunate than yourself. 

New Thing

Hello all you out there. 

We here at Connect Downtown are going to be starting a new thing. Say you miss a thursday night, but you want to know what is going on and what the speaker of the night talked about. Well, you are in luck. We are going to post the announcement videos from each thursday, and also a small review of what the speaker talked about.

We're going to do this for those of you who may have other obligations on a Thursday or if you happen to miss a service, or if you were here and would just like to have a review. So, if all goes well we will start doing that this week. 

Thanks guys, see you this Thursday.