Last year, you built a water well in Peru through your Christmas Offering. Check out what Shannon from Living Water International had to say about what God did through you:

“Your water project is complete in Peru! Praise God! You have served an entire community of 140 with clean, safe water in Jesus’ name. It is unbelievable to look at the previous water source – from the polluted river. These people were in desperate need! Thank you for your partnership in serving the thirsty.”

This was so successful that we are led to do it again this year for another village. When we give the gift of water, we’re giving life, health, and a tangible expression of God’s love as well as offering them eternal life through Jesus Christ!

Other receipts from this year’s Presence offering will be invested in positioning The Connection Church to continue shining out the light to Central Texas in 2012.

Will you join me in praying to ask God what He would have you give “over and above” this year? We can’t all give the same amount, but we can all do something. In my family, we give our most expensive Christmas gift to the birthday boy, Jesus, through His church. If you choose to give online, you can click right here. Or, you can bring it to The Connection Church this month.

I thank God for using us to save lives through The Connection Church. I can’t wait to see what God will do as we give back to Him because of all He’s given to us this year!

Related posts:

1. Giving Away My Birthday For Water

With growth comes some growing pains, and one of those is balancing our 2 Sunday morning services at 9:30 & 11. This past Sunday, there were 40% more people in the second service than the first. So, while we were packed out at 11, there were plenty of seats open at 9:30.

So I’m asking those of you who call The Connection Church your home to make what we call a “missionary move” to the early service.  This will help balance the services and provide someone with a much-needed chair. It will also help us stave off our inevitable jump to 3 services for a while longer.

So for clarity, if you’ve been attending the 2^nd service, would you please adjust your schedule to attend the 1^st service? You can always stick around and serve during the second hour if you’d like.

When you get there early, the donuts and coffee are fresher. See you this Sunday morning at 9:30!

* By the way, I can’t wait for the day when we get our own chairs, and enough of them, to go along with our new location. And of course, those will come as we give toward our vision of seeing our county changed one life at a time!

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God is at work through us. On Thanksgiving weekend, a Sunday that’s usually one of the lowest attended Sunday’s of the year, we actually were up by 50 people from the previous week! And still, we saw so many new faces!

NEW SERIES STARTS THIS WEEK

This week, we’re kicking off a new series called When Love Comes To Town. Yes, it’s a great U2 song (and our band will be serving up some nice music by one of the greatest bands in history), but it’s really about when God’s Love entered the world in the most humble way to an obscure village and the change that He brought to the world. This is going to be a great week to invite your family and friends to experience a better Christmas than ever before.

CONNECTION CHRISTMAS SERVICES

We want to bring God’s Love to our world in some very specific ways, including what’s become a Hays County tradition: Connection Christmas services, happening on 2 nights this year! Just like our other BIG events, it’s going to take us stepping up as a church to serve at one of the services (and attending a different service). We’ve heard so many times that people are more open to the Gospel at Christmas than at any other time of the year. Let’s leverage that for God’s Kingdom by pulling out all the stops for these services! You can get your FREE tickets here. The tickets each represent a seat, so get all that you need and only what you’re going to use. Children Pre-K and under don’t need a ticket for FREE childcare.

NO SERVICES ON THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS

Also, we won’t be having services on December 26th, the Sunday after Christmas, as a way to say “Thanks!” to our staff and volunteers for working so hard the week before Christmas and all through the year so they can travel, unplug, and be with their families. Not to mention, it will give us a running start for the incredible year that is in front of us.

CHRISTMAS OFFERING TO GIVE THE GIFT OF WATER

This week, we’re also kicking off our annual Presence Offering. I’m really pumped about giving to provide a well with safe, clean water for a town full of people. Literally, we’ll be saving lives this year. The rest of the offering will go to further the work we’re doing here locally through TCC. The Birthday Boy deserves our best gift because He is the best Gift ever given! You can give right here or bring your offering with you to worship.

There’s more that we’re doing too. The Buda Trail of Lights with a live nativity, the Angel Tree, and more, so keep watching for more details. Are you ready? Let’s do this!!!

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At Christmas, we celebrate the greatest gift of all: God so loved the world that He GAVE His only Son! We want to help you keep Christ at the center of your Christmas celebration. When we give gifts this year, let’s prayerfully consider what we’ll offer the birthday boy Himself, Jesus Christ. He deserves our greatest gift!

That’s why we’re having our annual Christmas Presence Offering. God has called us to be His hands and feet both here and around the world.

This year’s offering will be used to build a well for clean, safe drinking water to those in a poverty-stricken country through Living Water International. When we give the gift of a well, we’re giving life, health, and a tangible expression of God’s love to a village of over 250 people!

Other receipts from this year’s offering will be invested in positioning The Connection Church to continue shining out the light to Central Texas in 2011.

Here’s what we’re asking everyone to do:

• Pray and ask God what He would have you give “over and above” your regular tithes and offerings. We can’t all give the same amount, but we can all do something.

• Bring your “over and above” offerings with you during the month of December as we celebrate His blessings or give online here.

I thank God for using us to save lives through The Connection Church. I can’t wait to see what God will do as we give back to Him because of all He’s given to us this year!

Related posts:

1. Giving Away My Birthday For Water

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Let’s see if you can guess:

Yes, the answer of course is “3″! At 9, 10:15, and 11:30. With a 15 minute passing period in-between.

And we’re going to continue offering these 3 service times throughout the “CHAINged” series for 5 weeks. Then, our prayer is that we’ll be ready to move into the new building on Mother’s Day and move back to 2 services.

Why 3 services when we’re so close to moving locations? Well, when you get down to it, that’s the reason! It would be easy to just coast until we make the move. But now is not the time to slack up or be comfortable. We have to make room for the people who will be coming for Easter and as a result of our connections through The Big Hunt. Our setup time will still be at 7am, we’ll just need all hands on deck to hustle to create the TCC environment.

You can commit to come to the early service (9am) so we’ll have the seats available during the prime times of 10:30 and 11:15. You can even stick around for one or both of the other times to serve.

So how many services? Bottom line: We’ll have as many services as it takes to see Hays County changed one life at a time!

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Just to bring you up to speed, it’s 18,000 square feet of space in an industrial-type facility right between Kyle and Buda just off of I35. One of the craziest things about this site is that it used to be the home of a huge indoor shrimp farm. But we’re done thinking shrimpy. This is going to be the BIG home of a place that will facilitate changed lives starting first in our county and extending through this region between Austin and San Antonio.

Some of the initial work is being done by sub-contractors in our church family. But soon, we’ll have tons of volunteer work that needs to be done. But just imagine with me how incredible it’s going to be when we’re able to meet there anytime for any need, from a home-base for ministries to the community, to our kids and student ministries, our deaf ministry that is exploding, and more!

One of our goals is to be able to meet at the new location for our Easter services this year, but due to delays at the start, this is going to be a hard goal to meet. So please pray with me that this is going to be possible. It’s also going to take big money and plenty of sweat equity. The dollars that a step this big takes are staggering. I have total faith that God is going to provide everything we need through each of us who believe in the vision of TCC. TCC is a dream born in God’s heart that we get to be a part of for His Glory! So hang onto your seats, folks, and get ready for the ride of your life!

Here are a few pics of some of the first steps at the new building:

Digging the plumbing trench

Prepping the Ceiling

Fueling up the Wet Saw

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• We saw 101 people make first time decisions to trust and follow Jesus!
• We baptized 48 people (211 people since 2004)!
• We served over 7,000 people from our county through our community events like The Big Hunt, Mega-Sports Camp, Trunk or Treat, and Connection Christmas Eve’s Eve!
• We prepared and delivered 825 Lunches of Love to hungry children in our community!
• We sent 20 people on a mission trip to the interior of Belize with the PALMS Puppet Team and saw 100′s make decisions to follow Jesus!
• We commissioned Zak, Amber & Couper White and their team to plant Revolution Church in the Schertz/Selma/Cibolo area to start a spiritual revolution!
• The many volunteers who put in countless hours to create the best opportunity for people to connect with God, others, and others with God!

As we begin 2010, I’m more excited about our future than ever before! We’re already beginning work on building out our new location on FM-967 between Buda and Kyle to position us to fulfill our vision to see Hays County changed one life at a time. Greater Things are still to come!

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TCC's First Celebration at Hemphill

Sunday was a great day of victory with our first day at our new temporary location. There was a great “feel” with many new faces. The vibe was a return to the days when we used to meet at Tobias. So I want to give you the top 10 reasons we like being at Hemphill for now:

10) It gets us Lean, Mean, and Back to Basics. We get to remember that we’re not about buildings.  At the core, we’re all about seeing lives changed. TCC has never been about all the bells and whistles. We’re flexible and can adapt to whatever environment we’re in. We’re going to see more growth while we’re at Hemphill.
9) The Bathrooms are “Fun-Sized.” Only in an elementary school can you relive your early years of school with miniature toilets.
There’s more Freedom and Less Rush. Now, we’ve got more time to connect with each other in a relaxed atmosphere, something that TCC has always been about. This move helps us do what we do best.
7) Indoor Baptism! We can move into the warm school for baptism instead of being outside in the freezing cold. Sign up for our next baptism on January 31st.
6) Serve a Service, Attend a Service. Moving to a smaller meeting space gets us back where everyone can serve every week and still get to be a part of worship. Are you plugged into a ministry team?
5) Interactive Sermons. Yes, occasionally I accidentally spit when I’m speaking. When we are this close, everyone can personally get involved in the message.
4) Saving Money. Because it’s not as expensive to rent the school, we’re able to save the difference to invest in our soon-to-be location. Give online here.
3) No More Rattlesnakes. By the time we left the PAC, there had been over 30 rattlesnakes found since the start of school this year. We even found one in Volunteer Central.
2) A Missionary Move for our Future. AT TCC, we do Whatever It Takes to fulfill God’s vision. It’s never about our comfort. It prepares us for our future, but while we’re there, we want to reach as many people in the surrounding area as possible.

And the number 1 reason we’re glad to be at Hemphill for now is:

1) Coffee and Donuts in the Service. Yes, now you can stay hyped up on caffeine and sugar during the Celebration Service!

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Here are just a few of them:

· 43 new Christ-followers were baptized!

· Since September, our Sunday attendance has averaged 520 people, which is a 28% increase over last year!

· At the end of April, we moved our services to the Hays Performing Arts Center which substantially increased our parking and seating! Not to mention the big win from a production/tech standpoint.

· We grew our gifted staff by adding several needed positions!

o Nic Burleson as our Family Pastor

o Melanie Barnes as our Ministry Assistant

o Micah Petrea as our Worship Coordinator

o Raul Vela as our Children’s Pastor

o Jennifer Martinez as our Nursery Coordinator

o Bryan Geiger as our Ministries Coordinator

o Andy Rhoades as our Groups Coordinator

· The Big Hunt, MegaSports Camp, and Trunk or Treat set new records as we had 1000s of people from our community participate and make the Connection!

· 900 people from our community attended A Rockin’ Christmas Eve’s Eve!

· We started posting the weekly video of our Celebration Services at theconnectionchurch.tv thanks to Joe Barnes, effectively expanded the reach of our church around the world!

· The many volunteers that put in countless hours to make it all happen each week!

How did all of this happen? First, it’s because God is good and this is His church! Then, there’s no doubt that the commitment of the passionate people at The Connection Church who truly get it and give themselves and their resources to see God’s vision fulfilled.

We are at a crucial time in the life of our church. I know that God has even bigger plans for us in 2009! And I can’t wait to see what happens next. Buckle up TCC, we’re going to an HNL (Whole Notha’ Level)!!!

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