VBS 2009 - Were you there?

See the fun we had

For more photos, click here:

VBS Photos 2009

Our church webpage is created and maintained by a group of volunteers at Pacific Church.  We are excited that our slightly-geeky gifts can be used by God to serve His kingdom and bring people closer to him.  Please join me in thanking the people who make this webpage possible:

Adrienne, Lisa, Mike and Allen

Allen W: Allen converts every Sunday-morning sermon recording to a high-quality mp3 file and posts it to his own server for us to use.  Allen catches errors in the web page code that appear in every browser other than mine, and helps me fix them.

Mike H: Mike tracks down the sermon powerpoint and sermon outline each week from Pastor Seth.  He uploads the powerpoint to Slideshare so it can be watched online, and he embeds the mp3, Slideshare, and outline into a new post.  This allows visitors and attenders to listen to the sermons and watch the slides online, download the sermons to listen to later, or even subscribe to our podcast.

Lisa S: Lisa is in charge of the church calendar.  She tracks down information from the church office, various ministries and small groups, and the youth group.  She adds these into the Google calendar that appears on the front page so that everyone stays up to date.  She is also digitizing several worksheets that Pastor Seth has developed for personal discipleship, and is placing them online for other leaders to use.

As the “webmaster,” I keep Wordpress and its plugins chugging along, and make sure that ministry leaders throughout the church know how to post updates for their own ministries.  These volunteers make my job easy, and I am thankful for all of them.

Pacific’s Heart to Heart ministries presents our ladies’ luncheon on Saturday, May 2nd. We are gathering at 12:30pm for a time of fellowship and encouragement.

Our speaker is Debbie Hall

a PCI alumnus and fabulous speaker on life and our journey towards God. Tickets are sold out - if you have questions, please contact Janice using the “Talk to Us” form on the left.

Join us for a day trip to Door of Faith Orphanage in Baja.  We meet at the Church at 7am, and return late Saturday night.  During the day we play with the kids, make a pizza lunch, and just generally “hang out” - being in community with our extended family in Christ.  Laura and I are collecting donations, as usual.  We are asking for food, diapers, cleaning supplies and toys, not clothes this trip.  See the DOF list of essentials for ideas.  Contact us using the “talk to us” form on the left for more information.  Our quarterly trips are a great opportunity to serve God with your whole family, as kids are welcome.  Please join us!

Ladies!!  Are you feeling stressed?  Do things in your life seem overwhelming at times?  Do you need some time to relax and connect with God and other women?  How about joining us in beautiful Mission Bay for the

Women’s Retreat
Jan 30th-Feb 1st!

This year we’re staying at Bahia Resort, a nice family-owned hotel with plenty of amenities.  The guest speaker for the weekend will be Carolyn Teague.  If you haven’t heard Carolyn before, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with her spiritual wisdom and encouragement…all done with a touch of southern humor.

The cost is $180, which includes your room for 2 nights (double occupancy), all meals except Saturday dinner, a riverboat cruise, and a relaxing time away to connect with God and other women.  To register or for more information, see Donna or Mindy or use the “Talk to Us” form.

The Christmas season is drawing closer to an end!  As I write this, it is only 8 days until December 25th.  Kids find waiting for Christmas Day to be so hard.  But this year, a bigger focus on Advent has led me to think more about the wait itself.  Advent is waiting… for the celebration of Christ’s birth two thousand years ago, but also the waiting for Christ’s return and the glory of his kingdom rule fulfilled with us.

Thank you if you have joined us for our Advent of Giving this year at Pacific!  We have tried to focus on how we can give of ourselves in humble ways that put God first.  If you have not yet had the opportunity to:

1. Donate money to the church for Acres of Love
2. Drop off un-needed or mostly-used gift cards in the offering for the Salvation Army
3. Bring healthy canned goods for the Pacific Food Pantry

then we invite you to do so this last week of Advent.  For this last week, take an opportunity to serve a friend or neighbor with the generous love that God gives us.  We look forward to hearing about your service!

How has your Christmas season been going? Too much shopping? Too many invitations that you have to give and receive? We have been spending less time bustling and more time thinking at our house. Join us this Advent season by remembering that we can wait for good things to come to us.
If you have extra canned goods at your house, please bring them to church this Sunday. We are emptying our food pantry fast this winter, and we can use your help feeding the hungry. Judith asks for more peanut butter and ready-to-heat soup. And less cream-of-mushroom anything

For our second week of Advent, Pacific Church is raising money for the Salvation Army.  This organization does really good work providing food, rent and mortgage help, and clothing to the poor.  Their donations are down this year, just as their need has increased 40%.  Please do what you can to help by looking through your junk drawer, glove box and wallet for unneeded or partially used gift cards.  We will collect them on Sunday, and using this online service donate the proceeds of each to the Salvation Army.

We are also still collecting funds to provide care packages to our Acres of Love children and to our church family members Joel and Diana, serving overseas.