Christmas

Advent 2023

SERMONS | ADVENT GUIDE | ADVENT PROJECTS

"Advent" means "arrival." And since the early church, God's people have celebrated the arrival of Jesus' birth during this time of year. As we remember his first arrival, we also look ahead to Jesus' promised second arrival - when He will return and make all things new. So, each week, we'll look at different aspects of Christ's coming and how that should shape how we think, feel, and react to the Christmas season.

To help facilitate LifeGroup discussion, we'll be posting resources for each week of the series.

Week 1: Hope

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: Peace

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: Joy

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 4: Love

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

To help us prepare our hearts for the Christmas season, we wrote an Advent devotional guide for you and your LifeGroup to work through during this season. The suggested donation is $8 per copy.

One of our goals as a church family is to be generous people. So every year around the holidays, we press into generosity to think about God’s generosity to us and to talk about how we can grow in walking in the kind of generous love He’s shown to us. 

This year, we are focusing on three practical ways to grow in generosity:

#1. Start tithing

We consider tithing a spiritual practice that helps develop a lifestyle of sacrificial generosity. We are encouraging members of our church to set up a recurring tithe because the gospel transforms us not just to be generous around the holidays but throughout the entire year. It’s also specifically how we fund and fuel all we do as a church in our city.

#2. Personal Finance Seminar

We want to equip our church family to be spiritually healthy by stewarding the financial resources God has entrusted us. On January 27 from 9am-12pm at our Downtown church, we’re hosting a practical training class to manage your finances, pay off debt, invest well, and practice biblical generosity.

#3. Give to Serve the City 

Serve the City is our initiative as a church family to partner with local organizations serving the most vulnerable people in our city. This year, we want to fund the various Serve the City events we do throughout the year to serve these organizations and the people they work with. These funds will also go towards our Serve the City Weekend on March 16, 2024. We partner with the following local organizations:

  • Transitions

  • Home Works for America

  • The Ezekiel Center

  • Epworth Children's Home

  • Daybreak

  • Salvation Army

Advent 2022 | The Songs of Christmas

SERMONS | ADVENT GUIDE | ADVENT PROJECTS

Since the early church, God’s people have celebrated the Christmas season every year through giving and singing about the birth of Jesus. This year for Advent, we’re looking at the four “songs” about Jesus’ birth found in Luke 1-2, and how those songs point to the good news Jesus offers us.

To help facilitate LifeGroup discussion, we'll be posting resources for each week of the series.

Week 1: The Song of Mary

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: The Song of Zechariah

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: The Song of Angels

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 4: The Song of Simeon

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

To help us prepare our hearts for the Christmas season, we wrote a brand new five-week-long Advent devotional guide for you and your LifeGroup to work through during this season. The suggested donation is $5 per copy.

One of our goals as a church family is to be generous people. So every year around the holidays, we press into generosity; to think about God’s generosity to us and to talk about how we can grow in walking in the kind of generous love He’s shown to us. 

This year we are focusing on three practical ways to grow in generosity:

#1. Start tithing

We consider tithing a spiritual practice that helps develop a lifestyle of sacrificial generosity. We are encouraging members of our church to set up a recurring tithe because the gospel transforms us not just to be generous around the holidays but throughout the entire year. It’s also specifically how we fund and fuel all we do as a church in our city.

#2. Personal Finance Seminar

We want to equip our church family to be spiritually healthy by stewarding the financial resources that God has entrusted us. On January 28 from 9 am-12 pm at our Downtown church, we’re hosting a class that consists of practical training to manage your finances, pay off debt, invest well, and practice biblical generosity.

#3. Give to Serve the City 

Serve the City is our initiative as a church family to partner with local organizations serving the most vulnerable people in our city. This year we want to fund the various Serve the City events we do throughout the year to ongoingly serve these organizations and the people they work with. These funds will also go towards our Serve the City Weekend on March 3-5, 2023. We partner with the following local organizations:

  • Children’s Hospital

  • Transitions

  • Home Works for America

  • The Ezekiel Center

  • DSS

  • Epworth Children's Home

  • Daybreak

Advent 2021

SERMONS | THE BOOK

Since the early church, God’s people have celebrated the Christmas season every year through celebrating, giving, and singing about the birth of Jesus. But how often do we actually notice the words we’re singing? This year for Advent, we’re taking a look at some of the most popular songs during the holiday season and how they point to the ultimate hope this world’s needs: the good news of Jesus.

To help facilitate LifeGroup discussion, we'll be posting resources for each week of the series.

Week 1: O Come, O Come Immanuel

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: Silent Night

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 4: Joy to the World

(Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

To help us grow in our understanding of God’s goodness, we decided to write a book for this series. You can download the digital version here and donate to our book fund if you want to support the cost of this book.

|giv| 2020

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For most of the Bible, God’s people were seen as an exiled people. Life was far from how they imagined or hoped, as they were constantly reminded of the brokenness and sin around them. And yet, amidst their exile, God reminded them that good news was on the way.

This year has been far from how anyone of us would have imagined or hoped either. We’re reminded in the headlines and in our daily lives that we are still a people in exile. So during this Christmas season, we want to once again remember that good news has come through Jesus, and one day He is coming back.

So every year, we take 3-4 weeks to intentionally focus on our hope in Jesus through growing in generosity. We take this time to think about how God has given us undeserved grace while we were still sinners and continues to grow us as his people.

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Listen to sermons & download LifeGroup resources.

Week 1: Jesus, God With Us - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: Jesus, Our Shepherd King - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: Jesus, Our Comforter - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 4: Jesus, God's Love - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

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What are we praying & hoping to see God do in the midst of this series?

Our |giv| initiatives are practical ways for our church family to grow in service and generosity this year.

1. Sign up to Tithe

We want our first step of ongoing generosity to be towards the mission of our church. We are encouraging our church family to set up a recurring tithe because the gospel transforms us not just to be generous around the holidays, but throughout the entire year.


2. Attend the Personal Finance Class

We want to equip our church family to be spiritually healthy by stewarding the financial resources that God has entrusted to us. On Sunday, January 24, January 31, and February 7, we’re hosting a class that consists of practical training to manage your finances, pay off debt, invest well, and practice biblical generosity. The class will be hosted virtually from 2:00-3:30pm.


3. LifeGroups partner with a Serve the City Organization

Due to the pandemic we’re postponing our annual Serve the City Weekend to a later date; however, we want every LifeGroup to select a Serve the City organization to partner with over the next year to serve.


4. Give to Homeless No More

Homeless No More is a nonprofit organization that believes family homelessness is entirely solvable. They provide a continuum of care – from emergency services to transitional and affordable housing – that keeps each family together and meets their needs at the right time with the right services. By providing the support to move each family toward a permanent, self-sufficient solution, they continue their work to eradicate family homelessness and help parents and their children achieve lasting independence.

Because of the invaluable services they provide to our neighbors along the Two Notch corridor, we are excited about partnering with them to help meet the needs of some of the children they serve. We are asking each of our LifeGroups to come together to "Adopt & Shop" for clothes to help make sure each child has clothes that fit them this Christmas. Please see your LG Leader for more information about what is needed for the child your LG is adopting.
These items can be dropped off at the December Family Parade on Dec 5th, or at one of our Sunday Worship Services on Nov 29th, Dec 6th, or Dec 13th.

In addition to sponsoring children, we encourage you to give towards helping us reach our goal of raising and donating $2,000 to Homeless No More to further enable them to meet needs in our community.

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To help us prepare our hearts for the Christmas season, we wrote a brand new five-week-long Advent devotional guide for you and your LifeGroup to work through during this season. Iif you haven’t received a hard copy yet, you can pick up a copy at any of our on-campus events. The guides are first come first serve and the suggested donation is $6 per copy.

|giv| 2019

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Every year, we take 3-4 weeks to intentionally focus on growing in generosity. We take this time to think about how God has given us undeserved grace while we were still sinners and continues to grow us as his people. We like to call it our |giv| series.

During the series, we will walk through the first two chapters of Matthew to prepare our hearts to celebrate God’s greatest gift to the world: Jesus. As Christians, because it’s far too easy to just get caught up in everything else so we want to make sure that we approach this season thoughtfully. Each week, we’ll look at different aspects of Christ's coming that ought to shape the way we think, feel and react to the Christmas season.

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LISTEN TO SERMONS & DOWNLOAD Resources

Week 1: Jesus’ Resume - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: Jesus’ Mission - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: Jesus’ Kingdom - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

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1. Start Tithing

We want our first step of ongoing generosity to be towards the mission of our church. By financially supporting our church together, we set ourselves up for a stable and sustainable ministry for years to come. We are encouraging our family to set up a recurring tithe because the gospel transforms us not just to be generous around the holidays, but during all seasons of our lives.

2. SIGN UP FOR SERVE THE CITY WEEKEND

The gospel transforms us to be generous with not only our finances, but our time and energy as well. We are coming together to serve our seven partner organizations and their clients at Serve the City Weekend from January 18-20, 2020.

3. RAISE $22,000 FOR OUR SERVE THE CITY PARTNERS

We want to fund Serve the City events throughout the next year and continue to do things like feeding Epworth students each Wednesday night at Student Groups.

4. Attend the Personal Finance Class

We want to equip our church family to be spiritually healthy by stewarding the financial resources that God has entrusted to us. On Sunday, January 26, February 2, and February 9 from 9:00am - 11:00am at our Downtown church, we’re hosting a class that consists of practical training to manage your finances, pay off debt, invest well, and practice biblical generosity.

|giv| 2018

GIV_Web.jpg

Every year, we take 3-4 weeks to intentionally focus on growing in generosity. We take this time to think about how God has given us undeserved grace while we were still sinners and continues to grow us as his people. We like to call it our |giv| series.

Projects.jpg

1. Start Tithing

We want our first step of ongoing generosity to be towards the mission of our church. By financially supporting our church together, we set ourselves up for a stable and sustainable ministry for years to come.  We are encouraging our family to set up a recurring tithe because the gospel transforms us not just to be generous around the holidays, but during all seasons of our lives.

2. SIGN UP FOR SERVE THE CITY WEEKEND

The gospel transforms us to be generous with not only our finances, but our time and energy as well. We are coming together to serve our six partner organizations and their clients at Serve the City Weekend from January 18-21, 2019.

3. RAISE $21,000 FOR OUR SERVE THE CITY PARTNERS

We want to fund Serve the City events throughout the next year and continue to do things like feeding Epworth students each Wednesday night at Student Groups.

Stretch goal - Any money we raise beyond the $21,000 will be put towards renovating and installing a full kitchen in our unused building on Barnwell St. beside our office. This will allow us to serve meals as part of our ministry to the homeless, use the facility to save money on food cost for future events, and utilize the building as an event rental space.

4. Attend the Personal Finance Seminar

We want to equip our church family to be spiritually healthy by stewarding the financial resources that God has entrusted to us. On Saturday, January 26 from 9:00am-3:00pm at our Downtown church, we’re hosting a seminar that consist of practical training to manage your finances, pay off debt, invest well, and practice biblical generosity.

Sermons.jpg

LISTEN TO SERMONS & DOWNLOAD Resources

Week 1: Mercy - Its Source & Motive - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: Grace Givers - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: A Test of Genuine Faith - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

3545 Raven Hill Road

Columbia, SC