This Week at The Place - Merry Christmas

Our prayer ministry meets every Sabbath morning at 10:00 a.m. to pray for the various ministries taking place that morning. If you are interested and can make it to the meeting, please join us; or you can pray for us from wherever you may be at 10:00 a.m. We love and appreciate any and all prayers.

And, your tithes and offerings are always a blessing. We thank you for your faithfulness in giving. You can return your tithes and offerings at The Place or by clicking on the link below.

New Year's Eve Celebration

We invite everyone young and old to our annual New Year's Eve Celebration.  This year, Glenn and Karen Littell and family will be hosting us at their house, 2067 Shady Brook Dr., Thousand Oaks. The fun begins Saturday night, Dec. 31st at 6:00 p.m. til ??!  We will have worship and singing together; share in a potluck dinner and fellowship; and then later have games together as we bring in the new year.  We invite you to bring a dish to share (you can sign up this Sabbath to bring something) and a game you like to play and your holiday cheer!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! We would like to wish you and your family a blessed Christmas season as we celebrate the holidays with our family and friends. We pray God will bless you and your family with all the blessings of Heaven.

Our prayer ministry would like to pray for you! Do you have a request or praise that you would like to share with the team? If so, we invite you to stay after church and get prayed over or to pray over someone else.  If you would like to join our prayer ministry team, please contact Suzanne Aiken (the coordinator) for more information.  

Worship Conference

This year's West Coast Worship Conference, February 2-4, 2012 at the Adventist Media Center, is designed to help you maneuver through the maze of advances in social media, high tech gadgets, and shorter and shorter attention spans as you seek to connect God with those who come to worship.

Financial Update

If you are on CCB - our church community website, you already received the below...but, in you did not get this email...we wanted you to receive this message from Pastor Simon about our finances.

"You will NOT hear anything this year about church finances. We continue to be blessed by God and your faithful giving. Instead, I simply want to tell you that your GIFTS to The Place are being put to great use by God! During 2011, lives have been changed! We began a new women's ministry that has allowed many women to grow together in Jesus. Our men's ministry is sprouting wings...and men are sharing life together in Jesus...and on the football, soccer, volleyball, basketball courts! We launched a children's soccer ministry...as a way of inviting friends and neighbors to come and share life together. We revamped our junior high ministry and the 5-8th graders began an amazing DISCIPLESHIP journey as a part of a monthly group (outside Sabbath School!) We hired a new youth pastor, John and Melissa Lubke, who has had some amazing experiences in helping young people to grow in God. I have heard some amazing testimonies from some of these kids.
We launched a new collegiate ministry to reach out to this group of young people...and under the leadership of Natasha and Andrew Geigle (along with Pastor John), we have formed a community of young people in Jesus. At the same time, our young adult ministry under Randall's leadership has exploded...and now incudes 2 weekly small groups and weekly fellowship and outreach opportunities.
We have shared Jesus in some awesome outreach events this year - including our mission in Portugal to help build a health education center; participating in community action days, Christmas Shoppe, visits to the healthcare center and many other opportunities to physically touch the lives of people in our community.
Our small groups and adventure groups continue to touch the lives of individuals and families each week and our adventure groups are making friends and contacts with people in our community on a consistent basis. Our prayer ministry has had MIRACLES happen as a result of our prayers and lives and families revitalized!
We have shared in worship, outreach, baptisms, beach vespers, camping trips, Fall Fest, social events, Sabbath School and much much more! You have INVITED people to come and worship with us and become part of our community. Our membership in 2011 has just passed 350 members and growing. We are especially excited about the number of young families and children who are becoming part of our community and growing in Jesus. A few weeks ago on a 'normal' Sabbath, I counted over 80 children present for Sabbath School/worship. God is GREAT!
We have future plans for further reaching into our community, including ideas for a monthly cafe on Friday nights to bring in Christian bands; ideas for a cafe in our community and, of course, we continue to pray for God to open just the right doors for us to have our own church facility!
And, there is MORE to come...in 2012, we are going to focus on getting even MORE people involved in ministry. We are starting a new discipleship track to help new members get connected and involved and come to use their spiritual gifts in purposeful ministry. I will continue my class in teaching people how to give Bible studies. We will be starting a new class for parents.
We want everyone to have a part of doing what God has called us to do..to make disciples for Jesus...and to be creative in the way we reach our community! If YOU have IDEAS for how we can creatively impact our community and our world, The Place is the place to be...we want to help you change the world for Jesus.

So, when you give to The Place, I want to assure you, it is blessing our church family and MANY OTHERS! Families are growing in Jesus. Young people are being discipled. Our community is being impacted. You have selected an awesome group of leaders who are guiding our church on a Godly path. Your financial, spiritual, emotional and prayerful support are invaluable...and we are so GRATEFUL for them! (Btw, if you do want actual financial numbers, we are not hiding them! You may call me or our treasurers at any time...or come to our annual church business meeting in January to hear all the details.)

Finally, I invite you to commit to making God your priority in 2012. There are 2 ways we are going to focus on God this year. First, we will focus on understanding what it means to live as a child of God. And, second, we will concentrate on hearing the voice of God and speaking his words to others.
Have an awesomely blessed Christmas! "

Adventure/Small Groups 

We will be starting new adventure groups and small groups the week of January 7-14.  Are you interested in doing something creative to share your life and Jesus with others? If you have an idea for an adventure or small group, let's talk. Please contact Pastor John for more details. 

Youth

• Saturday December 31st 9:00pm to Midnight - New Year's Shin-Dig @ The Moon's Place!

Collegiates

• On Sabbath December 24th the everyone in Collegiate Bible Study is invited to join the Young Adult Sabbath School class lead by Randall Goulard as the Geigles will be out of town. Come and enjoy the fellowship and time in God's word!
• On Sabbath December 31st anyone ages 18-25ish is invited to come and join us for Sabbath Collegiate Bible Study at 10:30 am in the back left corner of the Sanctuary. This study is part of the series How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth, where we explore the different genres and themes found in Scripture. Come and add your voice to the conversation about how God's Word intersects with our lives as we look at Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes!

Young Adults

YOUNG ADULT MINISTRY UPCOMING EVENTS!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year to all of you. 2011 has been an amazing year with new young adults joining our family and new additions to our young adult parents. Congratulations to all the new moms and dads and welcome, welcome, welcome to all of you who have made The Place your home this year. We are BLESSED and God is good, looking forward to what He has in store for the New Year!
 

THE PLACE CHRISTMAS VESPERS THIS FRIDAY

This Friday at 6:30 pm at The Place we'll be starting our weekend of celebrating Christmas together. Come join us for music, communion and learn about the theological background to the 12 days of Christmas. It's a beautiful time each year to celebrate Christmas and our Savior as a church family.

SABBATH SCHOOL THIS WEEK

Come check out our YA sabbath school...We meet every Sabbath morning at 10:30 am in the bookstore at the back of the church. Randall will lead our study on the Christmas story from Matthew this week...come out and join us, expand your mind!!

NO FLAGBALL UNTIL AFTER THE NEW YEAR

We've been playing flag football every Sunday now for a couple of months and a great time is had by all. We WILL NOT be playing for the next couple of weeks...
we'll start again after the New Year. But if you'd like to be notified each week when we play please let Randall know so he can put you on our list. (707) 227-9845.

TUESDAY AND FRIDAY YOUNG ADULT SMALL GROUPS!!

Come be connected with each other through one of our young adult small groups. We have two going right now, one that meets on Fridays and one on Tuesdays.

Friday night is hosted by Brent and Simone Buttler (909) 528-3883, and meets at 7 pm in Simi Valley and the other meets every Tuesday at various locations in Newbury Park/Thousand Oaks...Contact Randall Goulard if you'd like to be a part of this one (707) 227-9845. It's a great way to be connected with other people who are seeking to know God and to love each other!

DO YOU WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN THE NEW YEAR!!??

As we start the new year we'll be looking for young adults that want to use their spiritual gifts for ministry. Looking for people to host social events, to lead service and outreach activities and to be praying for our young adults. There is always an opportunity to be involved so please pray and think about how God is leading you to bless others. Let Randall know if you have a burden to serve in a particular way.

FB IS STILL UPDATED WEEKLY

To keep up with the most recent things going on in our Young Adult group at The Place please join us on facebook where we update everything weekly...just search for THE PLACE YOUNG ADULT MINISTRIES.