Summer Schedule

This week we will begin our summer worship schedule. We will have one service each Sunday at 10:00 AM.

Please keep these other ministry and fellowship opportunities in mind as you plan your Sunday.

The Berean Senior Adult Small Group will meet every Sunday at 9:00 AM.
If you are over 55 and would like to be in a small group Bible study this group may be for you.
Please contact Bob Tripp (rtripp7992@aol.com) or Tom Nichols (nichols10@verizon.net) for more information.

There will be a Prayer Meeting every Sunday at 9:00 AM in the Library/Conference Room. Please contact Richard Guerrero (Richard.Guerrero@imb.com) for more information.

The coffee shop will be open at 9:30 AM each Sunday.
Please come a bit early and have a cup of coffee, a bagel, or the beverage or snack of your choice.
It will be a great opportunity to meet new people and hang out with the church family.
If you bring a first time guest, make sure that you pick up a gift bag for them so they can use their free beverage card in the coffee shop.

And…beginning this Sunday there will be a new check-in procedure for your children.
Your child will be given a name tag and you will be given a claim check.
When you pick up your child your claim check must match your child’s name tag.

If your child is in Studio Green(Nursery) or Studio Blue (2 – 4 years old) you will drop them off at their Studio and they will get their name tag and you will get your claim check.

If your child is in Studio Orange, Red, or Black, they will receive their name tag and you will receive your claim check as you arrive.

Jennifer Villaryo will be there to assist you.

Beginning this Sunday and continuing each Sunday we are going to try something different with our elementary age children.
Children in Studio Orange, Red, and Black will now be in the Worship Center for the opening worship time at 10:00 AM.
They will sit with their parents during the singing and Communion and then they will be dismissed with their Studio Leaders to their studio for their game, craft, and lesson time.
This will offer a wonderful opportunity for you to worship as a family and to share in singing and Communion with your child.

You will pick up your child from the studio at the end of the service.

Choices

Life is about choices. At the end of the day our life is comprised of the sum total of our choices.
Success in life depends upon our desire to and our ability to align our choices with God and His Word.

In our series called Running On Empty we are talking about the pace of our lives and the fuel that is necessary to sustain the pace of our lives.

This Sunday we are going to talk about choices and the role that they play in the pace of our lives.
We don’t have the time, energy, or stamina to do it all.
We must choose.
It is my prayer that we will choose better.

Next Step With Purpose

You are to be commended on your response to our guests this past Sunday. You sent the Powell’s to Viet Nam with an $1,100.00 love offering!! That is fantastic and so I say, “Yea God!! Yea Venice!!” You have done well and should be proud of yourselves. I think that it is safe to say, based on the offering, that the Powell’s were a blessing to you. I am thankful for that as well. They were a real blessing to me.

Here is a very special announcement.
We are going to move to a Summer Worship Schedule beginning on Sunday May 4^th. We will have One Service @ 10:00 AM each Sunday from May through September. This will be a wonderful opportunity for our church family to worship together. The coffee bar will be open at 9:30 AM and I encourage you to come early for coffee, tea, breakfast and fellowship. The worship center will be a little more crowded so you will want to get here early to get “your seat”. With the new schedule we will have Prayer Meeting every Sunday morning at 9:00 AM in the conference room.

Now, let me encourage you with this. You are going to continue to hear about Next Step and so let me help us stay focused on what it is that we hope to see accomplished through Next Step. Venice Church is here to build a family of fully devoted followers of Christ that bring glory to God. To accomplish this mission we focus on God’s five purposes. God’s desire and purpose for us is that we would worship Him with every aspect of our lives, that we would be committed to this church family, that we would grow to be like Christ, that we would serve others in ministry, and that we would share the Good News of Jesus Christ with our friends, loved ones, and acquaintances that are far from God. So, when we talk about taking our Next Step we are talking about stepping out in faith to see if we can deepen our resolve to live out one of these purposes.

Let me give you an example of how this may look. Many of you, on Next Step Sunday, declared that your Next Step was to read and study the Bible more consistently or to kick up your prayer life a bit. I hope that you are doing well in sustaining your commitment. The goal of those commitments is to deepen your fellowship with God and strengthen your walk with Christ. In the fulfillment of that commitment you will grow to be more like Christ, you will be better equipped for ministry, you will be better prepared to share the Good News, your intimacy with God’s family will intensify and you will be more fervent in your worship of God.

So, take your Next Step and continue to worship, grow, serve, fellowship, and share your faith. You will be a strong follower of Christ and as we grow and are strengthened our church family grows and is strengthened. At the end of the day we will have reached our goal of loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and body and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Still Learning

Amy, Jennifer Villaryo and I spent Monday and Tuesday in Clovis with Pastor Otis Ledbetter and his staff at Sonrise Church. We had a wonderful time of fellowship with other pastors, children’s pastors, and their wives. We were given the opportunity to learn about other children’s ministries and we came home with some good ideas that may work for us here at Venice. It is always encouraging to see God working in other churches in other places and to see what is possible with God’s help.

We have come through the Easter season and Spring Breaks are coming to an end and we are looking forward to what God will do through the rest of this spring. Let me encourage you to be faithful to our worship services, your small group and your ministry. If you need to find a small group, please contact me and I will help you find one. And…if you still have not found a place of ministry, we can help you find that as well.

And…let me encourage you to invite a seeking person to a service. The best way to spread the good news and get the word out about Venice Church is word of mouth.

I look forward to seeing you Sunday. Our special guests will be Henry & Sandie Powell. I know that you will want to hear what God is doing through them in Southeast Asia.

Baptism

As you will note below there is a lot going on here at Venice and so I encourage you to get involved and stay involved. We will be baptizing in the Worship Center on Sunday just before the second service. If you are a first service attendee grab a cup of coffee after the service and then hang around for the baptism at 10:40 AM. If you are a second service attendee come a bit early for a cup of coffee and then head into the Worship Center for the baptism and the service to follow. It is always a blessing to celebrate with those being baptized.