The Café

Can you imagine Christmas without Christmas lights adorning all of the houses One of the “highlights” in the bay area is a house just down the street from my house in Livermore.  This guy they call “Deacon Dave” spares no expense to decorate his house (inside and out), his yard and even his driveway.  The total wattage required to light up his residence has got to be enough to put a drain on all the surrounding power stations.  And believe me, it gets people’s attention:  Cars line up for miles just to catch glimpse of this house glowing as though it has just gone nuclear.  The contrast between the dark December skies and this radiant nightly spectacle is great.  We hope you will join us this Sunday at 10:45AM where we will draw a even GREATER contrast between a dark and hopeless world and the stunning Christmas Light God sent to save us. (Check out John 1:4, 18)

When you hear someone talk about the first family, who do you think of? Most people would answer “Adam and Eve”.  Others may say Barak, Michelle and their two daughters.  In reality, the ultimate first family was made up of the three persons of the Trinity.  If someone were to visit Ancestry.com in an effort to trace the linage of Jesus, they may be able to trace it back to King David, or the great patriarch, Abraham or maybe even Adam and Eve.  But that doesn’t go back far enough.  If computers could scan as far back as eternity past they would find that God the Father and God the Son were always in relationship with each other.  We hope that you will join us at the Cafe’,  this Sunday at 10:45am.  We will explore the concept that Christmas may mark the beginnings of Jesus the man, but God had a plan long before that to find a way to include us in the ultimate family; the family of God.

Being thankful or at least saying “thank you” has become big business. Card companies, candy stories, holidays; they all want a piece of the “thank you” pie.  In our society where everyone has everything they ask for, before they can ask for it, and people agonize over what they could buy one another that they don’t already have. Saying “thanks” has often become more of a hassle than an expression of gratitude.  In many cases we not only purchase cards, so that we don’t really have to think about it, but we get someone else to sign and mail them if we can get away with it. But in the process we may only be cheating ourselves.  Join us this Sunday morning where we discover how to say thank you and mean it.  Why? Because there is no one as rich as the person with a full heart.  A heart full of gratitude both to God and to others.

Have you ever signed up to learn from the masters? Whether it’s to improve your golf game, your GPA, or your computer skills; it always helps to have an expert in your corner.  This Sunday we will be learning from the Master Teacher about being at the top of your game when it comes to living your life. Join us at 10:45

Last week at the cafe we were challenged to raise our people awareness; to notice the people whose paths we cross every day.  This week we take that awareness to a whole new level.  Not only can we see our routine activities with a new awareness of who we may be crossing paths with, but in this week’s cafe we will come to see everyday “happenstances” as opportunities, divine appointments if you will.  Wow, maybe our lives have a bigger purpose than just getting through them.  Maybe, just maybe, if you show up at the cafe this weekend, that one short 75 minute stretch, between 10:45 and noon will become, for you, a portal into a whole new way of approaching life!

Have you ever started out driving somewhere and then, suddenly, without warning, you find that you have arrived at your destination.  It’s a little scary isn’t it? All the stop signs, all the traffic and especially all  the pedestrians that you must have passed but never noticed!  For many of us, we travel through our lives that same way.  We live in such a routine we often interact with the same people day after day but never really notice who they are or what their lives are about. For the next four weeks we are going to be challenged to stop sleep-walking our way through life.  We will be asked to see every exchange we make with other people, or even every exchange we have the opportunity to make as a divine appointment.  No more hazy, blurred days where everyone and everything runs together like so much ink on a page. Like Jason Bourne, we will become fine-tuned machines, noticing everyone and acting on our intuition as though we are wearing an earpiece and we have a direct line from God and are following his  whispered promptings to a tee.  Why? Because, that my friends, is reality!

Are you tired of striving when it comes to your walk with God? Wouldn’t you rather be thriving? You can be but you’ve got to GET CONNECTED. Come find out how connecting to God and his church is how the spiritual growth walk both begins and continues as we look at Ephesians 4:1-8.

Are you “playing church”? Making an appearance may be the thing to do when it comes to movie stars and celebrities; but CHURCH isn’t about making an appearance or making an impression. It is about GETTING REAL. And getting real means GETTING CONNECTED. Find out more this Sunday as we look at Ephesians 4:1