West Alabama Food Bank

At the bottom of the page there is some information on the trip to the food bank on Saturday, 9th October. In the comment section of this post, let me know if you will be participating with us. The times are from 7:00am to 11:00am, if you need to leave early that won't be a problem, hope to see you all there.

Thanks, Chris.

Family in need

Wes called me this morning with an opportunity for our class to help a family whose house had burned over the weekend. His school is collecting money but Wes would like to do items instead of money. We will let you know the ages of the kids and what specific items the family will be in need of as soon as we get the info. In the mean time be in prayer that God would allow us as a class to impact this family for the glory of Christ.

Gonna miss ya'll...

Hey ya'll...just wanted to let everyone know that Peyton has a form of hand, foot and mouth and we are not going to make it to church Sunday, which I HATE because I am LOVING the new ABS lesson and I look forward to it every week. Just keep Peyton (and mom too) in your prayers because it is very painful and there is absolutely NOTHING the doctors can give her to make it heal quicker so it just has to run it's course. I will be praying for a wonderful spirit-filled service and hopefully see ya'll soon!
Courtney

Epistle to Diognetus

Mark referred to this letter Wed. night during service, I thought I would share the link if anyone would like to read the letter. http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/344/Letter_to_Diognetus.html

This was written around 125AD, who ever wrote this, I believe, was truly on fire for Christ and the Word. When I read this I thought of Mark, how passionate he is for us to be in the Word, and to fall in love with Christ. I could see Mark writing a letter like this to someone, I hope someday soon someone could see me writing a letter like this.

UA Volleyball Game Friday Night

Alabama volleyball game - Cram the Cave night (first 500 people get a t-shirt)

Just wanted to invite everyone to come to the Alabama Volleyball Game Friday, Sept 24th at 7 pm. I think it is only $3 a person. They play in the Cave behind Coleman Coliseum. Hope to see you there!

Welcome New Couples

Just want to WELCOME Jeff and Leslie Ballard, Stephanie Hess and Chris Christenberry to our ABS class. Hope to see you all back Sunday.

If you weren't at church tonight you missed out, I would recommend listening to the pod cast on the church's website. Mark absolutely hit it tonight, I've missed the last several Wed. night services due to work but I'm glad I got feed tonight. I love Mark's passion for the Word and his passion for us as believers and followers of Christ. He challenged us to dive in to the Word of God and to live it, breath it, and fall in love with it, to invite people to come and witness the truth, the truth that Jesus Christ is alive and living in us and through us at Valley View. I'm fired up and look forward to what God is going to do through us. I pray that you will be all in for Christ and when you come to church you're expecting to have an encounter with God! What an exciting time to be at Valley View and to be involved in what God is doing in our church and community. See ya Sunday!

Genesis 1:2

Its awesome to think of how great God is in His creation, but have you ever really stopped and lingered on this. Take Genesis 1:2 "The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." No light, no form, no motion, no energy. Matter and molecules were present but not together, not energized. The Spirit of God moved, at this point there was no gravity, no electromagnetic force, then the Spirit of God moved. His motion created gravity, the electromagnetic forces needed to set the universe in motion. As the outflowing energy of God's Spirit began to flow the water and matter particles began to form into earth. What I find awe inspiring about this is the fact that God had not spoke anything in to existence yet, just the movement of His Spirit started the motion and the forces needed for the matter and water particles to form into the earth, then He said "let there be light". How great is our God! Just wanted to share my thoughts with you guys and hopefully give you something to think about this week.

Brother Billy used a quote tonight to describe the possibilities of evolution and it was, "there is a greater chance of a tornado hitting a junkyard and leaving behind a perfectly built 747 aircraft". There is one more that I've shared with Clay and Robin from the same man that Bro. Billy quoted and that is, "there's a better chance for a chimpanzee to throw a handful of chalk at a chalk board and the theory of relativity be written".

Hope you all have a great week and have an opportunity to share Christ with someone or several someones.

Football!

Hey yall! Everyone is invited to the house to watch the game on Saturday. Feel free to come on over anytime after 1:30pm....the game starts at 2:30pm! We can order pizza if yall want and I plan to make rotel dip. Just bring whatever you want! Hope to see you there!

New Perspective

How amazing yesterday was! I showed up yesterday morning and was blown away with what GOD had prepared for us. What an awesome message Brad delivered in ABS. That with Brother Billy as always. It does not get any better than that. What a fantastic group of people we have working together within our group. I love that we are reaching beyond our community to adopt 2 children in Honduras. Then in the next conversation we are scheduling a bagging day for West Alabama Food Bank. This is exactly what we are called to do.

I hope we are thinking of each other in the same. Are we reaching out and asking people to come...or are we even expecting new people to come? The opportunities are abundant. I bet every day we all come in contact with someone we could reach out to and invite. It does not have to be anything hard or complicated, just a simple 'Would love you to join us sometime at Valley View.' It is addicting once you are here. We all fell for this place somehow. If we didn't we would not still be here. There are people just waiting for us to say 'HI'.

Get this...If we actually have everyone show up that usually/partially attend, we are going to need more chairs. I like that problem. Anybody thinking of a new way to position the chairs?

Thank you to everyone that is putting forth effort to make our new roles: Community and Missions, successful. People know in our church that they can call on our group to help with about anything. Lets move those feelings and thoughts in the surrounding community.

I look forward to seeing everyone Wednesday night. As Brother Billy says, 'the night we come together to linger more with the LORD!' I can't agree more.

My prayer for our group is that as we grow stronger in JESUS that we draw more to him and closer to each other. The entire group mean the world to me. Some of you have challanged me (not hard to do intellectually) and motivated me and inspired me to become a better person. I want to thank you for that from the bottom of my heart.

I know I have rambled for a whileand I am sorry. But finally, Josh and Brad you guys are awesome. I love you both. You guys are true men of GOD. I pray each of you realize GOD's will in your life. Both of you are some of the kindest people I know. I feel fotunate to be friends with each of you. I want you to know I will always be there to encourage you. You are both true 'Gridiron Men'.

West Alabama Food Bank

Mission

Put this on your calendars and I will put it on the group calendar, I talked to Henry today with the West Alabama Food Bank and have set up a time for us to go and help them on Saturday Oct. 9th, from 7:00am to 11:00am, you can leave earlier if you need to. This is an away game date against South Carolina and also we should be done before any games get going, so you'll still have your Saturday to enjoy. Henry is mailing me some information about them and what they do and I'll share that with you on Sunday the 12th during class. I had lunch with Mark Thursday afternoon and we discussed the upcoming study that we are doing and how to get the most out of God's word and that is to be "missional". Its great to be in His word but if we don't put feet to what we're studying then we're missing the full impact of Christ's teaching. I hope we can, as a group, live out our church's Mission Statement which is; "We exist to reach and teach about the transformational power of Jesus Christ". If you haven't noticed, God is truly at work in our church and I believe that when we submit ourselves to His service, empty ourselves of us, hang on, cause what God is doing now is not even a fraction of what He can or will do for us and through us as believers. See you all at Stan and Gay's this weekend.

Times for Saturday

We will be hanging out at the pool from 11-2 and then if you don't have plans for the AL vs San Jose game come back to Stan & Gay's at 5:30 for dinner and the game.

Pool/AL Game Party at Stan & Gay's

Hey Everyone! Stan and Gay have opened up their home to us this Saturday for a Pool/AL Game Party. The pool will open at 11 am and Stan & Gay will provide Hotdogs for lunch at 12. They will also provide Hotdogs and Burgers for dinner at 5:30. Please let us know if you plan to be there for dinner and to watch the game so that Gay can get enough food for us. All we need to bring is Drinks and Desserts. Hope everyone is having a great week!

See ya Saturday!
Jenn