Christmas is Coming

I know. I can hardly believe it any more than you can. 37 days from today...I counted.

Here are some important things you should know about leading up to Christmas.

First - we are praying that our Christmas gift at PORTICO Milton will be an approval of our joint proposal with the Milton Christian School to lease the former Bruce St. Library building. The proposal has been submitted - but please don't stop praying and fasting. Representatives from the school will be invited to an interview in the near future with a recommendation going to the Town Council on Dec. 5th.

Second, we want to make sure EVERYONE gets a ticket to attend our annual 'One Hope Benefit Concert' on either Dec. 3 or Dec. 4. The proceeds of these events go to our 'One Hope' charities, which this year are International Justice Mission, WOW Christmas, and Life, Just Add Water (Life Campaign).  Headlining this year, along with our own PORTICO Mass Choir, will be Christian recording artist Sara Groves. You will not want to miss this! You can purchase your tickets online here.

Third, please note the following dates for our PORTICO Milton Christmas services:

• Saturday December 24, 2011 - Christmas Eve Candlelight Service 6pm or 8pm at PORTICO Main Campus.
• Sunday December 25, 2011 - Christmas Day Service at 10:30am at PORTICO Main Campus (no Christmas Day service in Milton)
• January 1, 2012 - New Years Day service 10:15am at Best Western Milton Inn

Last, but not least, if you have been looking for an opportunity to have a meaningful conversation with  your neighbours about faith like we've been talking about in our most recent series, why not invite them to watch all or part of the special documentary series on CTS called 'Journey To Christmas'. It premieres the weekend of our 'One Hope Benefit Concerts' so I hope you will wait until the second airing on the weekend of December 17 & 18, but it would be a fantastic way to open the door to great conversations about faith this Christmas. Make sure you click on the link above to find our more about this unique opportunity.

Be Blessed,

Pastor Jeff

Prayer Update

Last week I challenged you to fast and pray...pray that new people would begin to come in and fill the empty seats in our room and also pray that God would provide us the opportunity to partner with Milton Christian School to lease the former Bruce Street Library facility.

Let me give you a couple of brief updates. First, our attendance this past Sunday was 111 people - some of our empty seats have already begun to be filled.  Keep praying...it's working!

Second, Pastor Doug and I had the opportunity to walk through the Bruce Street Library property last Friday with Mike VanSlingerland and a couple other representatives from Milton Christian School. More than ever, I believe that this would be the perfect future facility for us to share. We were able to stand together inside the building and pray and believe that God will make this possible.  Please continue over the next week to fast and pray with us that the proposal to the Town of Milton will be successful when it goes in on Nov. 16th so that the decision on Dec. 5th will be made in favour of the Milton Christian School.

Last but not least - to wrap up the first message in our series 'Now That You Mention It: Sharing Your Faith and Keeping Your Friends' in which we talked about 'How to Break The Huddle', we challenged you to begin with small steps.  One of those steps was to get involved in something called 'Adopt a Street', a practical way for you to begin to intentionally pray for the people who live on your street.  If you haven't gone to the website yet to sign up and pray for your street, I'm including the information below so that you can do that.

Click HERE to go to the 'Adopt a Street' website.

STEP 1: Identify your street.
STEP 2: Register (you can edit later).
STEP 3: Connect with the PORTICO Milton prayer initiative.

Be Blessed,

Pastor Jeff

Turning Back the Clock

Hi Everyone!

Just a friendly reminder that we will be turning our clocks BACK one hour on Saturday evening.

But don't worry. 

If you forget - we meet in a hotel. You can always have breakfast in the restaurant while you wait for the service to start.

See you Sunday!

Pastor Jeff

The Future Beckons

We are now three Sundays in to the adventure that is PORTICO Milton. And what a great three Sundays they have been. An exciting launch, a meaningful communion service and prayer time, and last but not least, a phenomenal and timely challenge from a humble servant of God from the northern province of Bihar, India.

I am so grateful to God for sending Dr. Abu Matthew our way this past weekend. Listening to him share his amazing testimony of God's incredible faithfulness was just so incredibly moving. This is a man who served faithfully for seven long years with only a handful of people coming to Christ. Then in 2006, God challenged him to pray and fast and ask Him for 100 evangelists that year.  And in faith he challenged his friends and they prayed and fasted and that year God gave them 100 evangelists. The next year - 1,000 evangelists, the next year 10,000. What an amazing story! From 30 people gathering in 2006 to over 30,000 people gathering in 2011 in over 1,700 churches. Truly, this is a miracle story...and if you didn't get a chance to hear it, watch our website. It will be posted very soon.

Dr. Matthew faced incredible obstacles. The area where God called him to minister was predominantly Hindu - less than 0.1% Christian. Committed to the call, he believed anything was possible.

Our situation is challenging too. But it pales in comparison to what Dr. Matthew faced in Bihar. So here is what I'm thinking. We need to fast and pray and believe God for the answers to our challenges.

• Currently we have seats in our main room for about another 70 people or so. And there are thousands of people in Milton who need to find their way back to God.
• On November 16, a proposal will be presented to the Milton Town Council outlining a plan for the Milton Christian School, in partnership with PORTICO Milton, to take over the lease of the old Bruce Street Library building. This unique partnership would allow us incredible flexibility to do all kinds of ministry and would also give us a semi-permanent facility out of which to do it.

I'm asking if you will fast and pray at least one meal with me over each of the next three weeks for these two specific needs. So let's pray and believe together that God will give us opportunities to invite and bring people to PORTICO Milton who are on their journey back to God. And let's declare in faith that, God-willing, the Bruce Street Library will be made available to the Milton Christian School and ultimately, to our Campus family as well.

Will you fast and pray? Please let me know by commenting on this post in the 'Comments' section below or sending me an email and just say 'I'm in!'

The future beckons!