I wanted to take a moment and share with you Neighborhood Church’s journey with Advent Conspiracy.  To do so I must begin by telling you our church for the past several years has been very committed to putting on a very well done Christmas program that is mostly for us and our friends.  It is costly but entertaining.  This fall however was born a desire to do something different or as all of you have put it a belief that, “Christmas can still change the world” (very cool by the way).  So, we began to ask the question, how can we make a difference in our community and world this Christmas? 

Well, to make a long story short here is what happened.  We still did a Christmas program but this year we rented out a local jr. high school and invited the homeless, the teen moms, the Rescue Mission residents, all the marginalized that we could possibly think of and we ate, sang, and played together as one community.  Over 600 people from our community attended.  We partnered with Project Angel Tree and threw a party that provided gifts for 150 children whose parents are in prison.  We raised $3,000 for Living Water to build wells.  We raised another $10,500 for a missionary that we support in Laos who has in the last 15 years in spite of being imprisoned for his faith has led 35,000 to Christ and helped to plant over 100 churches.  And finally we partnered with an organization in our community called Christmas With Dignity, which takes over a store front and fills it with new gifts and clothes and discounts the prices by 90%. Instead of just giving people handouts Christmas With Dignity provides parents the dignity of purchasing presents for their children. 

There are too many stories to share with you about how God changed hearts and lives in our people.  You are right Christmas Can Still Make A Difference!  It really has in Visalia, CA!

Forrest Jenan - High School/Fuel Community
Neighborhood Church
Visalia, CA