O Holy Night

Can You Imagine?

CAN YOU IMAGINE

Can you imagine
how it would feel
to a homeless woman
who has spent months
or years sleeping on the streets
or mats at the city shelters
to finally have
a home of her own?

Can you picture the look
of wonder on her face
when she opens the door of
a brand new apartment
and says "This is mine"?

Can you imagine her
sleeping for the first time
in her own bed,
feeling really truly safe at last?

Multiply that 60 times.

Check out the Florence House, the new shelter in Portland that will do exactly what this poem talks about, when it opens in March. Then consider making a financial contribution this year, to help those who really need it. Checks can be made payable to New Light (with Advent Conspiracy in the memo line) or online here.

Advent Conspiracy Video

I've watched this video 10 times, and it doesn't stop being meaningful. Watch it, and pass it on.






This Christmas consider making a financial contribution to help those who really need it. Checks can be made payable to New Light (with Advent Conspiracy in the memo line) or online here.

Christmas Eve Worship Celebrations

Thursday, December 24

4:00 pm

Candelight Worship celebration at Hope.Gate.Way. (185 High Street, Portland), with coffee, hot chocolate, Christmas cookies, and hot appetizers starting at 3:30 pm. Join us and help us extend hospitality to our neighbors.

6:00 pm

"Under the Night Sky" -- a starlight and candlelight worship celebration outside at Congress Square, corner of Congress Street & High Street. It could be a bit chilly, so make sure you bundle up!

Both of these Christmas Eve celebrations will be filled with wonderful music and all the joy of the Christmas story. Christmas Eve is the perfect time to invite family members and friends to join you to share this special night. Who will you invite?

Christmas Fun at Monument Square!

Sunday, December 20th
2-5pm at Monument Square

This is an event you won't want to miss! We'll hang out at Monument Square for the afternoon, next to Portland's giant Christmas tree, with horse & carriage rides coming and going. We'll sing Christmas carols, give out FREE coffee and hot chocolate (yes, with marshmallows) to our neighbors, and construct a community project, inviting passersby to reflect on their hopes and prayers for the world and add them to a big cardboard tree. We'll also distribute postcards announcing our Christmas Eve worship gatherings. It's going to be awesome, and we need as many people from New Light to be there as possible, to spread good cheer and meet new friends!

Florence House

We have decided to give half of the money we raise from Advent Conspiracy to a local project called Florence House, a project of Preble Street. Florence House will provide safe, supported permanent housing to chronically homeless women in Portland, Maine.

The building will include three types of housing designed to offer options to 60 women including:

• Efficiency Apartments for individuals who are ready to manage independently.
• A Safe Haven to provide a permanent private living space for chronically homeless women who are not quite ready to maintain their own apartments and who may, with support, begin to develop trust, self-assurance, and skills to become more independent.
• A small number of Emergency Beds for immediate, short-term housing for women who are temporarily homeless because of an economic or situational crisis.

The Florence House model is based on approaches to homelessness and chronic mental illness that have emerged nationally as key strategies for ending homelessness.

Consider making a financial contribution this year, to help those who really need it. Checks can be made payable to New Light (with Advent Conspiracy in the memo line) or online here.

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party

December 17th-5:30pm
at Allen and Sara's house (31 Sheffield St. Portland)

Our annual community Christmas Party is going to be a blast! We'll get together at Allen & Sara's house for a potluck dinner (bring an appetizer, salad, side dish, or dessert to share if you can). As usual we'll have a Yankee Swap, but the rules are very strict: do not buy anything. Make it, bake it, or regift it, but do not spend money on your Yankee Swap gift.

This year the fun gets even better: we're adding an UGLY SWEATER component. We are asking all party guests to wear your ugliest sweater. Feel free to be creative (you could always embellish if you don't have an ugly seater) or visit Goodwill to get a cheap one. This will be super fun if we all agree to be ridiculous together, and just think of all the awesome pictures we will get! Oh, and yes, there will be a fabulous prize for the ugliest sweater.

Feel free to invite all of your friends over for this exciting event, and remember, no regularly scheduled LIFE groups next week... just one big party on Thursday! Bring a friend. Bring a neighbor. Bring your great-aunt Bertha. Or just bring yourself. But one way or the other, make sure you're with us for this festive event!

Advent Conspiracy 2009

We are issuing a challenge to members of New Light and Chestnut UMC to celebrate Christmas more simply, this year by spending less on Christmas gifts for friends and family -- and then to match that amount, dollar for dollar, with a gifts to people who really need it. With a little help from Advent Conspiracy, we are encouraged to spend the season worshiping fully, spending less, giving more, and loving all.

We are focusing our efforts this year in two different ways:
First, a local project, to help Florence House, the new Women's Shelter opening in Portland, by furnishing an apartment. Florence House, a program of Preble Street, will provide safe, supported permanent housing to chronically homeless women in Portland.

Secondly, a global project, Blood:Water Mission is partnering with groups and individuals to empower our sisters and brothers in Africa to build healthier communities through sustainable clean blood and clean water solutions. Since 2004, Blood:Water Mission has completed 617 water projects delivering clean water, hygiene, and sanitation training to 460,000 people while helping to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Did you know that $1 provides one year of clean water for our sisters and brothers in Africa? Let's see how many people we can help this holiday season.

When you're ready to make your contribution, just make a check out to New Light, clearly marking "Advent Conspiracy" on the memo line. Or if you'd like to make your gift online using a credit or debit card, you can do that here... Just scroll down and make your gift in the "Advent Conspiracy" category.

Join the Conspiracy! And remember, matching your Christmas spending dollar for dollar is the challenge, but it is not an all-or-nothing deal. Set a goal and try to reach it, and honor Christ by helping people in need this holiday season.

Christ is born!

Merry Christmas!  We are writing from the mountains of North Carolina, where we're visiting with Sara's family for a few days.  We hope that you are with people you love, and that the spirit of Christmas continues to be alive in you.

Christ is born, and that is profoundly good news for the world!  It's the reminder that God loved the world God created so much, that God chose to come among us, to become one with us... not with power and might but in the most vulnerable, humble way possible:  as a tiny baby, born to a poor, young woman in an obscure village in a remote corner of the world.  Jesus was born not amidst the luxury of a palace but surrounded by animals (and all the smells that accompany them) in a stable;  not among the wealthy or respected but among the working poor.  Jesus' birth reminds us that God knows everything there is to know about what it means to be human.  More importantly, Jesus' life serves as an example of how to live in and through the love of God.

Maybe your gifts are unwrapped under the tree, or packed in a box, or waiting to be returned for a different size, but the gift of a newborn Christ continues.  God's light still shines in the darkness.  Hope springs eternal!  Christmas changes everything.

So we hope you'll continue to claim the promise of Christ's birth here in these days after Christmas, and that the blessings of a newborn Savior will carry you forward into the new year that awaits us, just around the corner.

Light and love,
Allen & Sara

Christmas Giving

A few months ago New Lighters were issued a challenge: to celebrate Christmas more simply this year by spending less on Christmas gifts for friends and family -- and then to match that amount, dollar for dollar, with a gifts to people who really need it. With a little help from Advent Conspiracy we are encouraged to spend the season worshiping fully, spending less, giving more, and loving all. We have pledged as a community to help in the following ways:

We are collecting coats and boots for children in Parkside Neighborhood who are without. If you have signed up for some, please bring them back as soon as possible as it is getting cold.

We are also collecting donations to help develop a water system for Humble United Methodist School in Uganda. Humble is a school that provides for the educational and spiritual needs of 250 children, most of them orphans to the AIDS virus and civil wars.

We are also receiving gifts of money to provide gift cards to two local families in need who have recently adopted children from foster care.

If you would like to make donations to any of these causes, please give the money to Erica. We would like to have the money for the gift cards by the middle of December so that the families can do shopping in time for Christmas.

This video is of a cool song familiar to most New Light folks called "Share the Well." It is a catchy and meaningful tune, give it a listen and think about ways you can celebrate a more Christ centered Christmas this year!

Join the Advent Conspiracy!

This week in LIFE Groups, we're continuing the conversation we started a few weeks ago about Advent Conspiracy. With the Season of Advent just around the corner and Christmas only about six weeks away, now is the time to be making those decisions about how to celebrate Christmas differently, in a way that truly honors Jesus' birth. For starters, how about this...?

• Worship fully.
• Spend less.
• Give more.
• Love all.

We've issued a challenge: to celebrate Christmas more simply this year by spending less on Christmas gifts for friends and family -- and then to match that amount, dollar for dollar, with a gift to help provide clean, safe, reliable drinking water to people in a developing country. It looks like we're going to help build a well for a school for orphaned children in Uganda... more about that project coming soon.

In addition, we're talking about ways to be in service right here in Portland in the month of December. It's going to be fun, we promise.

So here's our Christmas pledge:

Believing in the true spirit of Christmas, I commit myself to:

• remember those people who truly need my gifts
• express my love in more direct ways than gifts
• examine my holiday activities in the light of my deepest values
• be a peacemaker within my circle of family and friends
• rededicate myself to my spiritual growth

Join the Advent Conspiracy!

Join the Advent Conspiracy!

As a continuation of our discussions of wealth and poverty, as a community we've decided to respond by making changes in the way we celebrate Christmas this year.

We're joining the Advent conspiracy.

Check out this video we watched in last week's LIFE Groups...



Can you believe that in the United States alone, we spend $450 billion a year on Christmas? As a community, we've committed to the four principles of the Advent Conspiracy:

• worship fully
• spend less
• give more
• love all

As part of our preparations for Christmas this year, we're going to support a project that provides access to clean water for people who have none. Specifically, the challenge we're undertaking is to give to this cause the same amount we spend on gifts for family and friends -- that is, to match our spending dollar for dollar. Most likely, that means spending less on gifts, since few of us can afford to double our typical Christmas spending, but it also means being more generous. We may also support a local cause as well -- that's a conversation we've just begun.

What do you think? Wanna conspire with us? Join the Advent Conspiracy!