Celebrate the Light (Focus, Dec 2016)
Celebrate the Light
“Lighthouse of Hope,” which UBC hosted for over fifteen years, has been an enormously popular and successful event for local ministry partners at Christmastime. This year, with a new name, “Celebrate the Light,” we welcomed new opportunities for groups to serve together and participate in a more intimate, on-location Christmas celebrations with our same partner agencies.
This year’s local partners included Bay Area Turning Point, Anchor Point, Beltway 8 Crisis Pregnancy Center, and The Bridge Over Troubled Water. In addition to the Christmas celebrations at their locations, we added a celebratory “Thank You” meal in the UBC Chapel for staff and volunteer leaders of those partner agencies, and the UBC Serving Office also provided groceries for Alvin South Coast Ministries, a men’s group home in Alvin, Texas.
Between 175 and 200 UBC members (including several WBS groups) rose to the occasion, making Celebrate the Light a success! Several key UBCers took ownership and coordination of each engagement opportunity, making the overall process relatively smooth for the Serving Pastor—you know who you are! Thank you for decorating the Chapel, ordering pizzas, cooking, planning activities, making crafts, leading songs and devotionals, hosting people at tables, playing games with children, buying and packing diaper bags, packing groceries, decorating shelters and agencies for Christmas, serving meals and cleaning up!
