How We Celebrated our Christmas

Last December 25 the Nonthaburi Christian Fellowship held its 1st Christmas worship service in our building. With just 5 months old, we have seen how tremendously fast this small group of Filipino Christians grew. God has been blessing and to tell you honestly still blessing and working greatly in this small fellowship. It is evident and every members of this fellowship will agree with me on this, of course simply because it is juts too obvious. With just a month old it is slowly increasing in numbers and ministry after ministry is conceived to make sure that God's word will be shared as well as encourage our fellow believers in Nonthaburi, specifically here at Ngamwongwan and the nearby towns and areas where Filipinos are looking for  a church where they can worship and serve God. Having one of the missionaries in spreading God's word here in Thailand as our speaker was indeed a great honor for all of us. 
Rev. Bob Bowen came in too early before the supposed time of our  service, it was set to start at 2:00 but he arrived at the church 1:00, both I and Ptr. Toneth were surprised to see him walking heading towards the church.
To make the long story short, we were blessed by the ministry of this missionary as well as his testimony. Most importantly we were blessed by the message he delivered which moved most of us including our visitors to tears, ending his sermon with an invitation for our visitors to receive Christ as their savior. I can hear some of our visitors praying the sinner's prayer with him and it moved us all to tears. Only God knows who were really sincere in praying the said prayer.
During his preaching there were two simple illustrations that got stuck in my mind until now. One of them is when he told us that he raised his children through "DRAGS". Now, it will sound odd and different if you are just merely listening to the sermon compared to when you are reading it. Your initial reaction would be "SAY WHAT?!! This Preacher raised his kids on DRUGS", it is in the spelling that will  make the word clearer.
He later on clarify what he stated, He "dragged" his children to the church every Sunday to make sure that they grow up to be right with God. Today, they are all serving God in the ministry just like him. 
Then he also stressed the 5 factors on how you can express your love for God, through the 5 fingers on his hand, he illustrated it. the first finger stands for "PRAYING", then the next one stands for "READING THE BIBLE", the middle finger stands for ''GOING TO CHURCH" followed by "GIVING" and the last but not the least is ''SHARING GOD'S WORD".  Through Rev. Bob Bowen we saw how God worked in our midst during our services, there were first time visitors in our midst, Filipinos and our thai friends from Bangkruai.

NCF Kids

Then later on the NCF kids which were comprised of Filipino and Thai kids presented their play basing it on the life of "ESTHER". all in all the entire activity was a blast and it ended with the exchanging of gifts for the kids and for the adults as well.

Our SPEAKER Rev. Bob Bowen

Let me share to you the outline of Rev. Bowen's message, He didn't really follow this entire outline. He just concentrated on the number 3 factor which I mentioned above which is "GOING TO CHURCH".

10 REASONS WHY YOU DO ATTEND CHURCH

AND 

10 REASONS WHY YOU DON'T ATTEND CHURCH

1. To follow the biblical pattern; Rev. 1:10; Matthew 28:1

      To follow the world's pattern; II Cor. 6:14-18

2. To receive nutriment from the word of God; I Peter 2:2

      To feed on the things of the world; I John 2:15-16

3. To fellowship with other believers; Acts 2:41-44

     To fellowship with unbelievers;  I Cor. 15:33; Ephesians 5:11


4.  Express your thankfulness; Luke 17:11-19
      Lack of gratitude or unthankful; II timothy 3:1-2


5.  Desire of a better life; Matthew 11:28-30
      Desire a life of sin; Prov. 13:15; II Peter 2:20-22


6.  To avoid sin in your life; James 4: 17
     To live in sin; Numbers 32:23


7.  To make right decisions; Joshua 24:15
     To make wrong decisions; Joel 3:14


 8.  To obey the commandments of the Lord; Hebrews 10:25
      To disobey the Lord; John 14:15; Matthew 6:33


9.   To profess Christ in your life; Matthew 10:32-33
      To be ashamed of Christ; Mark 8:38


10. To make you a better servant of God; Luke 14:12-24
       Blood will be required; Ezekiel 33:7-9


This is what Rev. Bowen imparted with us during our Christmas worship service, a better way to spend our Christmas and giving honor to the one who deserves to be greeted and celebrated this day, the Lord Jesus Christ.