1️⃣ This Week’s Highlights
- Extra Open Swim times from 1:15–4:00 PM are scheduled for Tuesday, December 23, 2025 and Tuesday, December 30, 2025.
- Holiday closure reminder: The Kroc Center will close at 1:00 PM on Wednesday, December 24, 2025 (Christmas Eve) and will be closed on Thursday, December 25, 2025 (Christmas Day). We will reopen with normal hours on Saturday, December 26, 2025.
2️⃣ Program Updates
- New You, New Year
- Saturday, January 3, 2026, 9:00–11:00 AM in the gym
- Registration is open now
- Members are free
- Non-members are $5 to reserve a spot, or free the day of
3️⃣ Facility Notices 🛠️
Facility Updates/Closures
- Holiday Hours
- Wednesday, December 24, 2025 (Christmas Eve): Closing at 1:00 PM
- Thursday, December 25, 2025 (Christmas Day): CLOSED
- Wednesday, December 31, 2025 (New Year’s Eve): Closing at 1:00 PM
- Thursday, January 1, 2026 (New Year’s Day): CLOSED
4️⃣ Staff Announcements 🎉
Green Dot Moments & Staff Shoutouts
- Shout out to Mckenna for getting new employees settled before her vacation.
- Shout out to Laura for all her hard work with Drum Fit.
- Shout out to Sammie for his work on increasing Fine Arts programming.
- Shout out to Facilities for running cables for Jim.
- Shout out to our Building Supervisors for making the coffee every day.
- Shout out to Kathleen for filling in for Drum Fit.
- Shout out to Jess for teaching the WSI training over the weekend.
- Shout out to all the staff who step in and fill gaps wherever they are needed.
- Shout out to everyone supporting Captain Jack during his health issues.
- Shout out to Eddie for all his work throughout the building.
- Shout out to Margarita for being so patient and caring with our clients.
- Shout out to Jess for updating and writing new MOUs.
- Shout out to Brian, Heidi Reed, and the entire CL team for setting up and creating a wonderful Christmas experience on Sunday.
🎂 Birthdays This Week
- Krystal L
- Erin C
- Julie T
- Adriana V
👋 Welcome New Staff
- Calvin H – Fitness Attendant
- Krista H – Child Watch Attendant
- Mark C – Lifeguard
- Colton S – Lifeguard
- Michael B – Lifeguard
📌 Open Positions at the Kroc Center
- Lifeguard
- Fitness Attendant
- Fitness Lead
- Swim Instructor
- Fitness Instructor
- Personal Trainer
- Apply here: grkroccenter.org/learn-more/careers
5️⃣ Reminders & Resources 📌
- Monday evening and Tuesday morning Modified Open Swim will not be offered starting Winter 1 due to lack of attendance.
🙌 Missional Moment
A Kingdom Community
In the late 1800s, as The Salvation Army took root in London’s East End, William and Catherine Booth quickly realized that preaching alone could not hold a shattered people together. Converts were often poor, hungry, isolated, and distrusted by society. Many had no family structures left to return to.
So the early Army did something radical for its time: it formed corps that functioned like extended families.
Believers gathered daily—not just for worship, but to share meals, pray, work, and care for one another’s children. If one member lost work, the corps rallied. If someone relapsed into addiction, they were not cast out but surrounded. Faith was not practiced in isolation but lived together, publicly and visibly, in the streets and tenements of the city.
The Booths insisted that salvation was never meant to produce solitary Christians. It was meant to form a people—a community whose shared life testified that Christ was already reigning among them.
The strength of the early Salvation Army was not its structure or uniforms, but a community so bound together in Christ that no one stood alone.
✝️ Note from the Pastor
To Bring God to Us
John 1:1–14
As we journey through the Advent season, we are reminded that Christmas is not only about a baby born in a manger, but about God’s deliberate choice to come near to His people. John opens his Gospel by taking us back to the beginning, declaring that Jesus—the Word—was with God and was God (John 1:1). From the very start, God’s plan of salvation was already in motion, knowing that His people would one day need light to overcome darkness, life to conquer death, and restoration to heal separation caused by sin.
Through the birth of Christ, God stepped into our broken world with grace and truth. Jesus is the true light that shines in the darkness, a light the darkness cannot overcome (John 1:5). This light was foretold by the prophet Isaiah and fulfilled in Jesus, who came not with earthly power or fanfare, but in humility and love. In Him, God restores what was lost in the garden and invites us back into relationship with Himself.
This Advent, the question before us is personal and profound: have we received the light of Christ? Scripture tells us that to all who receive Him, He gives the right to become children of God (John 1:12). May we fix our eyes once again on the manger and the cross, stepping out of darkness and into the marvelous light, rejoicing that God has come to us so that we might belong to Him.
- Captain Jack Huffman
🙏 Prayer Requests
- Prayers for spiritual protection: Zacharia R
- Prayer for healing from broken ribs: Levarst
- Family in Texas: Norma
- Family: Latonya
- Family, work, and health: Tyler
