The HEARTbeat. A Church seeking after God s own HEART. An Advent Prayer

Transcription

1 The HEARTbeat December 12, 2018 H ear the good news E xperience God s grace A ct & Mature in Faith A Church seeking after God s own HEART R each out in Love T ell the story to others An Advent Prayer Senior Pastor: Rev. DeeDee Autry mountainsiderev@gmail.com Admin. Assistant: Stacy Halligan mountainsidechurch@gmail.com Financial Secretary: Debbie Holliday mountainsidefinance@gmail.com Pastoral Care: Maria Kelly billmariakelly@gmail.com Praise Team Leader: Suzanne Kriesant suzmusicmumc@gmail.com Instrumentalist Coordinator: Terry O Dell todellartist@ .com Parish Nurse: Connie Larsen connie0829@gmail.com Mountainside Church 301 El Cano Drive HSV, AR God, here we are caught up in the midst of this season we call Advent a season of hope, peace, love and joy. A season that is high and holy a season steeped in expectation and promise a season where we mark our days and remember how God sends to us a Savior, a baby nonetheless to unite us and free us from that which keeps us from being what God intended. It s a season that reminds us to lay down our fluffed-up selves and humble ourselves before the Savior of the World..born in a stable where the animals moved over to make room for this divine moment to happen. This Advent season is a time for us to not only remember but to also journey with Mary and Jospeh, to wake-up with the Shepherds and hear the Angels sing to consider once more what this gift, this baby born in a manger means to us today, tomorrow for a lifetime. May this Advent season be filled with a peace that passes all understanding may our hearts be filled with joy that overflows to those around us may we know that hope is possible and may we become the very essence of love that God so sweetly gave to each of us in the gift of God s Son. Bless us in our gathering with friends and family guide us in our travels to and fro and lead us to those unexpected places equip us to push past our own comfort to seek and find all of those we are called to love. Empower us with a supernatural strength to be your people, who look east and west, north and south sharing the message of the Angels; glory to God in the highest and may we know peace and goodwill to all people. Bring us to our knees, as we bow before this newborn King. As we sing our songs and share our gifts, stir in us a newness of life. And on Christmas morning may we rejoice with world; Joy to the World the Lord has come! Let it be so amen.

2 Connect and Engage! Follow the Star to the Manger this Christmas Eve! Mountainside United Methodist Church Candlelight and Holy Communion December 24, :00 p.m. Invite a friend, bring your family!

3 Opportunities Connect to Connect and Engage! and Engage Mountainside will be offering a Women s Bible study/fellowship/ Support Group beginning next year, led by Maria Kelly. A suggested study is a book titled Completely Loved, Recognizing God s Passionate Pursuit of Us by Shannon Ethridge. Maria would like to meet Thursday, December 20th at 1:00 p.m. to discuss logistics with those interested. Please call or Maria ASAP (billmariakelly@gmail.com or ) if you would like to participate. You are invited to join the SALT class as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Dec. 9th we will begin an advent study, "Christmas is Not Your Birthday" by Mike Slaughter. We will be covering such topics as "Giving up on Perfect" and "Jesus' Wish List". We meet in classroom A at 10:45 and we would be delighted to see you there! We are grateful to Maria Kelly for facilitating our class discussion for the last two months based on her book "Abiding, The Joy of Our Salvation". Maria, thank you for being our guide on this soul searching experience! This Sunday s Hospitality team is Bill Kelly, Shelly Hill, Jerry and Vera Calvin. Arkansas Foodbank Thursday, December 13, 2018 The sign up sheet is on the Connecting Table. Please call Milt and Gail Wildrick at if you want to meet at the church promptly at 8:15 a.m. Otherwise, meet at The Arkansas Foodbank at 4301 West 65 th Street in Little Rock at 9:00 a.m. (Arkansasfoodbank.org) The office closed on December 24 and 25 for C h r i s t m a s. The office will reopen on Wednesday, December 26. Have a wonderful Christmas!

4 Connect and Engage! Project Giving Tree Great job Mountainside! A Check for $500 was given to Fountain Lake School District Food Service. We are well on our way making sure no child goes without lunch in our neighborhood. Keep up the good work and keep those M&M tubes coming in to the church. This is a project which will continue until the end of the current school year. Angel Tree Project PROJECT GIVING TREE Once again a Christmas Tree will be up in the lobby of the church during the holiday season. This tree is used to collect Hats, Mittens, Gloves, Scarfs, and Socks for the Ouachita Children s Center. They were so excited to receive these donations last year so let s surprise them again! If you are shopping grab something special you can add to the tree, or, for those of you that are crafty, get those knitting needles and crochet hooks out and get busy. You all must be Angels! All tags have been taken from the tree. Please Remember! ALL GIFTS MUST BE RETURNED TO MOUNTAINSIDE AND PLACED EITHER UNDER THE ANGEL TREE OR ON THE LARGE TABLE NEXT TO THE ANGEL TREE. The gifts must be returned no later than this Sunday December 16 th. Thank you for being the hands of Christ. Christmas Help Needed! Along with the Angel Tree Project we are also shopping for these for families for their Christmas Dinner. We will be shopping on Monday, December 17 th at 10 am and if you would like to help, please let me know. We will also need help with deliveries so if you are interested in that I would appreciate a call from you. Kathy Wright 501/

5 Connect and Engage! Merry Christmas Everyone, Our Emmaus small group will continue to meet on the first and third Thursday of every month, 8:30AM, Classroom A. Please note that we will not meet on the 20th of December. Numerous people will be out of town or unable to attend. Mark your calendar for our next small group will be on Thursday, January 3rd at 8:30. Hope to see you at our home for the Mountainside Emmaus Christmas gathering on Monday the 17, 5:00PM. Please join us December 18 at 6 p.m. for our Upper Room Fellowship at the Last Chance. Invite a friend to join you for dinner and fellowship. We pray together, eat together and enjoy the spiritual community we build together. Hospitality Greeters/Ushers needed for January please sign up on bulletin board in hallway if you are available thank you for all you do! Support Mountainside Every Time You Shop! We are now a part of the Community Rewards program at Kroger. Simply go to the Kroger website at to add Mountainside to your Kroger Plus Card. Everyone should have a Kroger Card. They are free if you don t and you get fuel points as well. Seniors get 5% off on Tuesdays! Connect and Engage!

6 Opportunities to Connect and Engage Ouachita Children s Center Arts and Crafts Recently Alan and I began our tenth year leading monthly Arts and Crafts classes at the Ouachita Children s Center (OCC) in Hot Springs. The children range in age between seven to seventeen years old and we usually have between 9-15 youth in attendance each month. Roughly half the children are at OCC due to neglect and abuse and the other half are there due to behavioral issues. All of the children need the love and support of our community. An example of this arose last Saturday. Our project this month was to paint tote bags the children could keep. Natalie, a fourteen year old, was slouched over her bag painting the letters NHL. Alan asked her what those letters stood for and she said Never Having Love. Alan asked her, Don t your parents love you? She said No. How about your friends? No How about your grandparents? Yes, they love me Who else loves you? I guess Terrence (a boy at the shelter) does. Alan went on to say, Well, I love you! May I give you a hug? OK. And then she began to smile. Alan planted the seed of love and hope in Natalie who knows what effect this may have on her day, week, and maybe life. Working with the children at OCC is a blessing to both the children and the adults who engage with them during Arts and Crafts. We hope you will consider doing Arts and Crafts with us in the coming months. You do not need to be crafty, just a good listener and have a willingness to open your heart to these children who need all the love they can get. If you would like to participate in this very worthwhile project, please contact me, Pati Trippel via at ptrippel@hotmail.com and I will add you to our monthly reminder list. Since Alan and I will be out of town for the month of November, our next Arts and Crafts date is December 15 th from 9:45-11:30 am. Thank-you for considering helping out at OCC! Pati Trippel

7 Connect and Engage! Beloved People of God! How grateful I am for each voice and each heart and each soul that I am blessed to commune with here. So many prayers were answered the moment I first stepped into this space.god has truly blessed us all. I know, without question, that God has called me here to share these blessings with you. Thank you for making me feel so welcome and so a part of this family. As we sing together, sharing and celebrating the Grace of God we minister to each other. I am blessed by your voice. We are blessed by all our voices and together we can rattle the heavens with our Love and Gratitude. My soul rejoices when we sing together. I am learning so much great music! I m hungry to learn more and I need your help. (Please use the back if there s more for you to say...) I need your HEART and SOUL songs. These are songs that give you goosebumps. Artists and musicians that have created songs that move you. Songs that carry the voice of God deep into your heart and soul. New songs. Old songs. Traditional songs. Songs by artists that aren t in the Christian music category but touch your heart. What do you want to hear us incorporate into our worship? (you can also me songs as you think of them) Interested in Music Ministry? Feel called to sing or play? If you re currently part of our praise team I want to know what you feel called to do. I m already part of the praise team I want to become part of the praise team I want Suz to give me a call to talk about this. Name Phone: What do you like to sing? Melody Higher harmony Lower harmony Solos Do you play any instruments? How many Sundays a month would you like to play/sing? With Light, Love and Blessings Suzanne Lamoureux Kriesant SuzMusicMUMC@gmail.com

8 Prayer Concerns Homebound/Limited Mobility: Steve Thompson Rick Drake Marcella Redd Ron Stucky Gladys Mt. Carmel Rich & Alice Coombs at Good Sam s Those Needing our Prayers: Voni Ferguson Joy Dressler Steve Thompson Bev and Rick Drake Brady Hobbs Nadene Stucky If you would like to be taken off the prayer at home list, please call the church office at For our Military and Family in Service: Let us all be mindful of those who have sacrificed and still stand on the front lines so that we may have freedom. For the Leaders of our Nation and State. For our Pastor and Staff. Communication Card & Other Requests: Continued prayers for God s touch of healing, wisdom, and peace for Annemarie in battling breast cancer and Henry entering Hospice for end-stage cancer. (Pat Fros) Please keep my son-in-law in you prayers for continued healing. (Jamie Langford) Please pray for Phil Rinke who just had a heart attack last Sunday. He had stints put in and he is in the hospital in Florida. My mother Brenda Cole-Clarke mental and physical health be restored. (Caroline Skinner) Brady continues to need prayers for health (was in the hospital last week) and also for big life changes for him in (Hobbs Family) Prayers please for my Aunt Doris, who entered hospice care last week. (Donna Blasing) Voni and Troy Ferguson (Bill & Jo Hoak) My friend s great grandson Luca diagnosed with leukemia. (Cheyenne Benbow) Continued prayers for Gladys; Anthony serving in the Middle East. (Carol & Ted Schramm)...pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James 5:16 For additions, corrections or deletions to the weekly prayer list, please Stacy at mountainsidechurch@gmail.com