The Messenger. Lakeside United Methodist Church. May

Transcription

1 The Messenger Lakeside United Methodist Church May We envision Lakeside United Methodist Church to be God s HANDS in our community and beyond: Hospitable, Always faithful, Nurturing, Discipleship, Service. From the Pastor Happy Birthday! While I was attending seminary I served a local congregation as an intern. One of my responsibilities was to make home visits to church members. One day I set off to visit a particular person, a long time member as well as a life-time Methodist. This man had not only been an active member in the local church all his life, he had served the General Church in many capacities. He was extremely knowledgeable and passionate about the church. As I approached his apartment at The Hermitage I noticed his door was slightly ajar. I knocked and heard, Who s there? I responded with, Mark Rooks from Skipwith Methodist." Who? he responded. And once again I said, Mark Rooks from Skipwith Methodist! Did you catch my mistake? He certainly did. And at our very first meeting he proceeded to tell me that Skipwith Methodist had not existed since 1968! As soon as he began speaking I realized my mistake. Did you catch it too? 1

2 The year 1968 is an important year in our history is the year that the United Methodist Church was officially formed through the unification of the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren Churches. That event took place on April 23, 1968 and so this date in 2018 marks our 50th anniversary as the United Methodist Church! 50 years as the UNITED Methodist Church! I am proud to say that I am a United Methodist. I hope you can say that as well. I love our Church and I believe strongly in our doctrine and polity. (Doctrine: what we believe. Polity: how we are structured.) The doctrines of the United Methodist Church are diverse and several of our core beliefs transcend across all Protestant denominations. However, there are also some core beliefs which are distinctive to United Methodism. Some of those are the following: *We believe that God acts with grace toward all people. UM use words such as prevenient, justifying and sanctifying to describe God s action of grace. God s grace is clearly expressed through Jesus Christ who has given us the gifts of forgiveness, salvation and eternal life *We believe that through our baptism all UM are called to ministry. To facilitate our participation in ministry every person has been given particular gifts by which we can carry out the ministry to which we are called. We call those spiritual gifts. *UM believe that the real presence of God is revealed through the Sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism. Through these sacred moments of the Church we experience God in real ways and God transmits grace to us even if we do not understand or feel that taking place. I also said I love the UM Church because of our polity the way we are structured. We are a connectional church. Think of the UM Church as an interconnected web of congregations. We are connected to the UM congregation down the road, across the state, nation and even around the world! Because we are a connectional church we are able to carry out much more works of ministry together than any one congregation could do alone. These works of ministry are supported through our apportionment gifts. Each ministry, supported through apportionment giving, touches the lives of real people who are transformed by the Holy Spirit. Our connectional nature is also reflected in the itineracy of pastors who move from one place to another, it s reflected in our common forms of worship from one place to another, in annual conference gatherings and more. Yes, we are 50 years strong. However, we cannot rest on our past successes, we must press on towards the goal as Paul proclaims. The Church faces all sorts of challenges today. This is not new, but we must work together with Christ to find the answers to the challenges we face. Declining memberships, increasing expenses, reduced giving, issues of LGBTQ inclusion, communicating our message to younger non-christian persons, and the unique challenges of being a global church, are all issues which threaten the future of the United Methodist Church. In just a few weeks we will celebrate Pentecost. We remember that the Holy Spirit came down in powerful ways, giving birth to the Church Universal and ultimately the United Methodist Church. My prayer is for a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit to reenergize the Church to give us life anew, a re-birth. Yes, we have much to celebrate and much yet to do. The Kingdom of God is truly now and not yet. Happy Birthday Church! I am proud to be a part of you. The Body of Christ called United Methodist. Peace, Pastor Mark 2

3 Children s Ministry News Children s Calendar for 2018 Sundays Children s Choir: Practice 4:00 4:30 pm First Sunday Every Month Birthday Recognition June 18-22, 2018, Daytime Vacation Bible School Monday - Friday, 9:30-11:30 am June 24, 2018 Vacation Bible School Celebration Music Notes Hi Church Family! It is not Caroline writing the article for music this time around. Unfortunately, Caroline is out of commission right now following surgery. She is doing quite well and misses all of you. In her stead, I was asked to write an article for the newsletter. I can t begin to do as well as she does with the writing, but I ll try to do an acceptable job. The choir is winding down for the summer for a long needed break after all of the busyness of this past season. In June you will hear the men s chorus sing for you during worship, in July the women will take over and in August you will be treated to solos, duets, ensembles etc. The bell choir is also taking a break for the summer but will continue with small ensembles and duets. If you are interested in joining any of the choirs, please contact Jeanne Bluford. She would be happy to talk with you about it. You will be a very welcomed addition to our music family. We love welcoming new people into our family. Please take a minute to mark your calendar for the upcoming happening things. On June 10 there will be a chili cook off right after church. Watch for more information in the bulletins. Also, starting on July 16, Summer Arts Camp will begin. It runs Monday through Thursdays and the final performance will be on July 26 in the evening. Again, there will be forms available soon to sign your child(ren) up. On a more personal note, I would like to give thanks and praise to our Lord. He has certainly sent us the best of the best to run our music program by giving us Jeanne and Caroline. Most people are not aware of how much time they spend outside of their designated part time positions to pull the music together week after week. I am so blessed to be a part of this church and particularly part of the musical family called choirs. Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness. Ps 100:1-2 (New King James Version) Blessings always, Pat Niemczyk 3

4 Calling All (Hungry) Men! Gentlemen, you are invited to join the ROMEOS for breakfast on Wednesday, May 2nd at Shoney's at Virginia Center Commons. Romeos is an acronym for Retired Old Men Eating Out Sometimes. We meet on the first Wednesday of each month at 8:00 A.M for good food and fellowship. You need not be retired, nor old, but possessing a good appetite is a requirement. Please contact Bob Friend, if you have questions. Cents-Ability Did you know if you put aside $.02 a meal per day for one month you would have saved $1.80. Multiply that times one hundred people and we as a congregation will have raised $180 per month and multiply that amount times 12 and we will have raised $2,160 for hunger. This is not a new program. It originated in 1976 by the Presbyterian Women to involve people to help stop hunger and has expanded throughout the United States. It began as 2-cents-a-Meal; then the name changed to Cents-Ability. Containers are on the Welcome Center. WE HAVE DESIGNATED THE LAST SUNDAY OF EACH MONTH AS COLLECTION SUNDAY. There will be a collection container on the Welcome Center. Proceeds continue to help the Back-Pack program by providing food for children for the weekend. The LAMB s Basket -Our Pantry Needs Food The LAMB s Basket is our community food pantry sponsored by the churches in the Lakeside and surrounding areas. Donations needed are: jelly, peanut butter, canned meat/tuna, Lunchables, canned pasta, macaroni & cheese, snacks for children s bags, crackers, soup, personal items, dish detergent, toilet paper, cat and dog food, dried pasta, spaghetti sauce, cooking spray, butter, cooking oil, salt and pepper, laundry detergent, paper and plastic grocery bags. The hours are all during the mornings. To volunteer, contact Jo Anne Kelchner at (No previous experience required.) Lamb s basket has an urgent need for paper grocery bags with handles! MAY JUNE Friday May 4 Friday June 8 Monday May 14 Monday June 18 Friday May 25 Tuesday May 29 Lamb s basket May-June schedule: Holladay Elementary School Needs Underwear! You read it correctly- Holladay Elementary School needs underwear. Sometimes the little (& sometimes the big) elementary students have accidents at school and need to change their clothes and this includes undergarments. You are asked to donate clean, packaged underwear size 4/5 through size 12 for girls or boys. There will be a collection box for the undies at the church and they will be lovingly donated to Holladay Elementary School. Just for reference Holladay Elementary is nestled in the Lakeside community off of Galaxie Road. Please let me know if you have any questions and THANK YOU! Melinda Kates, Holladay PTA President & Church Council Member, (804) melindakates@gmail.com 4

5 Missions Project for Annual Conference Now through May 27, we will be collecting items to make Hygiene Kits for Annual Conference. Our goal is 100 kits. Please consider donating the specific items listed in each week's bulletin insert or making a $1 donation to purchase toothpaste. Kroger Community Rewards / Amazon Smiles Where do you buy your groceries? If you shop at Kroger and you are a Kroger Rewards member [have a key tag or use an alternate id], you can direct Kroger to send a small portion of your purchases back to Lakeside United Methodist Church as support for the Church and its ministries. If you haven t already registered for the Kroger Community Rewards program, here is how you can support your church. First you have to create a Kroger Rewards account with user id and password [ Login with your user ID and password Navigate to: Savings & Rewards [this should be the 2 nd column above My Account and Account Summary] Click on Savings & Rewards and navigate to: Kroger Community Rewards Then go to: Enroll You will be prompted for an organization number Input: Close the application and you are all set If you thought you were enrolled already, you can view your details here, too. You may want to verify that your rewards are going to Lakeside UMC; I know I thought I was enrolled and when I went to check the steps online, I realized I wasn t enrolled. This is an easy way to support the ministries of the church while purchasing something we all need, food. Do you shop on Amazon? There is a similar program called AmazonSmiles. Lakeside UMC is currently exploring how Amazon shoppers can register the register the Church to receive the Smiles rewards for eligible purchases. As soon as the process is completed, an article will appear in the Messenger outlining the steps necessary to direct Amazon s community rewards to your church. Stay tuned for the next chapter. Butch Kelchner [This information is not intended as an endorsement of Kroger or Amazon, and is furnished solely as instructions for registering your id to benefit Lakeside United Methodist Church. 5

6 OUR CHURCH FAMILY We Express Our Deepest Sympathy Please hold the family, friends and other loved ones of Amadu Lakoh in your prayers. Amadu passed away on April 4, A Service of Death and Resurrection was held at the church and was attended by many family and friends. May Birthdays Aaron Robinson 5/2 PK Walker ` 5/8 Kathy Runge 5/12 Ed Ewbank 5/4 Steve Jennings 5/9 Justine Mimbe 5/12 Mary Catherine Davis 5/5 Kathleen Nuckols 5/9 Lynda Ewbank 5/14 Caroline Johnson 5/5 Barbara Jordan 5/10 Janet Phifer 5/14 Gary Murphree 5/6 Maggie Runge 5/11 Mark Gillis 5/21 Greg Jennings 5/7 Maura Davis 5/11 Allison Johns 5/27 SAVE THE DATES CALENDAR 2018 MAY *Lecture by Hal Costley, 9:45-!0:45 St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church **Bus Trip to Museum of the Bible, 6:45 am to 5:00 pm Family Lunch followed by Youth Ensemble Harp Concert JUNE Blood Drive 9 am 1 pm Children s Vacation Bible School 9am -12pm NEW TIME SLOT THIS YEAR! Adult Vacation Bible School 6pm-8pm with Hal Costley teaching JULY 16-19; Music Arts Camp Grand Finale Performance (July 26) *Methodism in U.S. History On Monday, May 7 from 9:45 to 10:45, at St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church, 7757 Chippenham Parkway, Richmond, VA 23225, Hal Costley will be presenting a talk as part of the Open University lecture series on The U.S. Constitution, Religion, History and Politics. The presentation will focus on how the story of Methodism in The United States is interwoven with the Constitution and the struggle to reflect its ideals. Admission is free. 6

7 **BUS TRIP TO MUSEUM OF THE BIBLE Lakeside United Methodist Men is sponsoring a bus trip to the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC, on Wednesday May 9, Boarding begins at 6:45 am, and the bus will leave the church parking lot promptly at 7:00 am. Expected return to the church parking lot will be around 5:00 pm. Cost is $50 per person, which includes bus fare and entrance ticket to the museum. Lunch is available at several locations on site for reasonable costs. If you wish to attend, please complete a registration form, attach your $50 payment (payable to Lakeside UMM), and give to Mark Gillis. Registration slips are available on the Welcome Center table. There are currently 35 seats remaining. Any questions, please call Mark Gillis at APRIL Church Council - Fast Facts Pastor Mark opened the April meeting with a devotion and prayer. At our April meeting Church Council heard about the work of the Commission on the Way Forward. The Commission was established by General Conference 2016 to discern and to offer recommendations regarding issues of human sexuality and LGBTQ inclusion in the United Methodist Church. The work of the Commission is ongoing. Their recommendations will be presented and discussed at a called General Conference in February In the meantime, the purpose of our conversations on Church Council are to learn more about this topic and to prepare ourselves for the upcoming General Conference in During our April meeting Pastor Mark led us in discussion first by providing background information. It is our plan to continue to discuss and learn more over the coming months. We encourage all church members to be informed about the issues of human sexuality and to be in prayer for those on the Commission on the Way Forward, General Conference Delegates and the United Methodist Church. We closed by sharing joys/concerns and prayer. May God send His richest blessings for this message and our church. Stony Creery Giving Options at LUMC There are numerous ways to make your contributions to Lakeside that may be more convenient and tax efficient for you than placing cash or check in the offering plate each week. Please note the following: You may use your bank s automatic bill payment system to send a check to the church periodically. Several members use this approach. You may use the church s Vanco payment system where you can have your contribution deducted from your checking account or charged to your credit card bill. Just go to the church website, lakesideum.org and click on Donate. There you can register and establish an automated giving schedule. We have several members using the Vanco system. You may be able to take advantage of tax savings by having a portion of your IRA Required Minimum Distribution automatically sent to the church periodically, weekly, monthly, quarterly of annually. You broker or financial manager can make these arrangements. Another tax savings approach is to donate appreciated stock to the church thereby saving taxes on the capital gains. If you want to make one contribution rather than multiple throughout the year, the church has a distribution account where we can take a proportion of your contribution to apply to the budget monthly. 7

8 If you would like to take advantage of the simplicity of any of these approaches you may discuss them with Hal Costley, Treasurer or Butch Kelchner, Assistant Treasurer. Heritage Sunday, May 20 "JUBILEE": The 50th Anniversary of The UM Church Heritage Sunday shall be observed on Aldersgate Day (May 24), or the Sunday preceding that date. The day provides an opportunity for reflection on heritage, celebration of where the Church has been, how it understands itself as it shapes us today, and the meaning of Christian conferencing. Heritage Sunday calls the Church to remember the past by committing itself to the continuing call of God (paragraph 264.1, The Book of Discipline, 2016). Fifty years ago, Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) Bishop Rueben H. Mueller and Methodist Bishop Lloyd C. Wicke joined hands over a table laden with symbols---the Bible, hymnals, books of Discipline and a 307-page "Plan of Union." 1,300 delegates and 10,000 visitors met in Dallas, Texas on April 23, 1968 proclaiming the formation of the newlyconstituted United Methodist Church million Methodists and 750,000 members of the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged into one of the largest Protestant denominations in the world. Flags from fifty-three countries testified to the breadth of the new reality. Virginia Conference Events May 19, 2018 Conference Immigration Summit Bishop Lewis formed the Virginia Conference Committee on Immigration Outreach in 2017 to help the conference communicate the Gospel as it relates to immigrants and refugees. The committee also seeks to help the conference understand issues related to immigrants and refugees and how to advocate for them. In partnership with the General Board of Church and Society, Just Neighbors and the Southeastern Jurisdiction Hispanic Caucus, the committee is sponsoring an Immigration Summit at Ramsey Memorial UMC in Richmond on Saturday, May 19 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to educate and empower those who want to be in ministry to immigrants and refugees. Attendance to the summit is free of charge, and a boxed lunch can be purchased at the time of registration. Registration is now available on the conference website at and go to Conference Calendar. A walk with Jesus, A walk for UMCOR Jimmy Dillon, a member of Zion UMC, York River District, is starting a journey on April 20 from Waynesboro, Va. to Carlisle, Pa. (267.7 miles) along the Appalachian Trail. His journey is to challenge churches to do one more kit for conference than they did last year. He would like this to be a record year for kits. If you live near the Appalachian Trail along the way to Carlisle and can help out, please call him at He shared that a hot shower, water refills, a meal or a place to bunk for the night would be much appreciated. To all my many friends that aren't United Methodist I challenge you to put together a kit and drop it off at any United Methodist Church. He is also taking all prayer requests from anybody and everybody. Each morning he will be offering up prayer. Follow his journey on Facebook: 8