JUNE 2018 United Methodist Women Meeting in May for a Mother s Day Teas with Hats. Inside this issue: Pastor s Page 2 Ushers/Greeters/Birthdays/ Anniversaries/Alpha s Glory 3 Hearing Assistance Device Instructions/Vacation Bible School Mission 4 Vacation Bible School Flyer/ Calendar/Ladies Night Out 5 United Methodist Women 6 June Sermon Series/Service Missions/Grace Place/2018 Graduates 7 2018 High School Graduates 8 Then and Now Thank You Notes 9 How to Contact Us 10
Page 2 Pastor s Page Happy June! Recently I was asked what resources exist to revitalize the church. The answer TONS. Since July 2016 nearly every sermon I ve offered focused on this exact topic connect with the community and serve the Kingdom of God. All the resource boil down to the same few points: 1. Be an active disciple yourself, acknowledge you are not perfect and need God to help you be a better person through worship, Bible Study, Mission work, Intentional Christian fellowship. 2. Get to know people individually. Think about your friends and how you got to know them and do the same with people in the community. 3. Love them as they are and pray for them. Seriously love people despite their differences: family dynamic, economic status, race, religion, politics, life style, sexuality, those with criminal records, drug addicts, the healthy & the sick. Basically, etc. Love the people God made! They aren t perfect, but neither are you or I. 4. Invite them to be a part of your life. If you only invite people to church they aren t likely to come. If you invite them to be a friend and be a part of who you are, they are more likely to hear what you believe about God. 5. Get to know them better. Without judgment, learn their story. 6. Continue to love them as they are and pray for them. It s human nature to judge one another. Pray that God will help you overcome this tendency, so you can truly see the person God created and love them. 7. Invite them to be a part of the life of the church. How you invite people to be a part of the church matters. Do you invite them believing the Bible Study, Worship Service, Mission Project, and Fellowship time is life giving? Are there other people from church you can introduce them to? It s hard coming into a new environment and the way you invite matters. If you really want to build the body of Christ and make a difference in the world start working on building community. Otherwise the congregation will continue to decline, as we continue to lack relevance in a hurting world that needs to know the love of Christ. I wish I could say this is easy, but it takes giving abundantly of our time and intentionally getting to know new people. It requires talking to people who have yet to learn about the love of Christ and those who don t have a church family (no encouraging your friend to leave where they are already worshiping doesn t count). It means acknowledging our own biases and institutionalized discrimination. It often means we must accept change. And without question it means being like Christ all the time not just when it s convenient for us. If this is something your ready to commit to let me know; I ve got resources to help. But if your looking for the quick fix, I have nothing for you. Quick fixes aren t how we build the kingdom of God. I continue to pray for Christ s church and the transformation of hearts, minds, and actions that they might glorify God. Reverend Sarah Elliott
Page 3 June 3 - Ruth Law June 10 - Sue & Alex Williams June 17 - Emmalee Old June 24 - Georgette Paulson June 1 - John Pilkerton June 1 - Ed Paulson June 4 Addison McNamee June 5 - Debbie Simmons June 7 - Bynum Simmons June 9 - Clark Old June 11 - Heather Lloyd Forney June 12 - Michelle Davis June 15 - Bessie George June 23 - Paul Simmons June 25 - Maddison Marie Hennell June 23 Judy and Bob Tibbs June 25 Debbie and Jim Mayhew On April 14, 2018, Alpha s Glory had their annual Ladies Tea. At that time, the board announced approval to acquire the office next door to provide sonogram services to expectant mothers. We already have a licensed sonographer to operate the sonogram. Studies show that if the mother sees her baby and the movement within her, she is more likely to carry to term. Please keep Alpha s Glory in prayer that this new endeavor will come together very soon and benefit many unborn babies.
Page 4 The Hopewell UMC is now equipped with an assistive listening system to make hearing the services much easier. You will find it easy to use, plus feel free to bring your favorite headphones in if you prefer, as long as it has a basic mini -jack plug. Using the Gentner RX-6 Assistive Learning Receiver 1-Plug your headphone in at the top and wear the headphone 2-Turn on the power on the top with the little wheel. Turn clockwise to turn it on, counter-clockwise to turn off. This is ALSO the volume. 3-The RED light on the top will light when powered on. 4-The CHANNEL control should be set to "4" or you will not hear audio. When finished: 1-Turn off (counterclockwise) until it clicks and the red light goes out. 2-Unplug and keep your headphone for the next service. 3-Return the receiver to the pastor, who will verify it's turned off. ***IF YOU HEAR INTERFERENCE, LET ME KNOW AT THE END OF THE SERVICE SINCE THIS CAN BE SET TO DIFFERENT FRE- QUENCIES. To Share God s Love to Others The Susquehanna Charge Vacation Bible School Mission Is Helping Children with Less Have a Birthday Celebration Fill a Birthday Bag or Bring in Items to Fill a Bag Invitations Cake Mix & Icing Birthday Candles Party Favors, Hats, Blowers Birthday Plates, Napkins, Cups, Forks Decorations Streamers, Balloons, Banner NO USED, OPEN PACKAGES, FOOD or EXPIRED CAKE MIX or ICING COLLECTION BOX IN THE NARTHEX CHECKS CAN BE MADE OUT TO HOPEWELL UMC MEMO VBS MISSION The King will reply, Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. Matthew 25:40 Thank you, Tom Conroy
Page 5 2018 VBS PreK to Middle School Sponsored by the Susquehanna Charge at Hopewell UMC 3602 Level Village Road (off of 155) WHEN: Monday, July 23 Thursday, July 26, 2018 REGISTRATION: Every night at 5:30 pm PROGRAM EVERY NIGHT: 6:00-8:30pm VBS OPEN HOUSE Family Pizza Dinner Starts at 5:30pm on Thursday Everyone participate in VBS Point of Contact and To Pre-register: Wendy Brown 443-206-2851 or jerrybrown@atlanticbb.net Calendar: Monday, June 11 SPRC at 7:00pm Tuesday, June 12 Serving Grace Place Tuesday, June 19 NO Ladies Night Out Tuesday, June 19 -- UMM Golden Corral 6:00pm Ladies Night Out: Our Next Ladies Night Out will be Tuesday, July 17, 2018 due to a conflict. We are tentatively planning to go to The Olive Tree or Red Lobster
Page 6 The UMW would like to thank all of the volunteers and members of the congregation who supported our two fundraisers this past year. The Applebee s Pancake Breakfast and Sub Sale were a huge success. May 7th was our last formal meeting before our summer break. We welcomed two new ladies: Georgette Paulson and Michelle Deaner. As the ladies came in, they were asked to pick a hat to wear from Izzie s Hat Collection. Following a brief meeting, the ladies enjoyed the program Incredible Mothers in the Bible presented by Wendy Brown. Afterwards the ladies enjoyed a tea sipping a variety of teas out of Linda Sapp s beautiful tea cups with tasting delicious sweets. Four lucky ladies went home with a center piece and one lady received a hanging basket donated by Berg s Farm. The UMW will be preparing a meal for Vacation Bible School for the volunteers and their children on Wednesday, July 23. Ladies, we can surely see ways that God s abundant grace touches our lives each and every day. Remember to make spontaneous gifts in your World Thank Offering Box throughout the summer for God s Sightings. Please bring your World Thank Offering box to our August 27th meeting. The UMW will resume after the summer break with our first meeting to be Monday, August 27th at 6:00pm with Linda Sims preparing dinner for us. There will be NO September meeting. Watch for more details to come. Let us remember that God welcomes everyone. God loves everyone and that we are all God s children. Let us all reach out to God s children, welcome them with love and invite them to join us. Have a safe, happy and Blessed summer! Linda Shifflett UMW President
Page 7 June Sermons: June 3rd - Celebrating the Community of Faith -- Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 & Ephesians 4:1-6 June 10th - Long Range Plans (Graduate Sunday)-- Psalm 138 & 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 June 17th - Ms. Sarah Ingalls-Howard -- "Heaven is like..." Psalm 20 & Mark 4:26-34 June 24th - Rev. Kate Mackereth Fulton -- "Accepting God's Grace" 2 Corinthians 6:1-13 & Psalm 9:9-20 Service Missions: Serving Grace Place Susquehanna Charge VBS Mission Providing supplies for a birthday party for less fortunate children Grace Place: This past May Hopewell had seven volunteers serving our 83 guests to homemade meatloaf, baked macaroni & cheese and fresh glazed carrots. Thank you to Jean Gamble for helping Sue and I with the food preparation the Monday before. Rock Run topped off the meal with a variety of homemade desserts. Our guestswere spoiled with Rock Run s treat of homemade peanut butter fudge. Volunteers from Chapel and Havre de Grace UMC were busy serving groceries, waitressing, and assisting our guests. Grace Place continues to receive donations of bread, bakery items, and some fruits and vegetables from Panera Bread, Shoprite at Beard s Hill, WaWa, and Weiss. However; our shelves are running bare for some specific nonperishable canned items. A food drive is planned in the future to help stock the shelves with certain items. More information will be coming. Submitted by Linda Shiftlett 2018 High School Graduates: Katelyn Burdette will be attending Cecil College in the fall in the nursing program, specializing in geriatric care. Lauren Caudill plans to attend HHC in the fall to start her journey as a Spanish teacher. Throughout high school she attained her firefighter1 EMT and hazmat ops certification. She is graduating with honors and would like to thank her Mom Mom as well as her Hopewell family for always supporting and loving her throughout her life. Greg Reynolds plans to attend HHC in the fall to further his education. Thanks go out to all who have provided support to him throughout his life. He sends his thanks to the church family for providing him the opportunity to participate in trips to Rock in Ocean City and all the mission trips in which he participated.
Page 8 Then and Now Katelyn Burdette Then and Now Lauren Caudill Then and Now Greg Reynolds Then and Now
Page 9 A heartfelt thank you to the Hopewell Prayer Shawl Ministry for your generous gift of prayer shawls and chemo caps given to patients receiving care at the Kaufman Cancer Center. Your act of kindness will truly brighten up the day of patients receiving one of your caps or shawls. Your support and generosity is most truly appreciated! If anyone is interested in learning about the vision and activities that support the Kaufman Cancer Center and how to become involved, do not hesitate to reach out! Thanks so much again. Boy Scout Troop 965 Webster-Level MD 12 February 2018 Pastor Sarah Elliott Hopewell United Methodist Church 3602 Level Village Road Havre de Grace, MD 20178 Dear Pastor Elliott: On behalf of Boy Scout Troop 965, I would like to express our sincere appreciation for your support our Troop s Spaghetti Dinner. As you know, Scouting is a non-profit organization, and relies primarily on various fund-raising efforts to provide our boys with positive, character-building experiences and outings. The Spaghetti Dinner is our single largest fund-raiser, and your kind offer of advertising support will gain us additional visibility, and increase sales so we can continue to provide those experiences to our Scouts. In addition, many thanks for providing parking for our Volunteers which frees up much needed parking at the Fire Hall for our customers. Please accept these complimentary tickets to our Spaghetti Dinner as a small token of our appreciation. The Dinner will be held on 10 March 2018 at the Level Volunteer Fire Hall from 4-7pm. We sincerely hope to see you there. Yours in Scouting, Anita L. Boris Boy Scout Troop Dear Members of Hopewell UM Church, Thank you so much for your $50.00 donation to our Building Fund in Honor of Mrs. Mary Ayers. In Christian Love Pastor Brian Woods and Members of CRBC
Page 10 Website address is: http://www.myhopewellchurch.com/ Please send your feedback Ellen Childress at: webmaster@myhopewellchurch.com. Newsletter items can be sent to: shepherd@myhopewellchurch.com These items will automatically get to the Newsletter editor, Ellen Childress. Items are due by the 20th of each month. Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hopewellumclevel. Please post pictures and events of interest for others to see. NOTE: ANYONE CAN ADD POSTS TO THIS PAGE. You can also send submissions for the Facebook page to: webmaster@myhopewellchurch.com. We encourage you all to share this information with others. Peace, Pastor Sarah HOW TO REACH THE PASTOR: Reach Pastor Sarah Elliott at: 3602 Level Village Road, Havre de Grace, MD 21078 pastorsarahelliott@gmail.com Weekly Announcements for the Church Bulletin Please send any announcement you want printed in the Sunday Bulletin each Wednesday by noon to Pastor Sarah at: pastorsarahelliott@gmail.com It's an honor to be given the opportunity to be present with you in the many places we go in life. Please contact me directly if you would like a visit; are in the hospital; have a health concern, want to talk about a faith question, or would like to share your hopes and dreams for the church, OR any other topic you'd like to discuss. I can be reached by phone at (410) 914-5276 or by e-mail at pastorsarahelliott@gmail.com. Blessings, Pastor Sarah The good Lord didn't create anything without a purpose, but mosquitoes come close.