WESLEY MESSENGER Wesley United Methodist Church 40 West Main Street, Strasburg, PA 17579 Church email address: wesleystrasburg@verizon.net Web: www.wesleychurch.us 717.687.6392 Worship Schedule 8:30 a.m. Traditional ~ 10:50 a.m. Contemporary 9:45 a.m. Holy Grounds Fellowship in Epworth 10:00 a.m. Sunday School for all ages July 2015 Volume 7, Issue 7 Inside this issue: Worship Schedule 1 Pastor s Page 2 Worship 3-4 Building 5 Welcome, Pastor! 6 Sunday July 5-6th Sunday after Pentecost Psalm 48 & 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 & Exodus (various) New Beginnings Where Do We Go From Here? Sunday July 12 7th Sunday after Pentecost Psalm 24 & Ephesians 1:3-14 Spiritual Blessings in Christ Nothing happens in ministry outside of Jesus Christ! Sunday July 19-8th Sunday after Pentecost Psalm 89:20-37 & Ephesians 2:11-22 We Are One in Christ Unity in the Body of Christ! Sunday July 26-9th Sunday after Pentecost Psalm 14 & John 6:1-21 Spiritual Hunger Where to turn when we are spiritually hungry!!! Our Mission Education 7 Members at Home 8 Finance 9 Missions 10 Youth 11 Community VBS 12 Office Hours: M, T, & Th 8:00am - 1:00pm Office Phone: 717.687.6392 Rev. David Alderson - Pastor Open - Praise Leader Kim Badman - Organist/Choir Director Holly Miller - Secretary Laura Martin - Treasurer/Finance Sec
Pastor s Ponderings Grace and peace to the Body of Christ, It is with great pleasure to announce that we have finally arrived to begin ministry with all of you. We anticipate many years of ministry together in this great community and the surrounding area. My family and I are settled in to your beautiful parsonage, and we want to thank all who helped to get us here. It is truly an honor to come to serve all of you, and to work together with each and every one of you to prepare for life and ministry together. Our calling and desire in ministry is to reach those whom we feel God is calling the church to reach the least, the last and the lost. We feel a large part of this calling is to equip Ambassadors of Christ as Ministers of Reconciliation to a broken world full of broken people. But we recognize that we cannot fulfill this calling without first realizing who God has called us to be. If the church and her people cannot value and love others and ourselves within the walls of the church, we will have great difficulty doing so outside the walls of the church. We are to know and rely on the love God has for us. God IS love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him! (1John 4:16-17 NIV) This is where the Alderson family wants to be. We want to come along side to walk with you in the direction God wants his people going. We want to share with you this extravagant love that God has for us. We are not perfect, but you will find that we are genuinely interested in your spiritual well-being, and we care deeply about your physical and emotional state of mind just the same. We will walk with you, rejoice with you, and we will cry with you but notice the term WITH YOU. We are all in this together!!! future Stay tuned for much more to come in the Yours in Christ, Pastor David Alderson The Formula for Abundant Life (WSW)G + (POWER)G + HS Pastor s Contact Information Please contact the Pastor through the church office - 687.6392. If he is not in the office, select mailbox #1 for further instructions or to leave a message. The Pastor will respond to you at his earliest convenience. Thank you! Pastoral Emergency In the event of a pastoral emergency during those times when I am unavailable or away on vacation, please call a member of the Pastor s Away Team: Ginny Gardner, Lay Leader - 288.2338 Maria Llinas, Lay Leader - 917.9852 Bill Hawes, Chair, Ad Council - 464.1206 Holly Miller, Secretary - 687.6392 LOST ITEMS FOUND! Holy Grounds Holy Grounds is an enjoyable time between services where worshippers gather for fellowship, a cup of coffee, and delightful snacks. A sign-up sheet is next to the snack table where your church committee or group can sign up to help out. Won t you consider asking a couple of friends to help you provide the snacks some Sunday? Also, the fellowship committee has been asked to develop a procedure for cleanup after Holy Grounds time. We concluded that the best thing to do is add this to the duties of whomever signs up for snacks for that Sunday. The coffee will continue to be set up and ready to go. Cleanup details will be listed by the snack table. Holy Grounds is a time everyone seems to enjoy and we thank all of you who have cheerfully provided us with your help! If you ve lost an item at church (a white cup, pair of glasses, earrings, glove, purse), check with Holly in the church office. We ll be happy to reunite you! 2
Perhaps you have noticed the cryptic Formula for Abundant Life that has been printed in The Messenger for the past few months. It looks like this: The Formula for Abundant Life (WSW)G + (POWER)G + HS Perhaps you have been wondering what it means. This is a reduction of our newly revised Mission statement that the Administrative Council recently approved. It describes our task as Christians in Strasburg and beyond. We are to: Worship God; Serve God; Witness for God; by the P.O.W.E.R. of God through the Holy Spirit Notice that this includes the POWER (Prayer, Outreach, Worship, Education, Rejoicing) acronym from the former Mission statement. It reminds us what we are to do, the tools we need to do it and the help we have in doing it. Christian Education Co-Chairs: Liana Kieley & Open Sunday School Superintendent: John Yoder Cradle Roll: Betty Heffner Liana Kieley, Children/Youth - 687.7074 lianajkieley@gmail.com Kerri Shindle - 687.7109 noahsrainbowwumc@gmail.com Nursery Coordinator - Open Children s Sunday School, Children s Chapel & Middle School/High School Sunday School will all be taking a Summer Break during the month of June. Adult Sunday School There are 2 Sunday School Electives for Adults to consider: Jane Eyre is a devout young Christian woman. She is not beautiful, yet two men fiercely desire her hand in marriage. Which will she choose and from whom is her soul more in danger, the blaspheming pagan or the holy man of God? Charlotte Bronte s story of Jane (many times filmed) is one of English literature s great novels. Starting in September, the Wrestling with Words Sunday school class will be reading and discussing it. If you are interested or need a book, please contact Roy Rineer 464-9870. The Inquirers Class, which meets in the small Sunday school room off the Asbury room on the second floor, will continue its study of Genesis in April using the book Broken and Blessed: How God Used One Imperfect Family to Change the World, by Jessica LaGrone. The class is facilitated by Kay Hawes. SHHH! ~ 3
Chair - Open Team Wesley: Lynda Houck 1 - Stop - Shop July s Mission Challenge is SOUP! Thank you for your generous support of our L-S School District families! We celebrate your outpouring of yummy dessert items during June s Mission challenge. During the month of JULY, you are invited to bring to worship your gifts of CANNED OR BOXED SOUP guaranteed to fill the bellies of local families! PRAYER SHAWL MINISTRY An outreach ministry to those in need. If you know a loved one or friend who would appreciate a shawl or wrap, please contact Joyce Strubel or Ruby Botham and we will have one made for them! Would you like to knit or crochet a prayer shawl or wrap or learn more about the prayer shawl ministry started? We will be glad to share with you! Wrapped in Love! Team Wesley & Pennies for Missions John 15:12: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Team Wesley 2015 invites you to join us for our next meeting on Tuesday, July 7 at 7:00 PM. THANK YOU for your continued support of Team Wesley! It is amazing what we can accomplish when we work together to serve our Lord!! * * * Pennies for Missions collected $99.00 in May. To participate in Pennies for Missions, all you have to do is this: family members place 2 pennies in their soup can for every meal that they eat. All pennies collected will be used to support Wesley UMC mission projects. On the last Sunday of each month, bring your Pennies for Missions can to church so the children of Wesley can collect all of our pennies during the Children s Lesson. What a fantastic opportunity for all of God s children to support Wesley s Mission Projects! Next Pennies for Missions collection is July 26, 2015 Attention Grocery Shoppers! If you are a grocery shopper at the Strasburg Market Basket, why not consider picking up a grocery card from the table in the Epworth Room to take with you when you do your weekly food shopping? For every $25 you spend, the Market Basket initials/stamps the card. When the card is full, it is worth $15 for our church s general fund. When your card is full, just put it in Lily Williams mailbox. Thank you to the Market Basket for continuing to support us with this venture and thank you Market Basket shoppers who utilize your grocery cards for your purchases. 4
Contact Information: Liana Kieley, Director, CCT, CCK SUPPLIES NEEDED FOR CCK SUMMER CAMP: Creative Christian Kids Summer Camp Wednesdays 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. Pre-K graduates thru 5 th grade $5.00 per session Bible lessons, games, snacks, crafts & science Wesley UMC Strasburg Contact: Liana Kieley (717) 682-6121 24 white tea light candles 2 bags bird seed 48 1 liter soda bottles 24 baby food jars clean, please, with lids 4-6 bags play sand 2 8 x 10 tarps 24 1 pint small neck canning jars with lids 6 bags flour 4 containers salt 3 rolls duct tape 40 glue sticks 36 play-doh 24 small flashlights AA batteries for flashlights 3 bags potting soil 2 plastic kiddie pools SNACKS NEEDED: For 2015/2016 School Year Pretzels Apple juice Animal crackers Grape juice Goldfish crackers Milk Graham crackers 8 oz Water bottles Rice Krispy treats 5 oz. Cups Cookies Wednesdays 3 to 4:30 p.m. Do you have an hour and a half to give each week to enrich the lives of our youth? 5