In our recent Leadership Retreat we discussed several areas of possible outreach and improvement at the church. Some of these include a community clean-up day where we go door-to-door and street-to-street offering to clean street curbs and/or rake leaves, Re-Starting our monthly Children's Time, initiating a community volleyball tournament, developing and starting a new youth program, activating our Emmaus Community, becoming more visible with newsletters and mailings, going door-to-door with door hangers and "12 Second Evangelism", adding a Wednesday Community Meal to the schedule of Wednesday activities, as well as many other great ideas.
The Wednesday Community Meal has been discussed before and looks like something that will actually happen. Several times we have had snacks or a meal at the 6:00 Bible Study but that was for limited number. The idea of the Wednesday meal is that the parent's of the Scouts, members of the Bible Study, and Worthamites in general can have the opportunity to have a hot meal prepared for them at little or no cost (donation only) where they can sit down, visit with the family or others, and not worry about the cooking, set-up and clean-up of the meal.
We am proud to announce that we will have a test run of this community meal starting in April and being served bi-monthly, April 7th and 21st. On April 7th we will have King Ranch Chicken, Salad, and Mexican Cheesecake for our first meal. The meal will be served from 5:15 - 5:45 with the Bible Study following at 6:00.
We look forward to the great ministry that can and will grow from this community meal. I hope you will all join us as we gather in fellowship for the meal.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Haiti Relief
Our thoughts and prayers are with the Haitian people and the relief workers. I do not know of a disaster of this magnitude in my lifetime. The Tsunami of 2004 is close. In the Tsunami 230,000,000 reportedly lost their lives. After only one week, the estimate for the Haiti Earthquake is 200,000 and rising.
UMCOR has been hit hard as well. The Director of UMCOR, Rev. Sam Dixon, as well as others with UMCOR and UM Missions were in Haiti on January 12 and have lost their lives, others are in critical condition.
As UMCOR and other relief agencies work to bring peace to the people of Haiti, they also seek their own peace as their grieve. Please continue to pray for the the relief efforts and look for ways that you can be a part of the help that is needed. Give to UMCOR by check here at the church and write Haiti #418325 in the memo line. The Conference will also deliver health kits and stock lists for the health kits is listed below. Please consider compiling a kit that we can include in the deliver.
Health Kit Items Value: $12 per kit
Place these items inside a sealed one-gallon plastic bag.
* 1 hand towel (15" x 25" up to 17" x 27", No kitchen towels)
* 1 washcloth
* 1 comb (large and sturdy, not pocket-sized)
* 1 nail file or fingernail clippers (no emery boards or toenail clippers)
* 1 bath-size bar of soap (3 oz. and up)
* 1 toothbrush (single brushes only in original wrapper, No child-size brushes)
* 6 adhesive plastic strip sterile bandages
* $1.00 to purchase toothpaste
(NOTE: UMCOR Sager Brown is now purchasing toothpaste in bulk to be added to health kits before shipping to ensure that the product does not expire before they are sent.)
Important Kit Assembly Information
* All items included in kits must be NEW items.
* All emergency kits are carefully planned to make them usable in the greatest number of situations. Since strict rules often govern product entry into international countries, it is important that kits contain only the requested items-nothing more.
* Do NOT include any personal notes, money or additional materials in the kits. These things must be painstakingly removed and will delay the shipment.
UMCOR has been hit hard as well. The Director of UMCOR, Rev. Sam Dixon, as well as others with UMCOR and UM Missions were in Haiti on January 12 and have lost their lives, others are in critical condition.
As UMCOR and other relief agencies work to bring peace to the people of Haiti, they also seek their own peace as their grieve. Please continue to pray for the the relief efforts and look for ways that you can be a part of the help that is needed. Give to UMCOR by check here at the church and write Haiti #418325 in the memo line. The Conference will also deliver health kits and stock lists for the health kits is listed below. Please consider compiling a kit that we can include in the deliver.
Health Kit Items Value: $12 per kit
Place these items inside a sealed one-gallon plastic bag.
* 1 hand towel (15" x 25" up to 17" x 27", No kitchen towels)
* 1 washcloth
* 1 comb (large and sturdy, not pocket-sized)
* 1 nail file or fingernail clippers (no emery boards or toenail clippers)
* 1 bath-size bar of soap (3 oz. and up)
* 1 toothbrush (single brushes only in original wrapper, No child-size brushes)
* 6 adhesive plastic strip sterile bandages
* $1.00 to purchase toothpaste
(NOTE: UMCOR Sager Brown is now purchasing toothpaste in bulk to be added to health kits before shipping to ensure that the product does not expire before they are sent.)
Important Kit Assembly Information
* All items included in kits must be NEW items.
* All emergency kits are carefully planned to make them usable in the greatest number of situations. Since strict rules often govern product entry into international countries, it is important that kits contain only the requested items-nothing more.
* Do NOT include any personal notes, money or additional materials in the kits. These things must be painstakingly removed and will delay the shipment.
Monday, January 11, 2010
The New Year
We have made it to a new year. With the eve of another year we celebrate, we make and break resolutions, we look back on where we've been and we look ahead at where we are going. A new year is a time for a fresh start, a restart, a new start and that is what we are going to do here at FUMC Wortham. We can not become complacent and think that the growth we have seen this year is enough. No, we must keep moving ahead to be the church God has called us to be. Over the next couple of months we will look at what we do and why we do it. Everything is on the table. We must look at everything we do through the lens of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
This process of evaluation will develop in waves over the next months. This week we named the new officers for the church that had been elected at our Fall Charge Conference. In the next weeks these leaders will be trained at the Waco District Leadership Training Event at Austin Avenue United Methodist Church in Waco, TX on January 24th. In the next month we will meet for our second annual leadership retreat and discuss the future of our church as we seek to keep Christ at the center and grow to the great potential that we have here in Wortham.
Borrowing from Steven J. Covey's Habits of Highly Effective People, we will begin with the end in mind. We will look at what we envision the church to be in the future then work backwards to today and build incremental goals to ultimately reach our future potential.
I look forward to this new year as we reach beyond our walls and become a place, not only of open hearts, open doors, and open minds; but, a place that opens hearts, opens doors, and opens minds.
Click the Link Below for Video!
Monday, December 7, 2009
Come join us at First United Methodist Church of Wortham as we celebrate the true meaning of Christmas:
"For a child has been born to us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor
Mighty God
Everlasting Father
Prince of Peace"
Isaiah 9:6
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor
Mighty God
Everlasting Father
Prince of Peace"
Isaiah 9:6
So often we get so caught up in the giving and receiving during Christmas time that we forget that we already received the greatest gift of all time, a child who would one day grow to be a man, our Savior. You are invited to join us as we worship and celebrate this miraculous and mysterious birth and receive anew that which has been given.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Doing or Being?
As I feverishly worked between Charge Conference forms, bulletin preparation, sermon preparation, Bible study preparation, Church and Civic Committees.... it dawned on me, "Be careful what you wish (pray) for 'cause you might just get it!" We have prayed for growth. We have prepared for growth. Now we have begun to see growth. I think what some of us missed was that with church growth comes a growth of commitment to the church.
Many of us are satisfied with our level of commitment to the church. This commitment includes coming to the church, singing appropriately, placing a few dollars in the offering plate, listening to the sermon and going home. Would it surprise you to know that church membership in the early church was much different? Church membership then was less about what happened in the church building (if they were even able to assemble in a large building set aside for worship) and more about what happened out side of the church building. Of course we don't forsake the assembling together of believers, but that is more about "filling the salt shakers" so we can go out and be the "salt of the earth." As we grow I pray that each of us would look at what it means to BE a church rather than simply DOING church. We may find there is a big difference. (For more on this check out the archive of sermons link on this page.)
Many of us are satisfied with our level of commitment to the church. This commitment includes coming to the church, singing appropriately, placing a few dollars in the offering plate, listening to the sermon and going home. Would it surprise you to know that church membership in the early church was much different? Church membership then was less about what happened in the church building (if they were even able to assemble in a large building set aside for worship) and more about what happened out side of the church building. Of course we don't forsake the assembling together of believers, but that is more about "filling the salt shakers" so we can go out and be the "salt of the earth." As we grow I pray that each of us would look at what it means to BE a church rather than simply DOING church. We may find there is a big difference. (For more on this check out the archive of sermons link on this page.)
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