Advent Week 1!

I am so excited for Advent, the start of a new church year and the preparing for Christmas. I love the telling of the Christmas story little bit by little bit as we get closer to that glorious day. Between the hustle and bustle of this busy season I want to share some Advent thoughts with you. So each day between now and Christmas day stop by this page to find a thought for the day.

Today is a video.

Happy New Year!!

Upcoming Events

Upcoming Events

Pictorial Directory Photos - .

Oct 27-31 (Downtown)

5th Sunday Offering

Oct 30

Time Change -

Nov 6

All Saints Concert -

Nov 6

Pictorial Directory Photos -

Nov 10-12

(Andover)

Hiking trip -

Nov 19

Giving Banquet -

Nov 20

Advent Craft Night -

Nov 27

Children's Christmas Presentation -

Dec 11

A prayer for God's children

Many have asked me for this... here is the prayer I prayed before my sermon on Sunday:

We pray for children
Who sneak Popsicles before supper,
Who erase holes in workbooks,
Who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those
Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
Who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
Who were born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
Who never go to the circus,
Who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray for those
Who never get dessert,
Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
Who watch their parents watch them die,
Who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
Whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
And whose monsters in their closets are real.

We pray for children
Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
Who like ghost stories,
Who shove dirty clothes in their closets,
Who get visits from the tooth fairy,
Who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
Who squirm in church,
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
Whose nightmares come in the daytime,
Who will eat anything,
Who have never seen a dentist
Who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
Who got to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,

We pray for children
Who want to be carried and for those who must,
For those we never give up on and for those
Who don’t get a second chance,
For those we smother and for those who will grab the hand of anyone kind enough to offer it.

God we lift up your children today and always.

Amen

First Day of Fall!!

Here is a fun fall recipe for you to try :)

Click HERE

Fall Registration

Click the link above to Register your children for the 2011-2012 school year!

Is Heaven or Hell real?

I have been reading the book by Rob Bell called Love Wins. It has been an interesting read. But I wanted to look back at what our Methodist roots say. Wesley spoke many times about what Heaven and Hell are. To him they were real places. If you read through the Scriptures closely you too will see what he saw. There are many times when both are talked about and not in the theoretical sense either. They are real places. I found this article about the Methodist view of the afterlife and salvation. It was an interesting read and would invite you to read it too. Instead of linking you to it, it is copied below. Let me know what you think...

"John Wesley believed in a traditional idea of an immortal soul that spends eternity either in a place of blessedness called heaven or a place of torment called hell. One's destination depends on whether one is saved, forgiven by God's grace and converted to a life growing toward sinless perfection.

John Wesley sometimes said he was passing through this life "as an arrow through the air." This life was a precursor to the next, and the most significant question for a person was whether this life's trajectory ended in heaven or hell.Wesley believed in a traditional view of heaven and hell.Because God was just and humans were sinners, unless they availed themselves of the forgiveness made possible by Jesus Christ, they would face an angry God when they died.He encouraged his listeners to "flee the wrath to come."Hell, according to Wesley, was a real place of real torment that lasted through eternity.Heaven, in contrast, was a place of pleasure, not sensual, but the blessedness of being in the presence of God.What salvation means is to be free of sin and thus able to live in the presence of God.This presence is available to believers in this life, but is available fully and directly in the life to come.

Salvation is the result of a process of conversion, away from sin and toward God.Methodists believe that all humans are born sinners, thus all require conversion to be saved.Conversion may be sudden and dramatic or gradual.It consists of responding positively to God's prevenient grace, and to accepting the offer of justifying grace (the forgiveness of sins). With justifying grace comes also God's sanctifying grace, the supernatural assistance we need to make possible a life of increasing success in turning away from temptation, not allowing ourselves to sin, and performing works of piety andmercy.Methodists have historically differed from Presbyterians in believing that you can approach sinless perfection, and in believing that if you do not make progress toward perfection, you can lose your salvation.

While in the past these differences about your ability to accept salvation, and to live sinlessly or lose salvation, have distinguished Methodists from other Protestants, in more recent years the deeper significant split has been between the more conservative and more liberal wings of each Protestant denomination.Conservative Methodists and conservative Presbyterians resemble each other more than conservative and liberal Methodists do, and the same is true for the liberal wings.

The conservative wing of the Methodist Church maintains its belief in an afterlife spent in a literal place, either heaven or hell.More liberal Methodists tend to downplay hell, often because the image of God torturing people for eternity, even if they are sinners, is not easy to square with their idea of a loving God.Nor is it easy for them to square the idea of a just God with one who casts people into hell because, as the result of fortune for which they are not responsible, they have not lived in a place where the Gospel of Jesus was preached.

In recent surveys, far more Americans say that they believe in heaven than say they believe in hell. Since the mid-20th century there have been Methodists (this is true of all Protestant denominations) who hold that neither heaven nor hell are literal places.If the core of salvation as described above is to live in the presence of God, heaven is then a metaphor for blessedness or a divine relationship in this life.Hell is a metaphor for living in the absence of God in this life."

What do you think?

Family Fun Night

Family Fun Night! On May 27, 2011 we are going to be hosting a night for the whole family! Come downtown and enjoy an evening of excitement. We will be watching clips from the upcoming Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We will also be learning a Bible story and singing some worship songs together! When: May 27 at 6 p.m. Where: West Chapel Who: Anyone! Cost: A donation of $5 for each family RSVP by Sunday, May 22 (sign up sheet in Gathering Hall, Children's Wing or via email to Bekah at monkeyrst@gmail.com)