May 16: Last day of Wednesday School pickup; we will continue to meet Wednesdays from 5:30 to 7 throughout the summer. 

May 27: Senior Reception

May 27: No Youth Activities – Memorial Day Weekend!

June 1: Mission Trip Meeting & Cookout Londenberg House

June 3: Mission Team Commissioning During 10:30AM Worship Service

June 10-16: Sr and Jr High Youth Mission Trip Eureka Springs, AR

June 24-28: VBS – We need youth volunteers!

Have you heard the good news!?  Jamie Kent will be here June 3^rd!  Come prepared to welcome her as our new Youth Director! 

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”                  Luke 9:23-24

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.   Psalm 19:14

Sunday we had an example of wise choices.  Two of our own repented and professed their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord of their life.  True they are young but they are still entitled to making wise choices.  Thanks be to God for his grace that supplies all our needs at any age.  They will have lots of growing as they mature in the faith but that is God’s plan for his creation.

Gloria Gaither writes about wise choices:

“C.S. Lewis once said, ‘no clever arrangement of bad eggs ever made a good omelet.’  What we truly are will dictate our choices, no matter how we try to camouflage or hide it, and no amount of moral effort will make us choose rightly if our hearts aren’t right.  Sooner or later the pressures and pace of our lives will expose what we really are….

Morality would be a cumbersome burden if each decision of our lives had to be carefully checked against some itemized, written code.  We would be in constant turmoil worrying about whether some code was overlooked or misinterpreted.  The joy of right living would be strangled in legalism.  But it is exactly this sort of system that was in effect before Jesus brought the renovation of the human heart and motives through His death and resurrection and then provided us with the live-in support of the Holy Spirit….

Good choices come most freely from the purest possible motives; these come from a heart repossessed by the transforming power of love.  Love does what law could never do.”

As our young ones give example and action to the powerful love of God so we too can be a force for God as we live our lives.  Come and let us all allow God to live in us and use us to lead where we are following Him.  Blessed are we when we let God lead.

Blessings,

John

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

Luke 24:13-16

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.

Luke 24:28-31

And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Luke 24:33-35

The Spoken Word

1. We go about our daily routine when we are confused

2. We are often blind to the fact that Jesus is near

3. Holy fellowship brings the reveal

“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead  of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go.”  Luke 10:1

General conference is starting April 24, 2012 and there is much to discuss in Florida. The shape of our United Methodist presence is changing.  It will change the church from the local level all the way up to the General Church level.  You may be asking why?

Most people who join a local church do so because the people that they worship with are also people with which they choose to associate. They find the church setting to be fulfilling and they are satisfied.  The problem that has come to fruition is we do a great job of tending to the known flock but less so with the unknown.  We have lost some of our zeal for the lost and lonely.  So the question is how do we get back to the mission statement we have: “Making disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” ??

Jesus was aware of the need to go and reach out to people.  It was not his style to ask people to find him but he went out among the people.  He ministered to them where they were.  Not just physical location but on the emotional and spiritual level as well.  So when he sent out the seventy-two, the key word is he “sent” out to go before him.  He still sends us out into the world for him because he is coming.  We agree he will return and we are like the seventy-two.  He sends us out and empowers us to be his presence in this 21st century world.  We do not go out alone.  We go out with the power of the Holy Spirit.  We are sent and given authority to be his presence in our world.

General conference will make changes in our institution called United Methodist but the changes that we need will come only from the empowerment by our Lord.  It is my prayer that General Conference will listen to God’s council and allow him to send us all out empowered to teach, heal, love, forgive, and lead people to become disciples of Jesus.  Then we will truly transform this world for Him.

May God bless our General Conference and His Church called United Methodist.

Blessings,  John

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

The Spoken Word

1st Century Proof … 21st Century Reality

1. Jesus always encounters us
2. He proved to his disciples that he was truly resurrected
3. We are to proclaim the experience

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:19-31

The Spoken Word

1. Seeing is believing…Yes?
2. Are we like Thomas…Yes!
3. Jesus appears when we least expect it…it is welcome!

The above URL is something I think all of us should consider reading.  The devotional began in March and ends after General Conference 2012.  On the page it opens there is a place to sign up.  Just click the signup icon and fill in what they ask.   It is written by Bishop Schnase and leads us through the prayerful time we in the United Methodist Church consider so important.  If there ever was a time for prayer it is now.  The future depends upon our engagement in the life of our church and more importantly our relationship with our God.

The question that I ask myself every day is what can I do today that matters for God?  My second question of the day is where is it you want me to serve Lord, today?  The third question I ask is show me how to serve Lord, today?  I take my service one day at a time.  It is all I have to share with anyone.  I intend for the day to count for my Lord.

We are in the middle of change.  We can count on change happening.  The question is, will we allow change to overtake us or will we be part of the effort to become an agent for change? I prefer to be active rather than passive. Therefore, my first step in being active is to ask my daily questions and then follow through.

I challenge you to journey with me in a quest to daily serve God.  To joyfully be the hands and feet of God in a hurting world.   As we journey lets us share our successes and our frustrations.  Together we can find the place where God wants us to work for Him.

Please email me at wfumc@woodwayfumc.org and let us continue on the journey God has set before us.

Don’t forget to sign up for the Ministry Matters devotional for General Conference.

Peace in Christ,

John