Category: Blog

8/15/2018

Howdy everyone!

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting excited about our upcoming Beautiful Day Festival  on August 26. This event is an opportunity to reach out to our neighbors in a new way, and I believe that it has the potential to build new relationships that will lead us to new callings and ministries in the weeks and months to come.

There is some excitement beyond our church this week about our Beautiful Day series and event:

• Both Jim Neely and I were interviewed by The Tennessean this week for a story to come next week. A reporter and photographer from the paper will be joining us in worship this Sunday (the 19th) to hear about what we are learning from Mister Rogers and our hopes for the festival.
• The Madison Rivergate Chamber promoted the event in their email materials, and we have been contacted by a local food truck that is going to come and be a part of the event.
• Several community leaders have mentioned the event in their Facebook posts, and others have distributed flyers in their business. Of course, Jim has delivered invitations to over 1,000 homes!

All of this means that we don’t really know how many folks will show up!!! That is a good problem to have, but it means that we need all hands on deck to be present and pitch in for this great event.

How can you help now? Here are a few options:

• We are always looking for donations from businesses for gift cards and other items to be used as door prizes. If you have a contact that might offer a donation please reach out. I’m happy to send them a letter of receipt that they can use for tax purposes.
• We will probably need folks to help set up on Saturday, August 25 so if you are able to help please let Jim Neely know. We also need folks to commit to being a part of the cleanup crew on the afternoon of the 16th.
• PRAY!!! Pray for God to:
  • Give us good weather for the event.
  • Keep us all healthy and grant us energy to be good hosts and hostesses.
  • Give us lots of opportunities to make new friendships that will develop into ongoing relationships.
  • Help our neighbors feel comfortable joining us and sharing of themselves.

God is doing a new thing in our midst. I hope and pray that you are as excited as I am, and that through this special season we will experience God’s grace in a mighty way.

See you Sunday!

Jay

 

Our weekly Vesper’s Service will be meeting tonight (July 18, 2018) at 6:00 p.m. in the City Road Chapel Welcome Center, and we will be looking at John 1:10-34. This passage describes the questioning of John the Baptist by the religious leaders of his day, and his subsequent witness regarding the identity of Jesus.

One of the central questions asking of John was “Who are you?” It’s a question that we too often face, and the way that John responds to that question has interesting implications for all of us living in a world which wants us to conform to certain categories.

If you haven’t been to Vespers before, it is a casual time of prayer, singing, and conversation on the scriptures. We also share in communion together each week.

Come and join the conversation tonight!

Last night, the leaders of our church met as the Church Council, and in the course of our business received a report from the Finance Team. According to Joy Campbell, church treasurer, our current balance on our loan is right at $147,000. She also shared that we currently have over $70,000 raised to pay on that amount, meaning that we are just over $70,000 from paying off the loan in a three year period.

When we borrowed the money to replace the Educational Build HVAC system ($600,000) I and others in leadership thought we were likely looking at having this debt with us for at least 10 years. Certainly, none of us thought that we’d be this close to retiring this debt as quickly as we have. God is indeed good and we have been blessed by almost all measures. Also, pat yourself on the back for a job well done as folks have expressed their ongoing commitment to the ministry of our church.

We are SO close and we can do this!!! Let’s make it our goal to get this loan entirely paid off in 2018. That is achievable if we draw together and make a final push.

Thanks to the Lord for God’s faithfulness as we celebrate this important milestone in our life together.

Peace,
Jay

It’s 8:30 a.m. and I have to confess that my brain is swirling a bit as I think about the events of the past couple of days.

Yesterday 80 of us gathered as a community to worship and then to be sent out to carry the love of Christ into the world. The goal was simple — to offer love as Christ has loved us, and to experience Jesus along the way. And over the course of the day, we did just that…

• By loving on some 25 kids and their parents and sharing God’s love with them at Shadetree.
• By helping a neighbor church address building issues to enhance their ministry for the future.
• By leading a group of senior adults in worship at The Windlands.
• By writing cards to our homebound members, reminding them of our love and concern.
• By stuffing 100 food bags to be distributed to those in need.
• By giving away some 100 bottles of water to passers by on Neely’s Bend Rd., helping them to know about our church and that want to serve.
• By knitting prayer shawls and giving one away to a person struggling with health issues.
• By opening the Quiet Space to some of our homeless neighbors, giving them a place to rest and regroup.
• By carrying cupcakes to our local firefighters and police officers, letting them know we appreciate what they do for our community.
• By collecting school supplies to be given to our area schools.
• By feeding our neighbors with a warm meal, good fellowship, and some rocking entertainment at the Feast Community Meal.

It was a good day, albeit an exhausting one, and I hope that you got a chance to experience God through this day of service. I need to especially thank one of God’s great servants, Jim Neely, for coordinating the WOW activities; Nathan Baker and Debbie Young for pulling together the breakfast; and all the members of THE BAND Matt McNeil, Kent Goodson, Jim Walden, Jerry Armour, Janet Passinger, Deb Naylor, Stephanie Carlson, and Stephen Owen) for helping us to experience God through music. God was indeed in our midst, and we thank Him for allowing us to serve him in this way.

And then, after a full day, I went home and turned on the TV.

The images from Houston brought flashbacks from that weekend 7 years ago when the heavens opened up and the flood waters rose here in Nashville. The situation in Texas and Louisiana is dire, and I remembered how the church was so important to the recovery and rebuilding efforts here in Nashville, and in other similar disasters throughout the world. The damage from the effects of Hurricane Harvey are far reaching, and it will take many years to recover from this disaster. And if this is like previous disasters (like Andrew, or Katrina, or the Nashville floods), United Methodists will be working to end through the work of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).

One of the things I learned in managing recovery efforts in Southeast Nashville is that there are many who want to help, but in their attempts create more problems than solutions. In all honesty what the folks in Houston need now is not second-hand clothes, or barely used shoes but rather the money to buy those things that are needed in the moment. Donations of stuff end up sitting in warehouses and decaying because they simply aren’t that useful at that point in the recovery efforts.

What Houston reminds me is that the call to offer God’s love never ends. We may have taken a day to Worship Outside the Walls, but the sending by Christ to proclaim his love and bring healing to the world continues on day by day. The needs are ALWAYS great — whether it be helping folks dig out after a disaster or ministering to those who are overwhelmed by the demons of addiction. And we — those that Paul called Christ’s body — are called and sent to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the midst of the world’s pain and suffering.

Yesterday’s Worship Outside the Walls was a great day, and you can be very proud of all that was done in the name of our church. Take a moment to pat yourselves on the back.

But then put your hand back to the plow and get back to the work of sharing God’s love for a world in need of God’s grace.

To find out more about Hurricane Harvey relief efforts by UMCOR, click here.

Jay