Month: September 2007

We received the following Announcement from Judy Bredesen:

COMMUNITY HARMONY POT LUCK DINNER
On September 30, 2007 at 2:00 P.M. at the Youth Activity Center, 502 Walnut Street in Coffeyville the people of your congregation are specially invited to attend this unique opportunity to eat with and greet people from other Coffeyville congregations.

Because we are so separated and segregated on Sunday mornings, PINCH is organizing this occasion to bring us together. It is said that Sunday worship is the most segregated hour of the week. This is a rare event and we hope the people of your congregation will plan to attend. PINCH stands for People for Institutional and Communal Harmony and is an organization of which persons from your congregation are founding members.

Please let Judy Bredesen (252-1813) know by September 23rd if you plan to attend. Please bring a dish to pass and your own place setting. Cups, drinks and napkins will be provided.

Via Sojourners:

“I have not placed reading before praying because I regard it more important, but because, in order to pray aright, we must understand what we are praying for.”

Cafepress.com, where we have First United Methodist Church t-shirts available for purchase has increased their prices for all t-shirts printed front and back by $3. So I’ve put up some t-shirts with our logo on the front and nothing on the back. These are still starting at $13.99. You can access them through the “t-shirts” page of our website.

The new beds at the front of the church really need some help. My landscaping activity tends to be limited to mowing and, sometimes, weedeating. Is there anyone out there who enjoys landscaping and would be willing to give us a hand?

We received a note from Rev. Warren R. Schoming, pastor at Fairbury United Methodist Church in Fairbury, Nebraska who wrote:

“We were thrilled to have Travis Walker preach for us on Sunday July 29th. He did a great job! My children, wife, and self are all McPherson College Alums. We enjoy Travis a lot!”

While I’m issuing reminders, I should mention the potluck dinner this coming Sunday immediately following the second worship service.

A reminder: the Vision Team is encouraging everyone to wear their First UMC t-shirts to worship this coming Sunday, September 9. A clarification: you’re allowed, encouraged, but not required to wear a First UMC t-shirt. We want you either way.

The word “vocation” has long received a significant amount of usage in Christian theology. Defining it, however, seems to be a difficult task. This is perhaps the best definition of vocation that I have come across:

“Vocation comes from the Latin vocare, “to call,” and means the work a person is called to by God.

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, say, or the superego, or self-interest.

By and large a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need to do and (b) that the world needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

I just got a call asking that we announce that there will be a reception for Vera Peace’s 106th Birthday next Tuesday evening, September 11, 2007 at 7:00 pm. Vera requests no gifts, only your presence.

I’m interested in this. Is anybody else?

Late Update: Wikipedia has an order of worship.

If you’ve seen the new “sound booth” that Dave Larimore built for the sanctuary, then you know that we’re doing our best to hide the new multi-media system in ways that blend in with the sanctuary. When not in use, the main screen will roll up out of site, but we cannot do that with the confidence monitor (the monitor that will allow the pastor and the choir to see the same image that is on the main screen). Justin Thiesing came up with the idea of hiding the confidence monitor in plain site. We’ll take a picture of the front of the balcony rail and use it as a screen saver when the multi-media system is not in use. To make this work, we need a digital camera with a high pixel count (probably 7 or 8 megapixels) and a zoom lens. If you have a camera that meets the above description please drop us a line.

I’ve just added a page about our recycling program to our Website.