Month: October 2007

It appears that the time stamp for posts on this blog is an hour off. I suspect the change in daylight savings time is the culprit and that everything since last Sunday has been off. I’ll look into it and see what I can do.

In addition to the magnet, we tried to give a flyer with the following information to all the children:

There were also a great many children watching the VeggieTales DVD we had running during Trunk-or-Treat.

We started the night with 225 magnets giving one to each child. We missed about 25-28 children in the tumult of the rush and then had 5-10 children come through after we ran out. A conservative estimate would then be 255 children.

Update: We just found 29 magnets in someone’s pocket, which pushes our conservative estimate back to 226.

We gave out 238 Hotdogs for Trunk-or-Treat. Hotdogs were given out to both children and adults, but there were many trunk-or-treaters who didn’t make it downstairs for their hotdog. Hopefully, I’ll have more statistics later.

As you probably already know, the Missions Committee sponsors the sale of Equal Exchange Coffee through the UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief). Paying farmers in developing countries a fair price for their coffee is a mission project in and of itself, but we got an additional bit of good news with our most recent coffee order. From Equal Exchange:

“For every pound of fairly traded products that Methodists purchase, Equal Exchange donates $0.15 to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). For 2006, that amount totaled $17,191.07. This year, UMCOR used these funds to support agriculture development in West Africa.”

At the last Church Council Meeting, the Lay Leadership Committee (formerly the Nominating Committee) was tasked with overhauling the church committee structure. We got started tonight. We’re consolidating all the ministry committees into three new committees: Nurture, Outreach, and Witness.

You may have seen signs around the church that this years Consecration Sunday and “Great Thanksgiving Dinner” will be November 18, 2007. Hope to see everyone there.

The Lay Leadership Committee (formerly the Nominating Committee) will meet Monday at 7:00 pm in Room 102.

The Vision Team met with a larger group to talk about a BHAG (Big Holy Audacious Goal) for the church last night. We arrived at the following: “To be the best church in Coffeyville for ministry with all of God’s children.” We arrived at this general idea, not this exact wording so if anyone has a correction or a suggestion to improve the wording please let me know.

Late Update: I had a colleague who reads this blog contact me with a few questions for clarification. The First is that by “God’s children.” we mean children literally. The second is that “best” is less about competition with other churches then it is about what we can do best, what need is there in our community that we, as a church, are best situated to address.

“For thus says the high and lofty one
who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
I dwell in the high and holy place,
and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble,
and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

Our own April Foreman has an entry at bricktownblog.com about her journey to the attic of the sanctuary. It’s good reading at http://www.bricktownblog.com/?p=12.

I had a question about why the front doors to the church were taped off. And with that question I was reminded about the other announcement I had for the second service this morning. Bob, our custodian, had to take a Sunday off. Without Bob there to spend an hour and a half hosing down the front steps, they were covered in pigeon droppings. Because we didn’t want everyone to have to walk through the droppings and because we didn’t want the droppings tracked through the sanctuary, we taped off the doors.