This week we’re starting a new series looking at the fact that a lot of time when we think about serving or helping or finding ways to do ministry in the world, it can seem overwhelming. The problems are too big to tackle, the people are too many, and we don't even know where to start. That can lead us to get frozen in place because there are just too many options and we're not sure what to do. When we look at Jesus, though, we see that most of the time, when he affected real change in the world, it was through a one-on-one relationship with someone. Yes, he had big sermons with thousands of people that absolutely made an impact. But those times were few and far between. Mostly it was a one-on-one relationship where he really got to see the other person and know them for who they are and where they are. Join us as we learn from Jesus more about how to “one” another.
Our current series takes a look at the way the resurrection is unsettling. Because while it might be joyous for us, it's unsettling to the powers that it acts in opposition to: death, division, shame, and all of the forces in the world that want to keep it quiet, to keep people in line, to keep the status quo the status quo, and who certainly don’t want any change, oh heavens no. To all of these forces and others like them, like a flower growing among weeds, resurrection breaks in and unsettles their ability to keep hold over us, to keep control over this world, and to keep us apart. So, let's look for the ways we can unsettle this world together through the power and message of the resurrection.
This year, as we journey through Lent together, we're going to see Scriptures that are filled to abundance with grace. We’ve done nothing to deserve or earn this grace, and yet, like water, pours out and washes over us. So, this year, we invite you into a radically different Lent with an invitation to be authentically who you are and to pour out even more grace wherever it is needed in this world. When we allow ourselves to be filled with this abundance of God’s extravagant love, it spills over from us onto the world around us, touching everything in its path.
In our next message series starting this week, we’ll be asking about how following our preparation for Christ’s arrival, celebration of his birth, and seeing ourselves in his baptism… now what? Where do we go from here? How do we live it out as the body of Christ for the world of today? The lectionary texts for this season are taken from 1 Corinthians where Paul was writing to a church that was going through a lot of problems as they tried to figure out how to live this new life together in ways that people can see. What can we learn from them about how to live out our faith in the world today? Christ has been born! Hallelujah! Now what?
"Home" is something that carries a lot of meanings for all of us, and each of them is different. Home might be a place we go to for safety and security or it can be someplace we dread. Home can be filled with our loved ones, or home might be the place we miss our loved ones who are no longer with us. Home is something that is heavy and carries with it all different sorts of emotions. This Advent, join us on a journey where we seek comfort from the One who made their home with us and to find, wherever our home might be, joy, hope, courage, and love.
There are times in life when we face difficult decisions or have unexpected opportunities come up in our lives. When this happens, a lot of the time we weigh the pros and cons to try and discern what we should do. A lot of the time, the temptation is real to just play things safe and kipe doing the same old, same old. But there comes a time when we have to make a decision, are we going to commit or not?
We're starting a new series here at Fredericktown United Methodist Church where we'll be taking a look at some of the ways we are asked to commit for God because God committed for us totally and completely in love. How do we commit to that love and each other? Join us as we look for answers together!
This week we are starting a brand new series at Fredericktown UMC called: Courage - Spelling It Out. We have a lot of assumptions about what courage entails or what it is. What if it is all those things, but also more than we imagined and begins in ways we never realized? Join us for the next several weeks together as we seek to spell out just what courage is and how we can use it to build up each other and our communities.
We're starting a new series this week called "Abundant" which is based on the theme of this year's Annual Conference. In John 10:10, Jesus tells listeners that he came not to steal, kill, or destroy, but so that people could have life and have it abundantly. The next few weeks together, we'll be taking a look at what it meant to have an abundant life through all the ups and downs, twists and turns that life can bring. Join us for the abundant life!
Today, we're starting off a brand new worship series at Fredericktown UMC called: Can I ask you a question.... Through this series, we hope to be able to try and help us learn how to be together again. Because with everything that happened through 2020, one of the largest things that people noticed is that we missed just being able to be together and when we weren’t able to get together either here in church or in our schools or at the movies, anywhere, really, and it’s almost like we got out of practice where we needed a little bit of a kick start to get back in the habit of just being together, meeting together, communing together.
And so, with that in mind, we have this new series that is built on all these questions that encourage us to get to know each other more and maybe deeper than before, to encourage us to truly listen to one another. Because to build connections and trust, we must listen to one another’s stories and experiences, to learn who and what shaped us throughout our lives. We need to feel seen, to feel known by others. And so maybe, just one question at a time, we’ll remember how to stay curious, to keep listening and asking, and to keep seeing the face of God in each other.
Our next message series is taking a look at the call placed on us as United Methodists through our Baptismal Creed and our Membership Vows. We've seen in our previous series that we are called to live out the Resurrection and be a Pentecost people, but how do we say we are called to do that specifically as United Methodists? That's what we’re going to be looking at over the next several weeks together! We hope that you will be our guest!