Children's Corner at LakeRidge Praise Volume 19 No. 3 4701 82nd Street, Lubbock, Texas 79424 (806) 794-4015 February 5, 2015 Who will you serve today? Enjoy living generously I hope you have enjoyed our Living Generously series. I think the videos have stimulated good discussions within our church family. Several persons have commented how they have enjoyed this study including our children, students and adults. Families have had some wonderful discussions around the dinner table about stinky sheep, spoons and ladles! We will conclude the series this Sunday. You will be given the opportunity to make a “Trust Declaration” between you and God regarding your financial resources. You will indicate the percentage of your income that you will give regularly to God’s work through our church. You will place the card in an envelope, seal it and address it to yourself. No one will look at the cards. This is a declaration of trust between you and God. We will return the unopened envelopes to you at the end of the year so you can celebrate how God has blessed your faithful giving. Many people give when there is a need. Many people give when there is a vision Many of you indicated an interest in that captures their hearts. Others give finding a way to serve in our church, our when they have something left over. I community and our world. Our staff want you to experience the joy of members are busy following up on your regular, systematic giving. God deserves requests for additional information. If our first and our best. We give not just you have not yet been contacted about to meet a need or to fulfill a vision. We your area of interest, please send me an give to God because of our gratitude for email at [email protected] and his abundant blessings. Set aside a I will see that you are contacted percentage of your income first to God immediately. We want everyone in our as you receive it. When you seek FIRST church family to discover the joy of His Kingdom you experience a deep serving. If you missed the Sundays on sense of joy. Enjoy the journey of which the “Ways to Serve” forms were Living Generously every day. Who will distributed, please go to our web site, you serve today? listen to the message by Don Boren entitled “Poor,” then click on the “Ways to Serve” tab on the home page and submit the form online. Ash Wednesday will be observed on February 18 in the Wesley Chapel. Please consider attending this moving service. Pastor Blossom Matthews is in charge of the service this year. "Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite services of the year," Pastor Blossom said. "The visible symbol of the cross marked in ashes on our foreheads, helps us to express our faith in Jesus Christ to cleanse us from sin. The Ash Wednesday service will include music, a brief message, and meaningful handson ways to express our faith. It's an ideal worship experience for all ages!" The service will begin promptly at 6 pm and end at 6:30 pm. Childcare will be provided. Women's Leadership Conference Scheduled for April at LCU An exciting conference coming up is “Women in Leadership,” presented by Lubbock Christian University. The event will be held at Baker Conference Centre on April 2, from 1 pm - 5 pm. You will be inspired to greater success by the stories of four leading women, including the Vice President of Chickfil-A, Dee Ann Turner. Each woman will share her top five to ten leadership tips, as well as sharing her story of becoming a leader. In addition, speakers will share how they integrate their faith into their professional life. Tickets are $75 and will fund scholarships for student leaders. Call 806.787.9840 for tickets. Page 2 Lysa TerKeurst, New York Times bestselling author of Made to Crave and Unglued, will be speaking at Trinity Church on Feb 20 & 21 (7 pm - 9 pm on Friday; 9 am - 12:15 pm on Saturday). The Women’s Ministry of LakeRidge UMC invites you to join them in attending this event. Tickets are $30. Contact the church office or Pastor Blossom Matthews if you would like to order a ticket. ([email protected]) Nursery provided at LRUMC. Childcare reservations needed by February 13. The Healing Prayer Ministry Team looks forward to praying with you each Thursday evening from 7 - 8 pm (except holiday weeks). Come to the North/South Corridor at the Wesley Chapel entrance. Allow our trained prayer team to come alongside you and bring healing to your life. Eat, Pray, Love: Are you thinking about joining a small group? How about connecting with a group of ladies who enjoy eating together, praying together, and sharing their love with those in need? If so our United Methodist Women is that group! Please join us the second Monday of each month at 6:30 pm in Room 102. Discover Jesus: Through His 7 Final Days begins Sunday, February 22. We'll discover the heart and mind of Christ as seen in the final week of his life. If you have any used children's clothes of any size, please bring them to the LakeRidge Clothes Closet. Volunteers have been turning away those in need of these sizes because supplies are completely gone. BREAKING THE CYCLE OF POVERTY VISION PHASE TWO O February, 2015 n behalf of the Breaking the Cycle of Poverty Leadership Committee, we are contacting you because you have expressed an interest in helping with the LRUMC Breaking the Cycle of Poverty Vision. As you know, our initial phase was to expand the Change for Children (C4C) program to all middleschools in the Lubbock area. We started the expansion of the C4C program in August, 2014, and we are making excellent progress with the expansion. We have a team of volunteers that meet with representatives from each school once each month to review how funds are being spent and to discuss upcoming food stability needs. The LRUMC volunteers are building relationships that will continue to allow us to help these middle-schools address food stability needs for their students in the years to come. We are very thankful for this group of volunteers and for the work that they are doing. It is now time to move to the next phase of LRUMC’s Vision. This next phase will be challenging but we believe that it will also be exciting to see where God leads us. We need volunteers to investigate and learn where else LRUMC could be involved to help break the cycle of poverty in the Lubbock area. We need to go into learning mode. Each person has their own definition of “poverty." We need to listen and learn what “poverty” means in the Lubbock area. This is not an all-inclusive list but we have identified the following general areas that we believe merit further investigation: FOOD STABILITY - Who else is working in this area and where? What do students do for food during holidays and the summer? EDUCATION - Who else is working in this area and where? What areas can we help in? Engagement of the student in extracurricular activities (which keeps students interested in school) – how can we help? Learning aids? Tutoring? Mentoring? PARENTS - Who else is working in this area and where? Who is working with parents and how? Counseling? Education? Mentoring? CHURCH - Who else is working in this area and where? Can we help the churches in high poverty areas with programs to help train adults and youth? English as a second language? Family finances? Parenting skills? Our plan is to organize a group of LRUMC volunteers to help us investigate these areas and the areas that God will lead us to. Each volunteer can take as few or as many areas as they want. The investigation of each area will involve online research and telephone or in-person interviewing of people in the community. We need information. We would expect that each person would spend 3 – 4 hours a month on this phase of the initiative for the period February – May, 2015. The Leadership Committee will review the information that is gathered and will make recommendations to the church leadership as to areas that we identify as being worth pursuing. We believe that once we start that we will be surprised with where God leads us. If you are interested in helping in this area, please attend an information meeting to be held at 11:30 in Room 102 on Sunday, February 8, 2015 Sincerely, Ronnie & Dana Madison Co-chairs – Breaking the Cycle of Poverty Leadership Committee It's time to start up the grill! Let us do the cooking for your family in the Activity Center on Wednesday evenings, from 5 - 6:15 pm. Would you consider "adopting" an international student? Could you offer care, support and love to these students and scholars while they are away from their loved ones? You could be involved with them by inviting them to church, inviting them into your home for a meal, including them in holiday celebrations, remembering them on their birthday, showing them special spots in Lubbock that are important to you (art museums, cultural events, etc.). Please contact me directly at the number or e-mail given below if you would be interested in serving this way. Contact: Hanna Lee Director, Global Christian Fellowship with the Texas Tech Wesley Foundation (806) 252-9334 or [email protected] Thank You, LakeRidge. You Did It Again! Thanks to your generosity we were able to send supplies and goodies to more than forty deployed troops during the Christmas holidays. We have received direct and indirect feedback concerning these packages, and they were received by the military men and women with much appreciation. What a blessing it is to be able to provide items for these deserving troops. I want to thank all those who helped with this project, and especially David and Patty Vannoy for again packing and shipping all the boxes and Barbara Dorris for being my right hand and dependable helper at the information table while we were getting this project underway. Also, a special thank you to the children who wrote letters for the troops. What a bright spot! Again, thank you LakeRidge Family for being a caring and supportive team for our troops. God bless you all and continue to pray for all the brave members of our military. Judy Drake Military Ministry The Family of Jack Williamson. Rachel Fernihough on the loss of her Grandmother. Roy Pittman on the loss of his Mother. You're Not Alone! DivorceCare Support Group Wednesdays at 6:30 pm in Room 43 Divorce hurts. I know that first hand. That's why I want to tell you about this program that LRUMC offers. DivorceCare is Cindi Heald a weekly support group to help you heal from the deep pain you or someone you know have experienced . It helped me tremendously. Why not come to our next meeting? "The Lord is near." Philippians 4:5b outh Living Generously Y , During our church wide Living Generously series, we have been studying the same topic in our youth meetings and sixth grade confirmation class. As a student ministry we challenged our students to raise $1,400 to cover the cost of our two compassion children that we support. The money would more than cover our support for a year. On January 17, triplets Camille, Claudia and Connelly Kerr had a birthday party. Instead of gifts they asked that everyone who came to the party to give to our compassion children goal of $1,400. They were able to raise $510. What an awesome example of living generously! Way to go girls!!!!
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