Asbury United Methodist Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors. E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.asbury-wellman.com Moody Colorado, Pastor Church Office: 319-646-2417 Parsonage: 319-646-2734 Cell Phone: 319-458-0745 Sunday School 9:00 a.m. Worship 10:15 a.m. February 2015 Valentine’s Day Boxes: This year we have 7 college students: ∗ John Adams ∗ John Colorado ∗ Sean Cortum ∗ Chelsey Kinneer ∗ Dan McVey ∗ Shelly Palmer ∗ Madison Smeltzer Lent Begins February 18: We will begin our observance of Lent on February 18 with an Ash Wednesday service at 6:00 PM. Special Church Council: The Southeast District Conference Superintendent has authorized a special Church Council for Sunday, February 15th at the beginning of the worship service (10:15 a.m.) for the purpose of approving a pastoral alignment beWe would like to send them a little something for Valentine’s Day. tween Asbury and West Chester UMC. Each student has a box at the back of the Please see the Pastor’s Note on the next page for a complete description. church: please feel free to fill them with treats and helpful items. Some ideas inAsbury Scholarships: Applications are clude quarters for laundry, postage now being accepted for Asbury UMC scholstamps, pens, Sharpies and highlighters, arships. These scholarships are available Post-it notes, trail mix and other healthy to members of Asbury, children, or grandsnacks. Notes of encouragement would children of Asbury members. If interested, also be good. Please bring in your items go to www.asbury-wellman.com to by Friday, February 6th. download your application. If you have further questions, call 646-2417 or email Valentine’s Event: You are invited to an Shauna at [email protected]. The evening of “Valentine Samplers”. Indulge your Valentine or yourself with a variety of application deadline is April 1. chocolate treats, interspersed with musical morsels and nuggets of local love lore. United Methodist Student ScholarCome and go as you please. Thursday, ships: The Iowa United Methodist FoundaFebruary 12th from 7:00-9:00 p.m. at Ka- tion has posted a list of scholarship opporlona Mennonite Church. All donations will tunities for current and future college stube added to the International Student Aid dents. The deadline for these scholarships Scholarship Fund for Rudi Macaj. No reser- is March 15th. For details please visit vations needed! http://www.iumf.org/scholarship.htm 1 Pastor’s Note REFOCUSING ON MISSION On February 15 Sunday 10:15 AM we will start our worship with a Church Conference to be presided by the District Superintendent. We will vote on the proposal for Pastoral Alignment of Wellman Asbury UMC and West Chester UMC. The sharing is 70% Asbury and 30% West Chester. A Pastoral Alignment means sharing a pastor between two congregations. Each church will conduct their organizational work and ministry separately, except there will be one SPRC (Staff Parish Relations Committee). There may be ministry partnership between churches as the need or a dream arises. This proposal was precipitated by several factors. Pastor Marlene Janssen of West Chester will retire effective July 1, 2015. There is scarcity of pastors. The decline in membership and finances is unabated. On the bright side, there is a renewed strength and refocus for mission through church alignment. Pastor Moody and the District Superintendent Lilian Gallo-Seagren had consultations in October 2014 about the situation in the area. There has been consultations with the SPRC of each church. Both SPRCs have endorsed the Alignment Proposal in December 2015. Then on January 14, 2015 the Administrative Church Council of both churches endorsed the proposal. The final approval lies in the votes of church members in Special Church Conferences to be conducted on February 15, 2015. To love God means loving the missions of God. I love the Methodist Church for reaching out to the world even to my hometown in the Philippines way back in 1900. I wish we could become a sender of missionaries again. Decades from now, someone will remember us and express thanks to God as I do. With the alignment of churches I see the possibility, and this is the very reason that I make myself available in service to two churches. Each church will be able to reduce the pastoral expense. I pray that we could channel such savings toward training and sending missionaries from the towns of Wellman and West Chester to the mission points around the world to serve and teach those who will teach others also and eventually promote love and world peace. We can make a big difference in the world. Mission Work is the frontline in the fight for world peace. There is so much evil in the world and God counts on the church to overcome evil with good. I believe that if we campaign as a church towards this goal, God and the people around us will bless us and participate with us. Amen. FIRST SUNDAY IS OPEN HOUSE SUNDAY In January 4 we started our experiment on holding an Open House Sunday. We had fun seeing people give up their favorite seats and moved closer to the front. We saw the children coming up for their Children’s time right on the first hymn. Pastor Moody delivered a record time tenminute sermon. Overall, it was a forty minute worship service. We received positive feedback from elder worshippers. Nametags are ready, please make us of them. Let us aim to be a Welcoming Church. LAY SERVANT TRAINING EVENTS There is scarcity of preachers; if ours conks out from whom do we seek help? Other churches may send in their Lay Servant (was called Lay Speakers) upon request, but we have to have at least one Lay Servant available in our own yard. Please, prayerfully consider and check out the Lay Servant Training events in the included flyer. 2 Help Wanted: Jesus came that they might have life. We follow Jesus the Lord of the Church and commit to his church our presence, prayer, service, giving and witness. Be a part of the church service, we have vacancies in church committees such as Staff Parish Relations Committee and Nominations. You may also join active ministries such as Mission, Scholarship, Endowment, Finance and others. Dear Asbury Family, On February 21-28 I’ll be traveling to Honduras to volunteer with HOI, a ministry that carries out health, education, and infrastructure projects in rural Olancho statae. If the two previous years are any indication, I’ll be handmixing a lot of cement and scrambling to translate very rapidly-spoken Spanish. I’d appreciate prayers for myself, my sister-in-law Megan, my cousin Abbey, and everyone else on our team. Please pray for safe and uncomplicated travel, good health, and good fellowHospitality Ministry Launched: The Hos- ship. Please also pray for the HOI staff and pitality committee has assumed responsifor the locals with whom we’ll be working. bility for making sure we are well-supplied Christ is Lord in Honduras and I never cease for our coffee fellowship time. The followto be amazed at the faithfulness of His people ing individuals are in charge of monitoring there. Please pray that they and we will come together as brothers and sisters to build His the coffee time supplies: February- Bert Kingdom on Earth. Walker; March-Betty Johnston; AprilLaverta Yoder; May-Carol Roush; June-Vi Much love to you all, Young. July-Anita Randol If you identify a supply need, please contact the appropriate individual. Shauna YTD Budget Needs Apportionments Due 1/31/15 $1,827.00 Apportionments Paid 1/25/15 $225.00 Apportionments Paid 1/31/14 $685.00 (incl. conference claims) YTD Gifts to Meet Budget Needs YTD shortfall/surplus FEBRUARY BIRTHDAYS & ANNIVERSARIES!!! 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 14 16 17 18 19 25 28 $9,732.00 Caleb Debler, Pastor Moody Diane Pippert, Peyton Greiner Ryan Swartzendruber Amanda Miller Tracy McVey, Ben Roush, Bob Swartzendruber Harold Murphy, Kevin Cortum Melanie Stutzman Randy Jirsa Betty Kempf Jim Goodrich Blake Albright Brandon Edgington Leo Hall, Becca Droll T.J. Powell, Tom Moss, Jeff Bean Linda Kempf Genea Bean 3 $6,149.00 (-$3,583.00)
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