The Pastor's Message
August 2010
On Saturday, July 24th a dozen or so men of SUMC gathered together for our first United Methodist Men's meeting in quite some time. We enjoyed doughnuts (kindly provided by Cliff Cagle and Scot Munro) and coffee. (Cliff arrived forty-five minutes early to discover an ill-qualified pastor attempting to make the coffee, and wisely stepped in to salvage the situation.) After some visiting, we had a time of prayer and settled in for our bible study.
The passage of the day was Acts 4:23-31. We learned about Paul and John's arrest and appearance before the religious authorizes, who were nonetoo pleased with their preaching and healing in the name of Jesus Christ. After their release, Paul and John went to the other believers and told them what happened. Together the believers prayed for God to provide them with the courage and endurance they'd need to continue witnessing to their faith: now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your Word with all boldness." "And God answered their prayer - "the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God with boldness."
In our time of discussion about this passage, we wondered what we need to do to invite this same boldness into our lives and our church. How might God bless our ministries if we witness and serve with Holy Boldness?
After the bible study, our group talked about the future of men's ministry at SUMC. We agreed that we wanted to continue meeting together, and so we scheduled another breakfast on Saturday, August 28 at a local restaurant. We agreed that we didn't want anyone person to be overburdened, so we're going to keep things simple. We agreed that we wanted variety, so we'll rotate breakfast locations with occasional breakfasts at church thrown in. (What we eat depends on who signs up to prepare the meal - the pastor is happy to do so, as long as the group is happy with Pop Tarts and ice water!)
We also decided that we want to grow together in our spiritual lives as we discover God's meaning and purpose for us. We will begin meeting each Wednesday morning at 9 am to pray together and study the bible together,beginning on August 18 and we'll read straight from the scriptures and discuss, beginning with the Gospel of Luke. All men of our community are invited, so if you have a friend or neighbor who might be interested, please invite them.
The group also agreed that service will be an important part of our men's ministry. We'll start simple - each person is asked to bring a can of food to the monthly breakfasts, to be donated to the Food Bank. If you have ideas about local mission and service projects, please let me know.
As your pastor, I'm looking forward to working with all of you to get this ministry going again. If we can spread the work by having a number of people volunteer for small tasks, we can have a dynamic Men's Group. God has given us the opportunity to join together in fellowship, study, and service as we reach out to other Christian brothers and as we serve this community.
Let's take on that opportunity together with Holy Boldness!
Grace & Peace
Pastor Matt