Tales from Two Meetings

Oakfield Visioning Team

Byron Pegram is heading up a group of folks from Oakfield UMC that are working toward developing a mission and vision for the church. The Staff/Parish Relations Committee and the Lay Leadership developed a list of folks that they thought would be good for this group.

This group will be meeting for seven consecutive Mondays using Dan Dick's Vital Signs as a guide. The first meeting was enjoyable to attend. It was nice to hear about people's experience in church, as well as their dream for where they would like to see the church be.

Hopefully when we're done...we'll have a mission and vision for the church to unveil at our upcoming Charge Conference in December!

Confirmation

Last night, Confirmation class was the first class in which we actually worked through the CREDO curriculum. I can't speak for the confirmands, but I had a lot of fun. Those 90 minutes seemed to go by pretty quick. We even had the opportunity to do some drawing of God's creation...the results were mixed ;).

Church Website Update

As the current webmaster for our church's website, I have been curious to see how many hits we have been getting. After a few weeks, I was able to have access to a tracking website through http://www.godaddy.com. Since March, our statistics have been pretty low. If would appear we had a handful of hits each day. However, in the month of September our number of hits has quadrupled! So far October has shown the same numbers.

I try not to get my hopes up. There could be a variety of reasons for this. Hopefully, it is for legitimate reasons. Maybe there's one person who really likes out site that checks it over and over again. But, it is great to see some increased traffic on the site.

If you have not had the the chance to check it out yet, it is: http://www.oakfield-taborumc.org/. It provides information about our worship services, about upcoming events at both churches, about the pastor. If you missed the service on Sunday, the sermon from the previous week's service will be posted on the site. It also gives you the ability to submit an on-line prayer request. It is helpful for members and non-members alike.

Where Two or Three Are Gathered...

We have had evening worship services at the Oakfield and Tabor church for the last month or so. These services have had mixed results as far as attendance goes. At the Oakfield church, we have had ten and 11 folks at the first two worship services. I feel as though we are gaining a relatively consistent group of folks that will attend this service. It still makes singing difficult with such a small group, but I appreciate the atmosphere and community that we have with a small group.

At Tabor church, our attendance has been less. Our first service had three folks and last night I had two folks. I had a young person from confirmation and her mother come to worship. As the three of us moved from the spacious sanctuary to my office, I couldn't help but be reminded of Matthew 20:18: "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am with them."

It would be easy to be discouraged by the lack of attendance at the service. What pastor doesn't want to see large attendance at their worship services. It was easy to get discouraged by only having two people come to worship. As we began to read from the Bible, and study together the importance of Sabbath rest in our lives, I realized that Christ was present with us in worship. We read the Word and shared the Cup together.

Although more brief because some parts of the service would not work with three people, we still spent 30 minutes in worship. From now on, I won't mind smaller church service. In fact, they can be just as, or more, meaningful than a larger service.

World Communion Sunday - October 3rd

"The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." - 1 Corinthians 10:16-17

This Sunday we celebrate World Communion Sunday. This is one of six Sundays throughout the year in which we take a special offering to support the ministries of the United Methodist Church. Envelopes will be provided at the worship service to make a donation. Any money donated will support:

• World Communion scholarships, administered by the General Board of Global Ministries with at least one-half of the annual amount for ministries beyond the United States.
• ethnic scholarship and ethnic in-service training programs related to the General Board of High Education and Ministry.

World Communion Sunday is not just celebrated by the United Methodist Church. The first Sunday of October is celebrated as World Communion Sunday by many different Christian denominations. We are a diverse group, but this is one day when we come together to show that we are one body. We are united as the body of Christ. When we gather this Sunday for the bread and wine, let us remember what Christ did for each one of us and let us remember that we are all one in Christ.

I hope that you will be able to join us this Sunday. Our worship service will have a different format than usual, with various members of the congregations participating in the worship service. The scripture readings for this Sunday are:

• Mark 14:22-25
• Hebrews 10:12-18
• Matthew 13:33
• 1 Corinthians 10:14-17
• 1 Corinthians 11:23-32

Evening Worship Service

At 7:00PM this Sunday, we will also have a worship service at Tabor UMC. The service will have more contemporary music and will have a more informal feeling to it. The focus of our scripture readings and the message will be around the idea of Sabbath and how we might be able to practice Sabbath in our hectic lives.

First Confirmation Class for 2010-2011

Last night was the first Confirmation class for 2010-2011 at Oakfield and Tabor. We have grown to a class for four 8th graders! I was warned that they were going to be quiet group. ;-). After our first class, I think they were doing just fine!

Last night we took some time to get to know each other better and we took a little "pre-test" about what we knew about Christianity and the church.

Next week we will dig into the first lesson of the CREDO curriculum: Creation. If you are interested in learning more about this curriculum, you can see it HERE.

I am excited for what this year holds. Last year was my first attempt at Confirmation. I thought some things went well and some other things didn't go so well. I like this new curriculum and I think it offers opportunities that I did not have last year.

Stay tuned for future Confirmation updates!

Stop Complaining!

"Do everything without complaining." - Philippians 2:14

During a commercial during lunch today, I read the devotional from The Upper Room. It was titled "Complain, Complain" and it talked about how we can model Christian behavior at all times. It said don't complain.

I had been mulling this over in my head in a ride over to Waupun. I had to stop at the grocery store to pick something up. I had one item. The woman in front of me had a full cart of stuff. In my head I thought, "She's seen my one item...she'll let me go in front of her." Not so, she continues on with her transaction.

I found myself getting frustrated. Granted, I had no one to complain to at the moment, but I was complaining to myself. I was letting this get to me.

Then I realized something. If I really thought it was that important to go next, I could have asked. Maybe she was also in a hurry. In the end, her purchase took but a few minutes and I was still early to my appointment. It wasn't an issue. I let it become an issue. If I knew I had a little extra time, I could said taken some time for prayer. Why get angry?

How easy can it be for us to read something, think we understand it and then totally blow an opportunity to practice it? Patience, patience, patience...and quit complaining!

Pork Chop Supper Complete!

Another Pork Chop Supper at Oakfield United Methodist Church is in the books! While the final numbers won't be available for a few days, the preliminary results are very promising. Based on submitted tickets, we served over 400 folks at the event. We will make close to $3000 for the event after our expenses.

It will be wonderful to see that money going out into the community to support local mission projects!

Thank you to everyone who attended Saturday's event and for the many, many folks who put in long hours to make it happen. What a blessing!