Chocolate Festival

Proceeds to benefit St. Paul's Food Pantry
and St. Paul's Apportionments (for 2011)
- hosted by the Miriam Circle and friends.

Saturday February 11, 2012
10:00am - 2-.00pm in Norcross Hall

Pre-order some HOME-MADE chocolate goodies for your favorite sweetheart or yourself! So we may properly fill all requests, orders for the following confections are due by Sunday, January 29th. Orders may be placed in the Narthex or outside Norcross Hall on Sunday. The Church office will also be accepting orders.

2012 Warming Hearts Program

The following is a list of scheduled visits to the Lexington Boarding Home in Lakewood for 2012.  We are always looking for volunteers.  Come when you are available!  We leave the church at approximately 1:10 p.m. Follow us or meet us there!

Financial Matters
December 2011
Ways to Help Yourself and Others

In our October Circuit Rider, we described a way to help yourself financially (fulfilling IRA distributions tax efficiently), which also benefits the Church as well, (by making all or part of them direct transfers to the Church).

We would like to continue this month by offering an additional idea for you to contemplate (which should be done before (tax) year end, if acted upon).  As previously mentioned, these ideas are meant to offer mechanisms by which one can achieve certain financial advantages, possible tax advantages, and help our Church at the same time.

September Communion Offering
Billy and Joanna Coppedge

Billy and Joanna Coppedge are missionaries with World Gospel Mission (WGM) initiative in Arua, Uganda.

"Jesus has called us to walk with Him in northern Uganda. From here He has opened up doors in southern Sudan and even northeast Congo. We have the privilege of using the tool of Bible storytelling to share the Word of God with those who might not ever be able to read it and others who just enjoy the oral method of learning.

Marriage Moments
Solomon's Mine (wisdom, not gold)
Brian Collis

Song of Solomon 2:15 -
Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards,
our vineyards that are in bloom.

Gentlemen, what are the little foxes that are ruining your vineyard? They are any thing that is getting in the way of your marriage being what you and your wife want and need it to be. Are you working long hours and depriving your wife and kids of your presence? That could be causing resentment and leaving your wife questioning your commitment. Men tend to define themselves by their jobs, and it’s too easy to put work before family. It may seem necessary, for financial reasons or for career path, but it’s a dangerous train of thought with potentially catastrophic results. Our ‘jobs’ as husband and father must come first. In your absence, is your wife swamped with her own work responsibilities plus the housework, leaving her exhausted when bedtime rolls around? Does the pressure of dealing with kids lead her to shout “They’re yours!” as soon as you walk in the door at the end of the work day? Does all this leave you both yearning for days long gone when your focus was on each other, when you sought to meet each other’s needs and fulfill each other’s hopes and dreams of what a marriage was supposed to be?

Marriage Moments
Brian Collis

In the course of a day there are four particular points where you can exercise great influence on the direction of your marriage - four 'marriage moments' you could say. If you and your spouse commit to connecting at these four times every day (or as often as possible), your marriage will definitely get better and your love for each other will grow stronger. These four times during the day can be ports in the storm of your hectic lives where you can feel safe and secure. They are opportunities to actively make your marriage what you want it to be. If you spend five minutes on each that's twenty minutes total, or just 1.39% of a whole day. It's a small amount of time to invest, but one that can pay dramatic dividends.

CUB SCOUTS OF AMERICA
SPONSORED BY
ST PAUL'S UNITED METHODIST MEN
Pack 33 is welcoming all boys
Grades 1-5 to join Scouts.

Pack 33 instills the traditions of Scouting that leads Scouts to earn the Arrow of Light Award, Cub Scouting's highest-ranking award.

Pack 33 meets in age grouped Dens and work on advancements in many fun ways.  We visit many great places locally.  We hold Pack events like the Pinewood Derby Races, Rain gutter Regatta Races, Scout Sunday, Scouting for Food, Parades and the Blue and Gold Banquet to honor the Scouts for their accomplishments. 

Scouting is a family activity and we encourage the families to be involved.  A good Scout program takes the teamwork of the Scouts, Leaders and families to make the program come together to serve the needs of the Scouts.

Safe Sanctuary Policy

The Administrative Board of St. Paul's United Methodist Church (SPUMC) has approved implementing a Safe Sanctuary Policy as of Jan. 1, 2011.  Ministry leaders have spent many months in developing a plan that will help ensure the protection of our children, youth and vulnerable adults, as well as those who volunteer to work with them. We as a church have a responsibility to do all we can to assure parents that St. Paul's is a safe place for their children. In addition, we also have a responsibility to teach each worker how to create and maintain that safe environment.

The purpose of the policy is to help prevent the opportunity for abuse or the appearance of abuse of children, youth and vulnerable adults by:

Marriage Moment - Devotion

It says in Proverbs 5:18-19:

“Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer, may her breasts satisfy you always, may you be intoxicated always with her love.”

Every marriage eventually reaches the disillusionment stage, when reality sets in. Expectations are not met, hopes are unfulfilled. It is easier at this stage to believe that what we don’t have must be better than what we do; but the grass is not greener. It is a trick of the eye - or more to the point a trick of the heart and mind. It plays upon that aspect of human nature that always wants what it doesn’t – or can’t – have. Humans tend to be lazy, to not want to do the work required to transform what we have into what we want; especially if that involves changing ourselves.

St.Paul's Music Program

St.Paul's new music season will soon begin and we are hoping that many of you will consider joining one of our choirs and/or instrumental groups.  There are always places in our choirs and we encourage participation for your own enjoyment and fellowship as well as to sing or play for the glory of God.  Many exciting things are planned this year for all groups.  If you have been in choirs before or can carry a tune in the shower you should make this a singing or playing season.

The following are the groups offered by St.Paul's Music Department:

Communion Offering for July 2010

Communion offering this month is for Andy and Lizet Bowen, missionaries in Paraguay who spoke at church last week.

Lizet grew up in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, with Christian parents. She accepted Christ when she was six years old in her mother's Sunday School class. Her parents became pastors and later felt God's call to missions. They went as missionaries to Paraguay when Lizet was 15. In Paraguay, Lizet studied at Wesley Biblical Institute. After one of her classes, she committed her life completely to Jesus Christ. She earned a certificate to teach information technology while also ministering to children in the church where her father was a pastor. Andy and Lizet met in 1999 while Andy was ministering at her father's church.

MEN'S PRAYER MOMENTS –
THE CALL TO PRAYER!
May 9, 2010

According to Webster's Dictionary a COVENANT is a mutual agreement, contract, trust or bond. In Genesis 17 God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham that He would make him the father of many nations and give him the land of Canaan as a permanent dwelling. In Exodus 20:1-17 the Ten Commandments were handed down to the Isrealites through Moses as the basic covenants to be upheld and obeyed in order to have a right relationship with God. Christ initiated the New Covenant at the Last Supper in Matthew 26-29 sealed the New Covenant with this blood. Paul exhorts us to pray for each other bearing one another's burdens; pray unceasingly, raise hands in unity of the spirit.