Happy Easter!   Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.   We had a great time at our house, when we were there!   People probably don't realize how the holidays are never really holidays for pastors.  Maundy Thursday I had a full Seder meal for the second time.  Its so much work, yet it is so meaningful understanding the symbols of the passover and how Jesus used their ancient meaning and applied it to himself.   I swore not to do it again for a few years, but then so many people came and they so appreciated it maybe. . . we'll see.  Good Friday is always difficult for me.  Its like doing a funeral for all the people you've ever known and buried as well as Jesus.  The sorrow is so overwhelming, and God's love so astounding.  It is so humbling to try and convey such depth in a 45 minute worship service! Impossible!     We had all three of our regular services for Easter, after toying with the idea of canceling Saturday night we didn't.  And I am so glad we had it!  We are keeping that service over 30 people for the past month and it is so wonderful!!

Our traditional service was also full, and our contemporary service was a surprise hit.  We had it in the fellowship hall, just a 15 minute sunrise-type service with the kids acting out the Easter story.  Then we had a wonderful brunch.  Everyone thought I was crazy in planning for 50 but we had over 40 people so it was perfect.  These numbers probably don't mean much to most churches that are larger, but it represents a growth of nearly 300% for those two services!  Thats huge to us!  After all this, I have been a blob the past couple of days, working from home to recover.    Happy Easter!!

Academy for New Ministry Development Academy X COVENANT

Below is the covenant we make together on this journey. You are asked to sign this covenant if you are in agreement by posting a comment. This will be the indication that you have read the covenant and are in agreement with it for the class. Thanks!

Our Covenant

We will pray daily for and with other Academy members.

We will participate fully in all teaching sessions unless there is an emergency.

We will do all the reading and any other preparation that is asked of us.

We will begin and end on time in the sessions.

We will share discussion time equally so that a few people do not dominate our discussions.

We will share leadership of the small groups and book discussions.

We will respect differences among us, trying to understand rather than to judge or change one another.

We will observe confidentiality, not repeating personal information shared in our discussions.

We will evaluate each session online.

We will develop a network of people from the Academy to which we are accountable.

We will notify the leader beforehand if we must be absent, and send our book prep notes.

We will make up any sessions that we might miss because of an emergency with an accountability partner.

We will faithfully blog and participate in a Joel Council in our local church.

UMC new church starts

Some interesting stuff on this new website I just found -- how come this stuff is so hard to find??  

Hope you all have a blessed Easter!

Sarah

www.umcnewchurchstarts.org

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Greetings!

Looking ahead to April's gathering, I see there is currently a link to a study by the Pew Forum on relgion & public life on the conference web site (links to umc.org - our world section) Not sure how long it will stay there, but I found the article very interesting, raising some food for thought. It is entitled "When Methodists Leave." I thought it was certainly relevant to evangelism & might be valuable to our discussion when we next meet, in case you want to check it out. So, I submit this tidbit for your consideration.

God bless,
Judy.

Home

Just a note to let everyone know we are home from Cambodia! Thanks for your prayers.