This summer we invite you to sink more deeply into some familiar Bible stories. Remember all those dramatic stories you heard in Sunday School as a child? Spectacular stories of talking donkeys, love betrayed, felled giants, murderous lions, and walls tumbling down? When’s the last time you read those stories? Have you reflected on them as an adult? They’re rarely, if ever, preached from the pulpit.

Our Summer Worship Series, “Not Your Mama’s Bible Stories!” takes a second look. We will explore these stories through adult eyes. Who knows? Maybe we’ll discover an unexpected richness or a fresh insight!

Room 402, 10:15am-11:00am.

This summer we will be featuring some of our own leaders from WUMC who are passionate about particular issues and organizations. Each Sunday will be a different leader speaking about a different topic. Here are some of the special classes coming up:

• July 15 – Alzheimer's Texas: Alzheimer's Disease & How We Can Help
• July 22 – Cara Fox: Grief and Faith
• July 29 – Pastor Tracey Beadle: Annual Conference Recap
• August 5 – Dr. Linda Cox: Women's Storybook Project of Texas
• August 12 – Sally Brackett: ACS Use & Access
• August 19 – Susan Landers: Mental Health

We hope to have a different topic for each week so if you would like to lead one please be in touch with Pastor Tracey Beadle.

Its time to get back to Victoria and helping put their lives back together. We have our response trailer and we have the tools loaded. Now we need boots on the ground. I am announcing two scheduled trips that you can volunteer for. The only requirement that you must have is the RioConference training called Safe Gatherings. It is mandated by the conference. Jim Balthazar and I are now certified all the way through the third tier of the process of TRUSTed. Every team requires a minimum of 2 of TRUSTed. Other team members are only required to be background checked and completion of the online training under Safe Gatherings. So with that here are the opportunities:

VIM Recovery Team for Victoria June 26 (Tues) through June 30 (Sat).

And

VIM Recovery Team for Victoria July 23 (Mon) through July 27 (Fri)

This second opportunity will be a joint team of WUMC with a VIM team from Virginia led by Duane Cookson. Cookson’s team is the first group we worked with on our first ERT deployment in September.

You can...

Our team is currently in Zimbabwe. Keep up with their journey here on our facebook page!

With your help the WUMC Zimbabwe Team of 5 will be funding, building and seeding sustainable small school-farms with chickens, goats and cows in rural areas outside Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Through these school-farms, middle school students will learn how to care for livestock and how to create a business from the eggs and milk products that these animals provide.

It’s harder to learn anything when you are hungry. An immediate bonus is that these students who walk several miles to and from school will have food to eat while at school. Some students in these rural villages will have the opportunity to continue their formal education beyond middle school. A greater number will not. Our school-farms provide another path out of poverty and hunger. Students who graduate from these programs will leave with what they need to create their own farm, giving them a sustainable way to...

You’re used to hearing about giving in church. Especially lately with the great need left behind by hurricane Harvey. But when was the last time in church that you talked about earning or saving? Is it unchristian to earn money? Is it wrong to save for ourselves and our families?

John Wesley didn’t think so. Wesley, the Christian evangelist and founder of the Methodist movement, gave a remarkable sermon called “The Use of Money.” In it, he said that the important thing isn’t money itself but how we use it. Wesley’s surprising advice still rings true today: earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.

For four Sundays, beginning on October 22, our church will experience an exciting new stewardship program, Earn. Save. Give.: Wesley’s Simple Rules for Money, developed by popular author and pastor James A. Harnish. The program centers around a book and DVD, in which Harnish describes Wesley’s surprising advice and introduces us each week to faithful Christians who, like all of us, struggle with money.

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