“You’ve taught me since my youth, God, and I’m still proclaiming your wondrous deeds!” ~Psalm 71:17

Youth and the development of their faith are essential to the future of the church. In a world with so many distractions and options for social and emotional learning…where does faith fit in? In the crazy busy lives of youth how do we connect? How do we know them? And how do we learn from them? Join us on Sundays: 4/8, 5/6, and 5/27 as we explore these questions and celebrate the faith of our youth!

Cast off for Galilee!

Register for Vacation Bible School (VBS) by May 16. This year VBS at WUMC is the week of June 11-15. Children who are age 4 by September 1, 2018 through rising 5th graders are eligible to attend. Cost is $40 for the first child per family and $20 for each subsequent child. Scholarships are available (contact Megan Getman, mgetman@westlake-umc.org).

June is a great time to gather and make music in a relaxed fun setting. Each Monday in June from 6:30pm-8:00pm we will be hosting a musical interactive event at the church. Here’s the lineup! Come to one or all of them and bring a friend!

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 live and thrive in their villages.

Also, next to one of our farm sites is the new clinic that WUMC helped to build in 2017. On this trip Dr. Eric Weidmann, will spend a day seeing patients there....

A note from Pastor Tracey:

Greetings Westlake!

I’m so grateful for your continued prayers and encouraged by your deep interest in responding to the needs of those affected by Harvey! As our Annual Conference, District, and local church have continued to plan, I have new information for you on how you can make a difference in response to this natural disaster.

Our Rio Texas Conference Bishop, Robert Schnase, and our District Superintendent, Teresa Wellborn, request that we direct our financial giving to the Rio Texas Conference Disaster Response Fund. Like funds given to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), all donations will go directly to relief and recovery efforts as opposed to administrative or overhead expenses. Additionally, by giving to the Rio Texas Fund, all giving will directly benefit affected communities in the Rio Texas Annual Conference. With your donations, we will partner with UMCOR to sustain this relief effort for the many months ahead. They will allow us to offer immediate relief and to partner with...

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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