Dear Members and Friends of Waterville United Methodist Church,
Please lift up in your prayers, Lowell Crabtree, the father of Pam Denman, who will be having double by-pass heart surgery this afternoon.
Also, prayers are requested for:
Bonne Spychalski who underwent back surgery yesterday. Bonne is in St. Luke’s – Room #384.
Char Hansen will be traveling to Florida to be with her mother who continues to have health issues
Barb Page is in St. Luke’s hospital with a heart issue
Ted Myers is also in St. Luke’s hospital with pneumonia
Today is the deadline for any items that you want included in the February issue of The Ambassador. Please send them to Janet at wumcjanet@watervilleumc.org
Our January Mission Focusis The Pregnancy Center of Greater Toledo. Their goal is to lovingly share the truth about life, relationships and faith. They help men and women make life-saving, life-changing decisions by sharing information about options, consequences and available services. With the exception of a small amount of grant funding for abstinence education, all funds come from donations. Over 32,000 women have already received help. The Pregnancy Center continues to be a community outreach committed to expressing the compassion of Christ through support and education in pregnancy related issues. We can help keep the doors open! Mission envelopes are available in the pew racks.
Let's start 2017 getting "Unstuck: Moving From the Mundane to the Meaningful" on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. and Tuesday evenings at 7 p.m. We will watch the short film clips from "Journey to Jamaa" which uncovers the four themes we will be discussing: Unimaginable, Unsafe, Unwanted and Unstuck. Consider: How can the unimaginable keep us stuck? How can temptation be unsafe where we remain stuck? When we feel unwanted, how does that keep us stuck? Where is Jesus in all of these situations? After seeing the film, what can you being to do to become "unstuck"? Everyone wants to make a difference in someone's lives. We've talked about living and loving generously. Now it's time to get Unstuck and Move from Mundane to Meaningful.
See you on Sunday mornings or Tuesday evenings!
Char and Pastor Mike
The Prayer Group will resume meeting at 9:00 a.m. in the sanctuary this Sunday.
Worship Service for Sunday, January 22:
Prelude by the Handbell Choir - With Praises Ring
Call to Worship
Songs of Worship - Open the Eyes of My Heart and The Heart of Worship
Children’s Moment-
Sanctuary Choir Anthem - Jehovah Shalom (He is Our Peace)
Olga’s selections:
Offertory: Higher Ground
Postlude: Shine, Jesus, Shine
Scripture- Matthew 4:12-23
Sermon - Will We Follow When Jesus Calls?
Hymn - I Have Decided to Follow Jesus
Choral Benediction - Our New Year’s Prayer for You
Liturgist: Tom Quinn
Prayer Partners for Pastor Mike this week: Penn & Char Pritchett
This Sunday is a Welcome A Neighbor Sunday. We will have 12 gift bags that will need to be delivered to new residents in the Waterville area. Please check the map by the main entrance to see if any of these new neighbors live near you.
No one has signed up to be Fellowship Hosts for the month of January.
Just a reminder to please pick up your 2017 offering envelopes when you are at church this Sunday. Please pick your set of offering envelopes up to help us save on postage…they will cost close to $5.00 each to mail.
If you receive your statement of giving at the end of the year by email, they were sent out on Saturday, January 7. If you receive a hard copy, they will be available for you to pick up on the shelf outside the church office.
Mission Update – Karen Wiggins, our Mission Chairwoman, just heard from the Salvation Army that our day of ringing the bell at their Red Kettle collection point resulted in $754.93!! That is over $100 more than we collected in 2015! Thank you to all the members who staffed the kettle that day, kept that bell ringing, and smiled at everyone who donated. Hopefully everyone noticed our sign for WUMC and now has a sense of our presence in the community.
For the past few years, the M&M Bible Study has been volunteering at the SeaGate Food Bank the first Wednesday of the month packing food boxes for senior citizens. We start at 10:00 a.m. and work until 11:30/Noon. We would like to open this mission project up to the entire congregation, women, men and children. Lunch afterwards at a local restaurant is included but is optional. The work is not hard and we all have a good time, lots of laughter and fellowship. Throughout the year there are other short projects we help with also. You can carpool from the church or meet us there. If you would like to join us, please contact Penny Greenlese at pgreenlese@yahoo.com or 419-206-1602. We would love to have your help and you will be rewarded with a feeling of helping those less fortunate. The next visit to the Foodbank will be on Wednesday, February 1.
Bill Plassmann has placed DVD copies of the Children’s Christmas Program on the shelf outside the church office. He asks that those taking a DVD make a donation to the Youth Group Mission Trip fund.
The counter by the dishwasher in the kitchen is full of serving trays and Tupperware containers from all the goodies that were brought to the church during the month of December (Theatre for the World and the Children’s Christmas Program). Please take a few minutes to see if any of these dishes belong to you so we can get them back home where they belong.
The make-over on the bathroom near Fellowship Hall is almost complete! A big thank you to Art Meade and the Board of Trustees for making this much needed improvement