The church office will be closed tomorrow in honor of Martin Luther King Day.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
As announced last Sunday, we’re looking at using Five Practices of Fruitful Living by Robert Schnase for our next book study. The first copies came in yesterday. Let us know if you’re interested in getting one to read and review for the congregation. Our cost was about $12.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This coming week, Tuesday through Thursday, Jenny and I will be in Topeka for a Called Clergy Session. It’s a continuing education event around the theme “Hope in the Face of Change.” Clergy from the Kansas East, Kansas West, and Nebraska Annual Conferences will be present. As implied by the theme, I’m expecting a considerable amount of discussion of the proposal for merging the three annual conferences and creating a new one. The fact that it’s a “Called Clergy Session” means that attendance is mandatory (for clergy), but I’m still excited about going. Our speaker will be Brian McLaren who wrote A Generous Orthodoxy and More Ready Than You Realize, among other books.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Please note that the church’s custodial staff, Bob Whitson and Norma Morgan, serve the church as a whole and are not anyone’s personal servants. Members and friends of First are welcome to ask them for assistance, but do not have the authority to issue commands. This is to ensure that they have an adequate amount of time to perform their prescribed duties. If you make a request and they tell you no when you feel they should have agreed, simply inform Jenny or I and we will reluctantly adjudicate.
If you’re inclined to speculate about what brought this statement on, please know that it happened long ago and even I’m no longer certain.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
“Our present ecological crisis, the biggest single practical threat to our human existence in the middle to long term, has, religious people would say, a great deal to do with our failure to think of the world as existing in relation to the mystery of God, not just as a huge warehouse of stuff to be used for our convenience.”
— Rowan Williams
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From the Kansas East Conference Website:
The 3rd annual Walking Challenge between the Kansas West and Kansas East conferences will be held January 15, 2012 through April 15, 2012.
This three-month span includes the liturgical season of Lent as well as the Day of Resurrection, which will serve to guide the spiritual materials connected to the challenge.
Each congregation is invited to collectively participate within their districts in the Walk to Jerusalem. As a community of faith, each church and member is challenged to look beyond self, beyond the local church walls and to draw together collectively with their district to “walk” the 6,759 miles from the bishop’s office in Wichita to Jerusalem. Individually, this could take a lifetime. Collectively as a body, it can be done in a few short months.
This is a pilgrimage anyone of any age can participate in, and the collective movement is not restricted to walking. Run, swim, bike, canoe, use a manual wheelchair or dance to earn miles. The goal is to get moving, to do something you already do and take it up a notch or to do something completely new.
We’ve already had more than ten people express interest. Those without internet access can let John or Jenny know and we’ll make sure your information gets entered online. Otherwise, you can sign-up and log your information here.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Jenny’s sermon from yesterday is now online at: coffeyvillefirstumc.org/podcasts.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
It’s interesting that today, on one of the few Sundays in which I chose to wear a tie, The Upper Room posted this devotional: http://goo.gl/sZmjk. I stand by my assertion that if you want to dress up, dress up to honor the Lord and if you don’t want to dress up, just remember that God considers our hearts and not our outward appearance.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
My sermon from this past Sunday is now online at: coffeyvillefirstumc.org/podcasts. This was the sermon that accompanied our Wesleyan Covenant Service on New Year’s Day.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”
— Stephen Colbert
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This is the professional blog of John and Jennifer Collins. We are ordained clergy members of the Kansas East Conference of the United Methodist Church and are currently appointed as pastors of Coffeyville First.
The views and opinions expressed here are our own.
