Rethink Church
Help us, dear God, to be an answer to another’s prayer so that we may be one of your signs of hope in the world you love. Amen.
Background
Rethink Church is a major campaign of the United Methodist Church that was launched in May of 2009. The goal of the campaign is to redefine the church experience beyond the church doors and invite people to become engaged in the world.
Our Conference sponsored a workshop to help us become involved with Rethink Church in May and Pastor Dennis invited anyone interested in learning more to go with him to this workshop. Several members went and from this beginning the Rethink Church Committee was formed.
United Methodists have believed, from the beginning, that each of us is called to participate in the outreaching ministry of Jesus Christ. John Wesley described this work in simple, practical terms: "Do all the good you can, in all the places you can, to all the people you can." With that in mind, the committee began to redefine the church experience beyond the church doors.
Links
News
Change the World: June was our first month for putting together lunch packs for kids in need. Thanks to the contributions of members 20 packs were prepared. Sue Powers delivered them to Zion Lutheran. We are looking to do 20 for July and 20 for August as well. (more)
Book Club: The next meeting will be in August when we will discuss Annie's Ghosts by Steve Luxemberg. Part memoir, part mystery, part history of the mental-health movement, Annie's Ghosts is a fascinating account of a life lived in the shadows and a family beset by despair.
Ministry to Homebound: Five fleece blankets were made for our homebound memebers. Thanks to Colleen Shover for delvering them.
Souper Bowl of Caring: Hunger affects 49 million Americans each year. Over 16 million of them are children. Many are over 65. Rethink has signed Prospect UMC up to participate in the National Initiative of SouperBowl of Caring. Last year more than 260,000 young people across the nation worked together in the weeks before and on the Sunday of the Super Bowl football game to fight hunger and poverty in their local communities. This will be our second year in being part of the event. Under the direction of Joyce Rioux the Sunday school classes will be putting together a skit about Souper Bowl of Caring that will be filmed by Tim Wilson. The video will be shown on Sunday, January 30. This will a twist on Children's time. Instead of someone from the congregation giving a message for the kids, the video will be the kids presenting a message to the congregation. Part of the message of the video will be to ask the congregation to bring in nonperishable food items on February 6. Our donations would be delivered locally (Zion, Salvation Army, and/or Christian Fellowship Center). Our goal is not only to help those in need in the community but also to teach kids the power of making a difference in the lives of others!
Prayer Ministry: Beginning in Lent, Rethink will invite the congregation on each Sunday to write a prayer request on a piece of paper, have them drop it in the offertory and then have a prayer group pray on those requests. Our though behind this is to have a way for all kinds of prayer to be lifted up to God. We sometimes only consult a prayer chain when it is something major. This is a way for those who have any type of concern to ask for help in prayer when otherwise they might feel it is too insignificant to ask for. We will seek help from others who would be interested in being part of the prayer group. After Lent we would like to continue the process once a month.
