Here’s Sheryl Howard, our worship leader singing “Total Praise” accompanied by her husband Breck Howard at a recent service:

Amen.

Anyone is welcome to rent a booth and sell their treasures. Each “booth” will be equivalent to two parking spaces, and the rental cost will be $20 for the day. Each vendor will be responsible for furnishing their own tables and canopy, and must remove their own trash at the end of the day.

The rain date will be Saturday, June 9. If you need more information or would like to volunteer, please contact Debbie Williams at (901) 355-5397.

• May 19
• July 21
• August 18

If any of the organizations in the church would like to sponsor a Saturday at the Soup Kitchen, please contact Rhonda Branch. We will need volunteers to make these dates a success.

I think Bishop May used a wonderful model for problem-solving and obtaining goals and objectives. But it’s not the only model. There are many others. One is called asset-based congregational/community development. In this model, as opposed to looking at deficits and problems, the focus is on identifying assets in the church and the community and how they can work together to build the capacity necessary to grow the church and improve the community.

I believe God’s vision for the world God created is found in Isaiah 65:17-25:

“Pay close attention now: I’m creating new heavens and a new earth. All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past, to be forgotten. Look ahead with joy. Anticipate what I’m creating: … I’ll create… my people as pure delight. I’ll… take delight in my people: No more sounds of weeping in the city, no cries of anguish; No more babies dying in the cradle, or old people who don’t enjoy a full lifetime; One-hundredth birthdays will be considered normal — anything less will seem like a cheat. They’ll build houses and move in. They’ll plant fields and eat what they grow. No more building a house that some outsider takes over, No more planting fields that some enemy confiscates, For my people will be as long-lived as trees, my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work. They won’t work and have nothing come of it, they won’t have children snatched out from under them. For they themselves are plantings blessed by God, with their children and grandchildren likewise God-blessed. Before they call out, I’ll answer. Before they’ve finished speaking, I’ll have heard. Wolf and lamb will graze the same meadow, lion and ox eat straw from the same trough, but snakes — they’ll get a diet of dirt! Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill anywhere on my Holy Mountain,” says God. (Eugene Peterson’s The Message)

Jesus expressed his role in fulfilling God’s vision in Luke 4:16-21:

He came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written, God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, “This is God’s year to act!” He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.” (The Message)

Jesus gave those of us who follow Him our mission in Matthew 28:18-20:

Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” (The Message)

The Church Council has blessed our doing some Community Asset Assessment as a way of our getting our feet wet with this idea and all that asset-focus activity can mean for us. I am excited! We will be sure and keep you up to date as the process moves forward!