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Friday, July 1, 2011

June News & Notes

Garden Grove VBS
Held during the week of June 20-24, 5 youth and 9 leaders learned that God is our HERO. While studying about 4 youthful everyday heroes in the Bible whose names are never even mentioned we learned that we are God’s heroes when we 1. do the unexpected, 2. step out in faith, 3. save the day, and 4. stand for truth . For our mission project we raised $118 to purchase children's board games for The Child Life Program at Blank Children's Hospital.

I-Cubs Baseball and Randy’s Tail-gate Brats

79 members and friends of United Trinity Parish enjoyed I-Cubs baseball and Randy’s tail-gate brats at Principal Park on Sunday June 5th, following song services in both churches. The I-Cubs started off with a big lead, but lost it. Thankfully they came back to win the game in the 9th inning after blowing an 8-0 lead. The weather was perfect, and what fun to enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon with so many friends. Already looking forward to next year.

Annual Conference
Kris Thomas and Pastor Dale represented the parish as delegates to the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church June 4-7 at HyVee hall. There was a lot of worship and study time, which was really quite exceptional. The conference speakers were amazing, encouraging, inspiring. Among them were our own Bishop Trimble, Mike Slaughter, Bishop Peggy Johnson, Dale Batcheler, Norma Morrison, Cynthia Wilson, and our District Superintendent Bill Poland. Check out their impressive bios here. Or check out the online audio archive to listen to any of these amazing speakers. Kris and Pastor Dale recommend you at least listen to one of Mike Slaughter’s talks.

What? A Harvest Festival in June?
How can that be? It’s easy. Even we did it. Here’s how. Last September at the LeRoy Presbyterian Harvest Festival 40 or so folks purchased tickets for a family-style dinner at the McClung House. Well, traditionally this dinner happens right after Christmas, but for one reason or another it kept being rescheduled. Finally on June 11 we enjoyed a fabulous roast beef dinner, with, you know, that incredible brown tapioca pudding that comes as a salad and satisfies like a dessert, not that we didn’t have dessert, too. I’ll do Harvest Festival Dinner any time of year if it’s at the McClung House, you betcha.

Kids to Camp
Our 2010-2011 TUF Team (after-school) program ended in April, except for those 6 TUF-Teamers who registered for summer church camp. This year all of them attended the Christian Church Conference Center in Newton during the last week in June. Scholarships from the church and from the camp itself make it possible for anyone to attend. It is the commitment of both the parish and the camp that cost will not keep any child who wants to from attending church camp. Parish scholarship money comes from our Cans for Camp program, where members bring their recyclable cans and plastic bottles to the church for us to reclaim the deposit on.

The Use of Money
Following the reasoning in John Wesley's Sermon #50 Pastor Dale preached 3 sermons on the use of money. Wesley's 3-fold rule on the use of money is: Gain all you can, Save all you can, and then Give all you can.
But since Wesley's time the English language has changed a bit and those 3 words Gain, Save, and Give don't mean today quite what they meant to Wesley.

Gain Gain all you can means to work hard. It is the opposite of sloth or laziness, and does not refer, as entrepreneurs today might think, to building wealth.

Save To Wesley, Saving is the opposite of accumulating money or goods. It is restraint in spending. It is living simply with only the necessities of life and health.

Give Give is not about giving a percentage to God or the church, but understanding that it all belongs to God. It is about taking care of God's possessions entrusted to you in a generous manner, providing for the wellbeing of all creation in this order 1st yourself, 2nd your family, and with your "overplus" 3rd the household of faith, and 4th the rest of the world.

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