:: Gleanings

 
Five Practices for Fruitful Congregations

Go and bear fruit, fruit that will last...

Five Practices of Fruitful CongregationsOn Saturday, April 10, 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. at Christ UMC, Jackson, Bishop Schnase will present the five Biblical practices in three hour-long teaching presentations, one in the morning and two after lunch.  Churches across the country have found new life and energy through these five practices:

• Radical Hospitality:  Christian Hospitality refers to the active desire to invite, welcome, receive, and care for those who are strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ.
• Passionate Worship:  Passionate Worship means worship that connects people to God, worship that people enter into with expectancy, and with the anticipation that God desires to speak to them and connect to them. Whether traditional, blended, or contemporary, Passionate Worship is authentic, connecting, and sustaining.
• Intentional Faith Development:  Intentional Faith Development refers to the purposeful learning in community that helps the followers of Jesus mature in faith, such a Bible studies, Sunday school classes, short-term topical studies, and support groups that apply the faith to particular life challenges.
• Risk-taking Mission and Service:  Risk-Taking Mission and Service includes the projects, the efforts, and the work people do to make a positive difference in the lives of others for the purposes of Christ, whether or not they will ever be part of the community of faith.
• Extravagant Generosity:  Extravagant Generosity describes practices of sharing and giving that exceed all expectations and extend to unexpected measures. It describes lavish sharing, sacrifice, and giving in service to God and neighbor.

You will not want to miss the opportunity for leaders in your church to learn from Bishop Schnase and to share and live these principles in your ministry.  Thank you for sharing this event in your churches, for bringing a group of leaders on April 10, and for engaging this helpful material for evangelism -- spreading the good news of the love of Jesus Christ. 
Registration for the event will be handled through the district offices.  Go to www.fivepractices.org for a video introduction by Bishop Schnase as well as study guides, sermons, Five Practices for Youth, and other resources for your church.
I look forward to this great day of celebration as we grow in the outreaching ministry of Jesus Christ.

Hope Morgan Ward

:: Help Haiti

:: Announcements

 
3rd Annual Charity Invitational
Golf Tournament April 16

Camp Lake Stephens is hosting its 3rd Annual Charity Invitational Golf Tournament on Friday, April 16th.  On Monday, March 1st at 7:00 p.m. we will present information onour upcoming Golf Invitational to benefit Camp Lake Stephens.  Come hear how you can impact the lives of individuals and our community through this exciting event for golfers and walkers!

This Kick-off will be held at Camp Lake Stephens on Monday, March 1, 2010, at 7:00 p.m.  If you are unable to attend this information meeting, please call the office at 662.234.3350 or email kelli@camplakestephes.com for more information.

Take Time To Be Holy --
A Two Day Spiritual Retreat

Take Time to Be Holy is a two-day spiritual retreat offered by the Choctaw Mission Retreat Center as time apart for rest and reflection that you schedule. Your retreat schedule begins at 10 a.m. on the first day to 3 p.m. the second day.

The retreat cost is $40 per person and includes four meals and snacks. Bring your sleeping bag and stay in one of the refurbished and heated dorms. Shop at Williams Brothers Groceries and tour the Choctaw Reservation. To schedule your "time to be holy" contact Rev. Jon Walters, executive director, at 601.650.8549 or jonwalters@ms.metrocast.net.

The Mississippi UM Choctaw Mission is located at 10971 Road 2606, Choctaw. For more information visit  http://sites.google.com/site/choctawmethodists.

:: Celebrations

St. Paul's UMC in third year as Adopt-a-School Sponsor

St. Paul's UMC in Clarksdale is in its third year as an Adopt-a-School sponsor of Kirkpatrick Elementary School.  Each year Achievement Celebrations are held at the end of each nine weeks to recognize students who have excelled in grades and behavior for that grading period. 

On February 3, over 180 students were given treats, prizes and hugs to celebrate their success! Additionally, St. Paul member, Wayne Winter, gave a brief presentation to the entire student body about the school in Nicaragua that mission teams from the church have been instrumental in building.


As a result of a challenge from SuzAnne Walton, the school's principal, students at Kirkpatrick contributed their change daily to help provide school supplies for students in Nicaragua. The team from St. Paul will be leaving for Nicaragua on February 27 with over $125 collected by the school.

:: Spiritual Leadership Spotlight

Why Spiritual Direction?
Introducing Journey Partners
By Rebecca Youngblood, Executive Director Center for Ministry

The number of friends we have on Facebook tells nothing about the quality of our interactions with each other.  Our obsession with text messages and Twitter can diminish our capacity to be present to those in the same room with us. Many conversations, even within the confines of home or office, qualify as sound-bytes and happen on the fly.  In a recent magazine article in AARP: the Magazine, writer David Dudley laments this "central paradox of contemporary life-simultaneous connection and isolation."   He quotes Harvard psychiatrist Richard S. Schwartz, M.D., author of The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-first Century, as saying "We move a lot, and that widens and weakens our connections with other people.  Technology creates this same widening and weakening."  Are we settling for crumbs when it comes to giving each other attention, offering a listening ear and heart, probing the depths of our inner lives?  How can we gather in and strengthen our relationships with each other and with God?
 
The Christian tradition offers us the whole loaf of both divine and human connection through the practice of Spiritual Direction, a long-standing discipline that is regaining its place among people of faith today.  Understood as the art of walking beside others as they listen for the voice of God in their lives, direction differs from pastoral care, coaching, and therapy.  It provides space in which a person can respond to fundamental spiritual questions:  How is it with my soul?  Where is God in this situation?  What promptings of the Holy Spirit am I receiving or resisting?  The spiritual director's role is to listen deeply and to guide the directee toward recognition of God's voice and God's own direction in his or her life.  Directors do not offer advice or attempt to fix things for another.  They speak most often in questions and in silence.
 
For persons interested in pursuing the ministry of spiritual direction, there is but one program at present that offers training in Mississippi.  Journey Partners, a partnership between the Center for Ministry and the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi, is designed as a two-year series of six intensive retreats.  Rev. Wendy Miller, noted Mennonite author, teacher, and spiritual director, leads participants through a curriculum rich in both content and practice. Over the past 6 years, 60 persons representing 7 denominations from Mississippi and surrounding states have completed Journey Partners.  Another 33 from 5 states and 7 denominations will begin their journey together the first week in March 2010. 
 
Persons interested in finding a spiritual director may contact the Center for Ministry which maintains a list of those available to offer this ministry in different parts of the state and in south Louisiana.  Those who sense a call to pursue training through Journey Partners may also seek further guidance from the Center. Another class will begin in the early spring of 2012.  Jane Watts, the program's director, can be reached at jane@centerforministry.com or 601.974.1488. 

:: Special Events


Todd Agnew in Concert Featuring
Dathan Thigpen the Holy Nation Feb. 26

Tickets for the Todd Agnew Concert are $12 in advance and $15 at the door and can be purchased at Lifeway Bookstore, 601.977.9676.  A group discount is available for youth ministry groups at $10 per person. This discount to youth ministry groups is available only through the MS Conference office. To get the group ministry rate call Frank Haynes at 601.354.0515 ext. 28 or email frank@mississippi-umc.org.

:: Register NOW!


Mississippi Youth Annual Conference 2010

Register now for Mississippi Youth Annual Conference. Early registration fee of $150 is available through April 30. 100 students are needed to continue the conference, so get your registration in soon. Scholarships are available. For more information visit www.mississippi-umc.org or  contact at 601.354.0515 ext. 28
or email frank@mississippi-umc.org.

:: Cares and Concerns

Rev. Ray Daniel, Jr., of the Raleigh/Unity Charge, EJD, father Ray Daniel, Sr., of Yazoo City, passed away Feb. 21, 2010.  Funeral services were held Feb. at Mt. Olivett UMC, East Jackson District. Please keep the Daniel family in your prayers.
 
Ladarius Fitzpatrick, son of Rev. & Mrs. Lavert Fitzpatrick (Okolona: Mt. Pisgah, Tupelo District) will undergo some minor surgery Friday, Feb. 26 at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis. Please lift this family up in your prayers.

Funeral Services For Alesia and Angelica Twillie, sister and niece of Rev. Wayne Bass, of Meridian, Dekalb Parish will be held on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 2 p.m. at Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in Hattisburg.  Visitation will be 2 hrs prior to the service.  The two, along with Angelica's unborn son were victims of a home invasion murder that took place early on the morning of Feb 22.  Please keep the Twillie/Bass family in your thoughts and prayers, during their time of grief.
 
Don Price, husband of Rev. Kathy Price, has been diagnosed with lymphoma.  A procedure was done yesterday at Anderson Hospital, Meridian, to prepare him for chemo, and he is expected to be in the hospital through the weekend.  Rev. Price is pastor of the Belzoni First Charge.  Please remember Don and Kathy in prayer.
 
Rev. Amanda Gordon's grandmother Ms. Jeanette Hutchins of Pearl, has passed away.  Amanda is the Associate Pastor of New Albany FUMC.  Please remember this family in your prayers. 
 
The funeral services for Mrs. Martha James, sister of Rev. James Ross, will be Saturday, February 27, at 3 pm, at Battle Temple Pentecostal Church in Grenada.  Clark Williams Funeral Home is in charge.  Rev. Ross is pastor of Martin Grove Charge.
 
Congratulations to Rev. David and Joy Lowery!   Miss Zoe Elizabeth Kurawski, their newest granddaughter, entered the world Wednesday, Feb. 24 about 9:34 p.m. in York, Pennsylvania.  Zoe & her parents are all doing well.

PEWS FOR SALE - Mount Evergreen UMC in Iuka has 17 pews for sale. Fourteen of the pews are 9 feet 6 inches. Two of the pews are 8 feet; and one pew is 4 feet. The pews are available immediately for $1700. Interested people with questions may contact Robert Armstrong at 662.660.2626 or email armstr1@bellsouth.net.

DIRECTOR - Edwards Street Board of Directors in Hattiesburg is seeking resumes for the newly created position of Director. Requirements for consideration should have a college degree, preferably in social work, experience in management, budget preparation, with strong communication and community relations skills.  The position will pay 30K or higher depending on qualifications. Please send resumes to:  Bill Youngblood, Personnel Committee Chair at youngbloodw@bellsouth.net.
 
DIRECTOR OF MUSIC MINISTRIES - Corinth First UMC is seeking a part time Director of Music Ministries. Person will be primarily responsible for coordinating the chancel, youth, children's, handbell choirs, and related aspects of music ministry. Salary is commensurate with education and experience.  For further information, or to send resume, please contact:  Staff-Parish Relations Committee at First United Methodist Church, 901 N. Fillmore St, Corinth, MS 38834. Deadline for receiving applications is March 19, 2010.
 
DIRECTOR OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY MINISTRIES - Corinth First UMC is seeking a part time/full-time position in Children and Family Ministries. Person will be primarily responsible for coordinating all aspects of children's and family ministries, including Sunday school classes, Wednesday night programs, and Vacation Bible School.  Salary is commensurate with education and experience. For further information, or to send resume, please contact:  Staff-Parish Relations Committee at First United Methodist Church, 901 N. Fillmore St, Corinth, MS 38834.  Deadline for receiving application is March 19, 2010.