Fun Time at The PARTY!

On Saturday, March 23rd Allendale hosted an Easter Block Party in conjunction with our Allendale neighbors. It looked like rain most of the day but no rain fell and everyone had a marvelous time. There was a bounce house for kids of all ages, carnival games, cotton candy, sno-cones, Easter crafts, music and of course food.

Miss Patty from the Children's Center did a fantastic job painting faces of the kids with pictures of cats, flowers, frogs, butterflies and many more spring images. The crafts were set up outside but had to be moved inside due to the windy conditions and Brenda Griffin had her hands full providing everyone with craft projects. What a wonderful thing!

The Allendale Praise Band provided inspirational music for the crowd to enjoy and keep them entertained. Six Door Prizes were generously donated by local businesses and artists and given away to six lucky event goers. The bounce house was a huge success and the carnival games were great fun.

Thanks to our neighbor Lynette Wilson and her family, the Easter eggs were hidden before the party began. They hid the eggs in their yard for the older kids (8 yrs old and up), in the playground for the 4 - 7 year olds, and in the courtyard for the 1 - 3 year olds. Stuffing the eggs was a group effort. Volunteers in the church office spent one morning putting goodies in the eggs, a group spent some time after services one Sunday stuffing eggs, and our Allendale neighbors stuffed some eggs. We had food galore. Charlie Radigan and Pastor Ronnie were the chefs of the day giving us great hamburgers and hot dogs. The Allendale neighborhood provided delicious sides and the congregation supplied us with some very yummy desserts.

Not only did we have fun and great food we also got to meet some of the wonderful families from the Children's Center and the great families in Allendale. It was a fantastic way to open the doors of the church and be part of the neighborhood God has planted Allendale in.

All I can say about this successful event is, "Thank you, God!" for He is good.

   

United Methodist Women

Six members of Allendale's UMW board participated in the recent "Leadership Development Day" held by the Gulf Central District @ Pasadena Community Church.  Women came long distances--from the south (Manatee County) to the north (Crystal River in Citrus County) to an inspiring, informative event.   They were proud to learn not only of all the helpful and innovative efforts that UMW women are already doing, but their horizons were "stretched" with ideas and information that encouraged and motivated them to become even more productive.  UMW is truly a community of women--connected by faith,  love and a commitment to mission. We welcome all women to join us!

Allendale's UMW members  are thankful for all the support of the recent UMW-sponsored flea market.  Due to so many efforts---the prayers, donations, preparations (processing, organizing, pricing, etc.) and selling of those donations, and the "advertising efforts" (word of mouth, emails/Facebook notations, etc.) of the event itself..... monies were raised to fund numerous local, state, national and international outreach efforts.  Preparing for and holding the sale itself afforded many opportunities to strengthen friendships and establish new ones within the church family itself and beyond.  Praise God!  

Planning Ahead

April 27- Day Apart Spiritual Growth Event @ Homosassa Springs State Wildlife Park

July 11-15 Mission U @ Florida Southern College, Lakeland

August 27-Summer Fellowship at St. Paul's UMC, Largo

Sept. 7-9- Conference Spiritual Life Retreat @ Life Enrichment Center, Fruitland Park

Oct. 26- District Annual Meeting @ First UMC Tarpon Springs

              UMW's Vision: Turning faith, hope and love into action on behalf of women,  

              children and youth around the world.

April 01-Board Mtg-6:30 pm

April 22-Agape Circle-6:30 pm

April 23-Naomi Circle-10:00 am

All meetings are held in the Wesley room

GREAT NEWS!

Dear friends, prayer partners and supporters of the mission, South-East Asian Relief;

 SEAR USA just received information, that 6 boys, young men, who are living and working in the SEAR project, The blessing Motorcycle Wash & Oil change Center, in Da Nang city, Viet-Nam,  who have believed in the Lord Jesus, finished additional Bible study and were baptized last week in church. They studied for 4 weeks prior to being baptized. The boys range in age from 14 to about 19 years old. They were baptized March 24th, 2013. Pray that their knowledge of the Bible and that their faith in the Lord Jesus would continue to grow. Many will be standing alone in their Christian faith and walk.

14 yr old Thuong, 15 yr old Hieu, 17 yr old Nam ...
17 yr old Truc, 17 yr old Nhanh .19 yr old Dieu ..
The boys are all together with others as well in pictures
Praise the Lord for this and thank you for your prayers and mission support. Mark 9 : 33 -37  Working together for HIS Kingdom; Rex Almquist and the SEAR USA staff, Board members and Viet-Nam staff.

We at Allendale support SEAR throughout the year.  We pray the Holy Spirit sends each of these boys a mentor to help them with their walk with Jesus.  Let them be a blessing to someone else and to hold tight to the conrnerstone of foundation.  

Does Jesus Say to Congregations With Few Resources? (Part 3 of 5) Keep the Target Ministry?

Posted on 3/27/12 by Jeff Stiggins

The first task of congregational leaders is not insuring their congregation's survival, but their congregation's missional vitality. Because we seldom hit a target we can't see, congregations need their leaders to do two things. First: clarify the mission. And second: constantly keep it before the congregation.

No way around it: the church is a franchise. We don't get to make up what we are about. Jesus already did that. He said, "Go and make disciples and teach them to obey me." (Matthew 28:19-20) He said, "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8) He said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24) He said, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:25) He said, "'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these
. . ., you did for me.'" (John 25:40)

The United Methodist Church summarizes all this by simply saying that our mission is "To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world." This reflects both the historic emphases of the Wesleyan movement: a heart warmed by Christ expressed in social holiness.

The problem is that the default in our consumer society is to think that the church is all about taking care of me: my personal preferences, my pastoral needs, my peace of mind and my comfort level. Unless leaders are continually lifting up the real mission of Christ's church, the default in our culture is to think that the church is about the idolatrous trinity of caring for our members, maintaining our facilities and perpetuating our beloved local traditions. And when the congregation is in crisis, the idol becomes simply the survival of our congregation. This is not the target that Christ calls his followers to move toward. Aim at this and we have already lost our authenticity; we have already lost what it means to be the body of Christ in the world.

How do leaders keep the mission constantly before their people? Here are two practical as potatoes ways of doing this:

#1 When planning any event, activity or program in the church, ask those involved to complete this sentence and write their answers on a white board or news print :

We are doing this SO THAT __________________.

Let people complete this sentence in as many ways as they can. Then ask, "How does this advance our mission to make more and better world changing disciples?"

One congregation did this exercise regarding a Valentine's Day Couple's Dinner that they did every year. "We always have this dinner," one person said. "Everyone expects it and enjoys it," said another. "It's fun to get dressed up and have a nice dinner," said one more. "But, does it advance the church's mission?" asked a church leader.

"It would if we used this as a way to invite people from the community to join us and we got to know them. It could be like a Matthew party, you know, when Matthew invited all his tax collector buddies over to meet Jesus." "Yea, but I don't remember anyone outside our church family coming to the dinner in recent years." "But what if we were intentional about inviting others and about getting to know them?"

#2 Another practical way to keep the mission before people is to ask of any event, activity or program in the church the following question:

If we do this really well for the sake of Christ's mission, what will be the results?

The idea here is to make clear what the missional outcomes of this event should be so that you can make sure they are the outcomes.

For example, you might ask what the missional results of your congregation's youth ministry? One congregation did this and here are the results they identified as indicating missional success in their youth ministry:

· Our youth will be growing in their devotion and commitment to Christ.

· Our youth group will grow and include youth not previously in our church.

· Our youth will see themselves as part of and participate in our whole congregation's life and ministry.

As a result of identifying these three missional outcomes for their youth ministry, the youth ministry leaders were able to "begin with the end in mind" (Stephen Covey) as they planned. They were also able to monitor how they were doing along the way by asking if these expected outcomes were actually happening. This enabled them to make mid-course corrections in what they were doing to improve the outcomes. The point was not to just have a good time or to keep the kids busy during the summer or to have a separate youth group from the rest of the congregation or to have a youth group because everyone did. The point was to advance Christ's mission in these ways.