Our congregational focus for the year has been "Going Deeper." This month our message series Does the Bible Really Say That? is taking us deeper in our reading and understanding of Scripture to examine some commonly used but not necessarily accurate quotes we hear. Last week Catherine began the series by taking a look at the statement: "God has a plan for my life." If you missed it, you can go here to view it. This week I'll be preaching the second message in the series, entitled "Once Saved, Always Saved?" I look forward to seeing you Sunday.
Catherine and I also want to invite you to go deeper this fall in listening and learning from each other. We join our Bishop Ken Carter in encouraging United Methodists across our Florida Conference to participate in a set of POV (point of view) conversations with other members of our worshipping community. These will be important gatherings that create space for sharing our varied understandings of human sexuality in relationship to faith and Scripture, an important topic in our denomination right now and one that will be the focus of a specially called General Conference of the global United Methodist Church in February 2019. The first POV gathering will be held on Saturday, September 15, consisting of three consecutive sessions all in one day with a break for lunch. Additional options are available for participating on three consecutive Sundays or Wednesdays next month. You can sign up here for any of these options. To learn more about POV, follow this link.
It saddens me to share with you the news of Andy Jasperson's death this week. Many of you have experienced Andy's kind, loving nature on Sunday mornings and we will all miss him. He was a steady, weekly presence sitting on the bench just inside the doors to the worship center, often for all three services. Andy's service will be held at the Williams-Thomas Funeral Home chapel downtown this Saturday, September 8 at 11am. A time of visitation will be held beginning at 10am.
Lastly, I hope to see you next Wednesday, September 12 for the commissioning service of Rev. Aaron Rousseau as a U.S. Navy Chaplain.
