January 7, 2022
Dear Hamilton Mill UMC Family,
I hope you all had a blessed Christmas season and beginning of the new year!
If you’ve been in worship with us over the past month then you know that we’ve had some amazing worship services recently at HMUMC. From the Christmas Cantata to Christmas Eve to the first Sunday of 2022, it’s hard to describe just how beautiful each of these worship experiences have been.
Of course, if instead of being in-person you’ve tried to livestream our services from home, then I’m guessing your worship experience has been less than amazing. And by “less than amazing” I, unfortunately, mean “non-existent.”
The reason why, according to our IT technicians, is because we’ve been experiencing “unexpected disruptions” to our church’s internet service since mid-December and every time we’ve been assured it’s been fixed, well, let’s just say they were wrong.
But here’s the good news! After a week of lots of head-scratching and incomprehensible IT chatter in the church office, our livestream has officially been exorcised of its demons and raised to new life! In fact, starting this Sunday, you’ll be able to livestream both our 9:15 and 11:00 am worship services uninterrupted and without issue.
To anyone who has attempted to stream any of our worship services in the last few weeks and hasn’t been able to, I want to offer my sincerest apologies for the headache. I know how frustrating it can be to make plans to do something—like livestream worship—only to be met with unexpected disruptions.
Of course, life these days seems to be filled with lots of unexpected disruptions thanks to the recent surge in Covid cases. In fact, in the last two weeks, we’ve had a significant number of church staff, volunteers, and ministry leaders whose ability to serve has been temporarily disrupted due to testing positive for Covid, being quarantined due to exposure, or because of some other illness like a cold, sinus infection, or strep throat.
Because of this, we’re going to delay our 2022 programming kick-off for two weeks in an effort to get past this current surge and to allow our ministry staff and leaders to get back to full strength.
Originally, our plan was to launch all of our new classes, small groups, Bible studies, and Wednesday Night programming next week. Our new plan is to kick-off 2022 programming the week of January 23. So here’s what the new January schedule will look like:
Starting Wednesday night, January 26th:
• First Wednesday Night Supper of 2022
• The Gospel of Mark Bible Study with Pastor Jeremy (Livestreamed)
• Kids Ministry and Kids Choir
• Student Min
• Grief Share with David and Melanie Hutto
Starting the week of January 31st:
• Monday Morning Bible Study 1 Samuel (January 31st, 10 am)
• Tuesday Morning Women’s Bible Study (February 1st, 10 am)
• Wednesday Night Women’s Study (February 2nd, 6:30 pm)
• Disciple 1 Fast Track with Pastor Jason (February 2nd, 6:30 pm)
• Pandemic Parenting Seminar (February 2nd, 6:30 pm)
• LifeGroups for Young Parents (Launch February 9th, 6:30 pm)
In spite of the change of plans, I couldn’t be more excited about the new year of growth opportunities at our church, so I hope you’ll find at least one class, small group, or study to plug into to deepen your faith in the new year. You can find all of our growth opportunities at
hmumc.org/grow.
This Sunday, we’re kicking off our new sermon series, “Courageous Faith,” by looking at the baptism of Jesus, his temptation in the wilderness, and we’ll even be reaffirming our own baptismal vows. It’s the perfect way to start off the new year, so I hope you can join us either in-person or via livestream.
Unexpected disruptions are never fun or ideal, but they do remind us of the truth of the age-old beatitude, “Blessed are the flexible for they shall never be bent out of shape.”
See you on Sunday!
Grace and Peace,
Rev. Jeremy Lawson
Senior Pastor
