August 8th, 2022
On Sunday, our good friend Derrick Scott bought us an exuberant & thoughtful message about the power of a practice of prayer using the Scripture:

Be inspired by Derrick's message here
or the whole digital service HERE
Use these prompts to reflect upon the Scripture & message from Sunday:

Reflection Prompt #1: Consider what could happen in your life if you considered prayer more of a spiritual practice.

Reflection Prompt #2: How does looking at conversations with God as "spiritual medicine" or "spiritual activism" deepen your understanding of prayer?
Just Three Things
Learn how to put in requests for what you want to learn in our Christian Ed Survey (mumconline.com/study). Join our Memorial prayer team and help lift up the prayers of our congregation. And take the next step in discipleship and join our next New Member Class! Learn more in this week's Just Three Things video!
Watch it HERE.
Find the Christian Education survey here: mumconline.com/study
You can download the whole list for August HERE.
A Way a Month: With Sarah Flint
Hints on how we can live out our calling to creation care from our
North East District Representative to the FLUMC Creation Care Task Team
This month, I have two “ways” to share. First, remember before the Maxwell Hall construction, when many of us brought our own mugs for coffee? Currently, supply issues are making it particularly difficult to purchase more sustainable choices in beverage wear, so this is a wonderful time to return to (good) old habits! Please consider bringing your own mugs and/or reusable bottles for coffee time at church. Of course, if you leave them there, please clean them and put them away so they don’t create work for anyone else.
Taking this a little further, it’s a great habit to carry your water bottle everywhere. I even carry mine into restaurants if there’s any chance they serve beverages in Styrofoam. As far as science can tell us, Styrofoam never decomposes. That’s right – NEVER. If you do find you’ve used Styrofoam, please take it with you, clean it, and bring it to a Styrofoam return bin. I take mine to the bin in front of Publix. It is possible to recycle some Styrofoam, but not through our home pick-up.
“All creation is the Lord’s, and we are responsible for the ways in which we use and abuse it. Water, air, soil, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life, and space are to be valued and conserved because they are God’s creation and not solely because they are useful to human beings.”
On another note, the upcoming North East Florida District Creation Care Workshop on Saturday, September 10th should be a wonderful learning opportunity! This date falls in the middle of the ecumenical Season of Creation, which runs from September 1st through October 4th. I have the honor of co-planning a workshop with our District Office and I can’t tell you what it would mean to me to have support from my home church! I’m also very excited about our guest speakers. The presentations include the Methodist case for Creation Care, greening our churches, gardening, reducing waste going to the landfills, and general resources for Creation Care ministries and individual action. And registration incudes an eco-friendly lunch! This an easy way to better equip ourselves to be the hands and feet of God in restoring the beautiful creation God once declared “good.” You may find the registration details in the accompanying graphic, (or click HERE) and please watch church announcements for other upcoming opportunities to celebrate the Season of Creation.
You can read more about what United Methodists believe and how we live out our calling on the UMC's Church & Society website at umcjustice.org