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Top Ten Ways to Stay Connected
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1.
Online Worship and Bible Study
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Wednesday Night Bible Study
Join us on Facebook TONIGHT, May 6, at 7pm!
Join our pastors
LIVE on
Facebook Wednesday, May 6
at 7pm for our Wednesday Night Bible Study! We are "Digging Deeper" into last Sunday's sermon "Blind Faith" and James 2:1-13.
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Sermon Title: "Dead Faith"
by Rev. Jeremy Lawson
Throughout the New Testament, the Apostle Paul says over and over again that Christians are saved "by grace through faith"--that our salvation doesn't come through good deeds or religious works, but through the saving act of Jesus' death and resurrection. And yet, when you turn to James 2, you almost wonder if you've found a biblical contradiction. Because James very clearly states: "Faith without works is dead." So how do we reconcile this two seeming contradictions? And why was James so adamant about the importance of putting your faith into action? Take we'll take a look at how James says we can avoid having a dead and lifeless faith.
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As we continue our online services, we've enjoyed seeing more of our HMUMC musicians singing and playing their instruments on Sunday morning.
And we're looking for EVEN MORE musicians of all ages who would like to be considered to offer some music on one of our upcoming online worship experiences.
If you're interested, all you need to do is record a video of you singing or playing an instrument and send that file to the link below. It can be a video of something you've done in the past, something that is not church related, or a short clip of your rendition of your favorite song. We just want to hear how you'll share your musical praise!
If you have any questions, please reach out to Pastor Mark Locke at [email protected].
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Help Us Recognize and Honor Graduating Seniors
Even though we can't celebrate our graduating seniors in person, we have two ways to honor those who are graduating from high school and college:
Online Slideshow - Submit Your Info by May 10 We are excited to recognize our seniors with an online picture slideshow during service on Sunday, May 17 - please visit www.hmumc.org/students to register your high school or college graduating senior today. The deadline for submission is Sunday, May 10 at midnight.
Write a Letter or Card by May 20 You can help make a high school senior's graduation special by writing a congratulatory letter. See a sample template below you can reference, and it will also be available on our Student's page. Feel free to write a message from the heart recognizing their efforts. We need all notes and cards delivered to the church drop box no later than May 20.
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4. The Pantry and Other Ways to Help
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The Pantry at Hamilton Mill
The Pantry continues to serve record breaking numbers of families and we appreciate all the monetary and volunteer support! Please keep those monetary donations coming!
HOW TO HELP:
We are asking in lieu of food donations that our congregation and community make monetary donations. To keep our volunteers safe and to utilize them to the fullest, it serves our patrons better to be able to purchase the food we need. By donating funds, you will allow us to purchase the foods that our patrons need most and be the best stewards of our resources.
We invite you to give both to The Pantry and to HMUMC as we seek to be Christ in our community during this new time. To give, please visit
www.hmumc.org/give
and select the fund "Food Pantry"
We invite you to continue to pray for The Pantry and for our patrons.
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Encourage and Help our Heroes
Handmade for Heroes
Our Piecemakers Ministry invites you to help hand make
medical masks, surgical caps, and headbands used to hold masks.
If you or someone in your home is sick, please do not participate in this project at this time.
We are in desperate need of HEADBANDS - wearing these masks are so rough on the ears! Please consider making or donating supplies to make headbands - details below.
Here's how you make them:
Surgical Caps: Click
HERE
Headbands for Heroes: Click
HERE
Please drop off completed projects at the bin outside of the main entrance of HMUMC.
We are also in need of 1/4 Elastic. Only this size of elastic can be utilized for masks and can also be dropped off in the bin outside of the main entrance.
If you or someone you know is in need of one of the above items, please let us know!
You can make requests HERE
Encouragement with a Card
There are so many people in our community working tirelessly to provide care and safety for all of us. We want to encourage them!
Join our Missions Committee in Encouragement with a Card.
Write, Draw, or Create cards for first responders, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical professional, care facility staff, and more.
Drop them off in the bin outside of the Worship Center, and we will distribute them across our community!
Know someone that could use encouragement? Create an encouragement card, take a picture before you send it, and tag us with
#HMUMCLife so we can celebrate and share the encouragement with you!
Learn More at
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Ways to Give to HMUMC
There are many ways to give to HMUMC.
Online - please visit
www.hmumc.org/give
. Once there, please scroll down and click the blue button on the screen that says "give online" - this will take you to the right place to make your donation. You may make a one-time donation or set up a recurring donation.
By Text - we have a NEW feature! Now you can donate via a TEXT.
- Simply text HMUMC to 73256
- Once you send this first text, you will get a text message that says "You're almost there. Click (link) to complete your gift to Hamilton Mill UMC".
- Click the link which will take you to a screen with our church name.
- You then enter the dollar amount, select a fund to donate, enter credit card or banking details, email, address, and confirm the gift amount. ALL DONE!
- A receipt is sent to your phone that says "Thank You! You have completed your gift of $$$ to Hamilton Mill UMC (name of fund)"
- A receipt is also emailed to you.
Via Bank Draft - Log in directly to your personal banking institution and create a bill pay payment to Hamilton Mill UMC. Use the church address (1450 Pine Road Dacula, Ga. 30019) and your bank will send payment directly to the church. Please indicate in the memo field of the bill payment where to post the donation.
By Mail - you can mail your offering to:
HMUMC - Finance Office
1450 Pine Road
Dacula, Ga. 30019
We thank you for your continued tithes and offerings during this time of social distancing.
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6. Kids Ministry and the Preschool
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This SUNDAY, MAY 10 AT 4:00 PM - 4:30 PM
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We sure do enjoy seeing everyone on Facebook Live each Sunday! We post a great parent resource guide each Sunday after the lesson. Be sure to visit
www.hmumc.org/children
to see personalized videos, prayers and those guides from our Kids Ministry staff!
Have any questions, suggestions or need family ideas? Be sure to reach out to one of our
Kids Ministry staff
and they will be in touch - we are here for you!
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VBS 2020 Notice
For those families registered for Vacation Bible School, we have decided that VBS will not take place at the church June 1 - 5 as planned. However, our Kids Ministry team is hard at work to reimagine VBS and will be offering a very special program. We look forward to sharing more information with you as we continue to monitor best practices to keep our community safe.
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WinShape Camps are Cancelled
Message from WinShape Camps for Communities: Over the past several weeks, we have monitored the COVID-19 pandemic very closely to fully understand how it might impact our camps scheduled for Summer 2020.
Because of increasing government regulations across the country, and to do our part in keeping you and our campers safe, we have made the incredibly difficult decision to cancel all day and overnight camps for this summer.
More information from WinShape Camps for Communities can be found here.
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We want thank the preschool families for staying so connected through Facebook during this time! Please stay t
uned to our
Preschool Facebook
page for important announcements about graduation, a school parade, and more in the coming days.
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Our Student Ministries team has been hard at work to stay connected with our students. Be sure to encourage your students to
connect with student ministries on Facebook (Hamilton Mill Student Ministries) and Instagram (HMStudentMin)! David and Heather are here to be a source of light and support for all families during this time!
Here are this week's updates:
E3: James Study
This week we are looking at James 2:1-13 in our Right Now Media study and talking about favoritism. You'll watch the video and then look to the leader guide for discussion questions and comments.
Here is a quick question you can ask in advance of watching the video:
What is favoritism and where do you see this in today's world?
Wednesday Nights: New Series
This week we gear up for the end of the school year with a new short series we're calling "Test." The series will be based on James 1:2-3 and will look at "Joy," "Trials," and "Endurance." This week make sure to watch our YouTube video at
www.youtube.com/hmstudentmin and talk about the following question.
How can we have joy in the midst of these difficult times? We will continue posting Wednesday night devotionals throughout the month of May on Wednesday nights!
Confirmation:
This Friday, May 8, we will have our last confirmation zoom call of the season and will be looking over the confirmation vows. We will discuss this further in person when the time comes for us to do that, however we'd love to start the conversation and then simply hangout with our awesome confirmands! You should have received an email with that information earlier this week.
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RightNow Media
FREE Online Resource!
We want to encourage our entire congregation to use a free resource called
RightNow Media.
RightNow Media is a media platform with thousands of hours of Bible Study, Christian Conferences, Topical Studies, and Kids Programming. Below I will outline how to access RightNow Media and how to best utilize this resource by age demographic.
If you have any questions about how to best utilize RightNow Media or have any problems signing up, please email Pastor Natalee at
[email protected]
. Sign up
here
!
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Prayer Requests
During these difficult times, don't forget that your church staff is here for you. You can reach out for prayer requests through our church website at
www.hmumc.org/prayer-request.
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Last week, Pastor Jeremy sent a
Pastoral Letter
regarding our church's reopening strategy and plans. We appreciate everyone's outreach and support. We are in the process of identifying our Health Advisory team and working on our phased reopening approach.
Currently, our plan is to continue online worship through end of May in our current format.
Then, on
June 7, we'll bring our worship team back into the worship center and begin our new format of two unique live-streamed worship services every week. At 9:15 am, we'll have our modern worship service and we'll have our traditional service at 11:00 am.
Our goal is to gradually add people into the worship space over time in a way that is safe and logistically feasible. Exactly how we'll do that and what it will look like is yet to be determined, but each phase of our re-opening efforts will aim to add more people to our Sunday morning worship services.
As always, this plan for the future is subject to change due to new information or a change in the recommendations from our healthcare experts, so we'll be sure to keep you apprised of any news or updates as we work towards our re-opening plan.
We hope you know that your church staff is here for you, and we are whole-heartedly committed to doing whatever we can to help our church stay connected during this challenging time.
Most of all, we want you to know:
You are loved. You are missed. You are prayed for everyday. We will get through this together. And we will persevere!
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