A Gateway to Christ

Don Twiggs- Community Lay Dir.

Michele Smith- Women's Team Selection

Lee Pruitt- Men's Team Selection

Sherry Cobb-Thompson- Agape

Hugh Peeples - Logistics

Cheryl Peguese -Gathering Coordinator

Rev. Will Clark - Asst.Comm Spiritual Dir

Bill Adams - FCE Database Admin

 As this new group of pilgrims near their Fourth Day's, I can remember back to my walk in 2012. The two questions, what did these past 72 hours mean to me? and What am I going to do about it?

“The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with

gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” ( Zephaniah 3:17)

To paraphrase the late-night philosopher Garrett Morris, from the early years of Saturday Night Live,

“Thank you very much. {Emmaus} has been very, very good to me. Thank you. God bless you.”

On every weekend in which I have the honor to serve, I think about what made my Walk (35) so

special. The talks were informative and inspiring. The Fellowship and the Food was amazing.

The Table Time was effective at reinforcing the learning of the talks. The way each element of the weekend builds on the way before truly helped in the retention of all that went before. The Chapel Times were intentional and focused.

All of these things, and more, combined to create a very specific environment. Those of us called to serve on a weekend team are charged to carryout the weekend task in a manner that creates a space to experience the Love of God through the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Walk to Emmaus Weekend schedule is time tested and, in my experience, works as intended.

How many times have you heard or said the words, “I get as much or more out of serving on a walk than I did on my original walk.” I know I heard it more than once over the last weekends. I can honestly say that this has been a truth for me and the Walks I have served.

As much as I love the experience of working on team, I occasionally need the reminder that I am there to help create that Holy environment for the pilgrims God called to the weekend. It is that dedication to serving in the role team members are assigned, that allows the pilgrims to fully experience the weekend as designed.

God will do God’s thing through us or despite us. And yet, how much better is it when those God calls understand that call and live it out with intention and through faith?

My Walk was “very, very good to me.”, because the team members allowed the weekend to be about the pilgrims. I am so grateful for the team that, even while they were having very real experiences of the Holy, created a space where God could speak to me, personally.

May the Community continue to serve in humility and obedience to the calling of Go

Pastor Will Clark,

Assistant Spiritual Director

Fellowship will follow at 4:30-5pm.

5-6PM: PotLuck Dinner welcoming the new Pilgrims and Team of Walk 85 as First In LINE :D

6PM The COMMUNITY leaves for the Sanctuary, while the Pilgrims and team return to another place.

Welcome New Pilgrims to your Emmaus Community.

It has been an adventure for me these three months as FCE Communications Coordinator; but not as exciting as your three days with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit! I am learning ALOT and learning as I go. Please let me know if you know of anyone that is NOT getting the newsletters. I am currently auditing the database of email listings that we have on file for the newsletter platform but that will not tell me if there is an error in an email address. Only you can tell me that. If there is something that you would like to see on the website that would be beneficial for the community, please search for me at the Gatherings, or call me

(904) 282-3404. I am here to serve you and keep you informed of what is what in your community.

For the new pilgrims, your emails shall be added to the database soon. Thank you for your patience.

"God has given each of us a gift from His great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve on another." 1Peter 4:10

In His service and at your service, with Love and Blessings,

Angela Whiteside.

Fourth Day gatherings are very important to all Emmaus

members and guests. It gives us an opportunity to fellowship with

friends and make new friends. We can share how our Emmaus walk has inspired us to deeply follow the will of God. We can also use this time to provide recognition, support and encouragement to our brothers and sisters. Most of all we can worship our almighty and all-powerful God together. We can share our praises to God for all he has done in our lives.

The current 2024 gatherings are scheduled for:

April 20 - Praise in the Park, GCS

May 18 – First UMC Interlachen

June 15 – Isle of Faith UMC

July – No Gathering

August 17 – Black Creek Methodist September – Lakeshore Fellowship (Tentative)

November 16 – CrossRoad Church

Please come out and enjoy the Food, Fellowship and mostly the

Worship.

Declores

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for your time, talent and finances in providing Agape. Whether you

made it, had it made or purchased it. As I volunteered on Saturday, both weekends, I heard comments of

how meaningful the Agape was to the pilgrims and the conference room team. One team member told me that the Agape was so relevant to the weekend and the talks. Thank you to the weekend Agape coordinators and all who assisted and/or guided sorting the Agape. Job well done!

Thank You to all who gave agape in the many other ways: Being on Team (inside or outside), Musicians,

Volunteers, through the Prayer Vigil, Writing Pilgrim letters /notes, Community prayer at the Sponsors

Hour, Giving Green Agape, as FCE Community going the extra mile (handling the Pilgrims luggage to

and from camp, River of Life UMC and a Big AGAPE Thank You to the Sponsors, without whom there

would not have been Pilgrims for the weekend to be a GO!

May the Blessings of GOD continue to fall on you all, like a gentle Spring rain!

The 4th Day Gathering is upon us and we will have completed Walks 85. I am looking forward to Agape

for Walks 86 (I will have an Agape bin at all gatherings for collections, Just putting it out there).

Thank You for making this 1st Weekend as FCE Agape Coordinator a success.

DeColores!

New Pilgrims, welcome to the Florida Crown Emmaus Community! As a new member of the

Community, it is important to stay in touch with the rest of the Community and share information. One

of the tools we use is Ministry Manager. Ministry Manager is a database developed by our governing

organization, the Upper Room, to facilitate community communication and operations. You should

have received an email with an invitation from Ministry Manager; if not, check you spam folder. If you

cannot find your invitation email, go to the Ministry Manager portal page at

https://ministrymanager.upperroom.org and click the “Sign Up” button, fill out the form, and click the

“Create Your Account” button to finish.

What should I check in my Ministry Manager Profile?

Once you are in the Ministry Manager, check your profile to ensure that all your

information is correct. There are several fields in each profile which are mandatory. If they are

left blank, you may be able to complete the verification of your account, but we will not be able

to change your status. These fields are:

First Name

Last Name

Phone Number (unfortunately having something in Mobile Phone Number isn’t sufficient)

Birth Date

Email Address

After changing and/or updating any of your profile information, ensure that you get a message stating that the update was successful before moving on. If you get a failure

message, check the profile fields for hints in red about those fields that may be filled out incorrectly or are mandatory and were left blank.

Once you have updated your profile, please send me an email at williamladams@bellsouth.net

and I will change your role from Basic Member to Community Member. After that you will be

able to use this tool, look for reunion groups, sign up for the prayer vigil, and view your Emmaus service history. To learn more about what you can do in Ministry Manager, just select the FAQ button on the homepage to view tutorials. Welcome to the Community!

God Loves You and So Do I,

Bill Adams

Florida Crown Emmaus Database Administrator

I would like to thank everyone that helped during the Men and Women’s Walk 85!

There are certainly a lot of moving parts, and it could not have gone so smoothly without your help! Thank

you to the Kitchen Teams that stepped up on short notice so we could actually have the Walks.

On the Men’s Walk, Mike Self (all the way from Callahan), Stacy Shelton and Mari Anne Peeples. From the Women’s Walk, Stacy Shelton (yes both weekends!), David Eden and Patrick Dougher all headed up the Kitchen Teams. Again, all these folks put long hours in to make the meals outstanding! Thank you all! There were many volunteers that supported the

Kitchen Teams with meals and served in the Dining Room during both Walks, so thank you to

everyone who came to Camp and served at some point for Walks 85!

Setting up Camp and then breaking down Camp Sunday always requires many hands, and we had no shortage of help for both setting up and packing up. I am very thankful for all of those that helped.

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” John 6:38

See you at the 4th Day Gathering Saturday at Orange Park Methodist Church!

God’s Cross – Stitch

I have had a little time in the last few weeks to read stories that I have found on the world wide web. This one I felt had a beautiful story.

One Sunday morning as I sat waiting on worship, I noticed that on the altar was what appeared at first glance to be an ordinary painting of Jesus with His arms outstretched. But there was something about the picture that was not ordinary at

all. The more I looked, the more it just drew me in and I could not stop staring at it.

One if the pastors also began looking closely at it and quickly became consumed by the Holy Spirit. She heard God saying to her, “This is my people – all colors and

shapes, all blended to be an example of ME. This is what My Church is supposed to look like.” She went to altar to take a closer look at the painting and saw that it

was not actually a painting at all. It was cross- stitched, which gave her message from God more meaning. Just like that beautiful “picture,” God has stitched us and blended us all together until we become a beautiful picture of Christ with each one of us representing Christ to others as His disciples.

After the service there was a long line of people wanting to look at this “painting” up close. It was then that you could see those thousands of tiny stiches all put together to make this exquisite picture. There was a “Cross- Stitch” guide that was

used to help the stitcher know where to place the stitches and when to change the colors. And God has a guide for us. His Word, that tells us how we are all supposed to come together and make an image of Christ. Ah, only God can hold

the needle that stitches us all together to make the Body of Christ!

DeColores

Michele