Dear Church Family, As many of you know, our theme for 2012 is "Step Up." We've been encouraging the congregation to "step up" to five core spiritual practices including worship, group-life, service, hospitality, and generosity. In this week's e-note, I'd like to tell you about two "step up" opportunities. Step Up to Hospitality: BUMC is the only church in the Tennessee Conference big enough to host our yearly "Annual Conference" denominational meeting. Therefore, it is our opportunity and responsibility to host this major event. As Jesus taught us, "To whom much is given, much is required." Over 1,000 United Methodist lay people and clergy will meet at BUMC from June 10-13. We need many volunteers to help us provide excellent hospitality to our guests including parking lot greeters, shuttle drivers, welcome desk and hallway greeters, and snack coordinators for the Bishop and Cabinet. Please consider serving an hour or two during this event. For details or to volunteer, click here. Step Up to Prayer: Like every church, prayer is at the center of our life together. This is true individually, in group-life, and in worship. BUMC offers many prayer opportunities, including Morning Prayer at 6:30 in the sanctuary on Tuesday mornings,
and our prayer card ministry called "GraceNotes." This week I'd like to tell you about our unique email prayer ministry. More accurately, I'd like for Bill Fleenor, who directs this ministry, to tell the story in his own words: "Six years ago in a Stephen Ministers' training class we were discussing "How can we better meet the prayer needs of our congregation?" We were aware of our prayer cards in the pews and prayer groups in Sunday school classes. But we recognized the void we had in-between the printing of the weekly bulletins. The problem was if someone needed prayers after the bulletin was printed on Thursday, they had to wait a week for their prayer requests to be viewed. Not acceptable! It became obvious that an Email Ministry on duty 24/7 could solve that need, and I volunteered to coordinate that ministry. Dr. Olds was very involved and encouraged us as we gathered "sign-ups" for the team. Many thousands of prayer requests have been listed over the years and many prayers have been answered, praise God! Anyone who needs a prayer request sent out simply sends their email request to bfleenor@comcast.net or Julie Donley at jdonley@bumc.net and their request goes out to over 600 team members (many of whom are husband and wife teams) 24/7. If you would like to become a member of this email prayer team, or receive more information about it, please contact me at the above email address." (Bill Fleenor) This weekend we will celebrate Pentecost. If you are not out of town for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, please be here for worship on this important day in the life of the church. Finally, it was good to receive Samuel Waymire and Joel and Herma Peavyhouse as new members. Welcome to our church family. In Christ's Love and Service, Martin