2022-10-23 Beacon

Methodist Church Shalimar United Week of October 23, 2022

WELCOME

Shalimar UMC

Lead Pastor

Dr. Philip McVay

REACH | TEACH | SEND

Dr. Brad Bradford Worship Pastor Rev. David Garvin Youth Pastor Rev. Matt Langford Associate Pastor Gerald Batton Custodian

Chris Bennett Facility & Maintenance Manager

Pat Brantley Office Administrative Assistant Abigail Denney Media & Communications

Joy Harris Financial Assistant

Denise Heath Finance Sarah Hicks Children’s Director Karen Jadin Preschool Director

Tony Mallini Finance

Heyward McKenzie Chef Scott Newbold Office Administrator

Katie Pascoe Nursery Director Leigh J. Rice Respite Director

Dawn Rozofsky

After School & Camp Director

Ben Savage Worship Ministries Associate Jeremy Thiess Ministries Assistant

After Hours Emergency Pastoral Assistance

Dr. Philip McVay: (850) 607-1133

Dr. Brad Bradford: (850) 227-4328

Rev. David Garvin: (850) 319-0072

Rev. Matt Langford: (334) 437-3931

Table Of Contents

Our Vision

Christ-centerd, multi-generational, family & community relevant ministries through worship, discipleship, and mission.

Tite Text Here

This Sunday

Our Mission

Matt’s Message

Task Force

House

Programs

Connect With Us

Social Media

We REACH out to our congregation, community, and the world. We TEACH the word of God as provided in the Holy-Scripture. We SEND our members and missionaries to be witnesses to God’s grace and His promise of eternal life.

Worship Services

Sunday at Shalimar

Traditions: 8AM & 11AM

Meet us in the Sanctuary as we celebrate through the rich traditions of our faith. Such as hymns led by organ and piano, seasonal vestments, and Traditional Methodist liturgy. Our Chancel Choir leads the 11AM service.

Connect: 9:30AM

Join us in the Sanctuary as we engage in a fourfold services of gathering, praise, ser vice of the Word, Holy Communion with candle stations of prayer, and sending forth. Worship is a blend of contemporary praise songs and upbeat hymns.

Freedom: 11:07AM

Located in the Family Life Center Gym as we come together and worship through modern music, Fellowship time, and listen to an inspirational message in a contemporary atmosphere.

This Sunday in Worship October 23, 2022

One In Ministry to all the World

8AM | TRADITIONS | SANCTUARY

In Person & Online Message by Ed Keller & Dr. Philip McVay Worship Led by Dr. Brad Bradford

9:30AM | CONNECT | SANCTUARY

In Person & Online Message by Ed Keller & Dr. Philip McVay Worship Led by Dr. Brad Bradford & The Connect Worship Team Holy Communion Celebrated by Dr. Philip McCVay

11AM | TRADITIONS | SANCTUARY

In Person & Online Message by Ed Keller & Dr. Philip McVay Worship Led by Dr. Brad Bradford

11:07AM | FREEDOM | FAMILY LIFE CENTER

In Person & Online Message by Rev. Matt Langford Worship Led by Ben Savage and the Freedom Team

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. - John 3:16-17 NLT

Philip’s Focus

Recent, Upcoming, and FORWARD at Shalimar UMC

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As the temperatures drop, our month of October is moving at a brisk pace. There is always so much happening through Shalimar United Methodist Church. We have remarkable events that just happened, exciting upcoming events, and even glimpses moving FORWARD into 2023. You will read about much more happening in this edition of the Beacon. Let me capture a few highlights.

Thanks to all our laity for a special Laity Sunday last week! I heard such good things about our speakers and participants. An incredibly special thanks are extended to our Lay Leader, Kyle Wilson who coordinated the day. Our pastors really appreciated our laity taking charge last Sunday. THANK YOU ALL!

Last Monday, October 17, we had our annual Charge Conference. We joined with six other area United Methodist Churches (First Crestview, Cross Point, Destin, First Fort Walton, Navarre, and Trinity) to celebrate ministry highlights in 2022 and prepare for 2023.

The most meaningful part of the Charge Conference was reading the names of members of our churches who have gone on to the Church Triumphant this year. The cluster conference was hosted by Mary Esther UMC and led by our District Superintendent Rev. Jean Tippett.

All Saints Sunday will be November 6. We hope, if you have lost loved ones this year, you will be present for worship as we remember our Saints who have gone on to Heaven this year. Please help us spread the word for those who have lost loved ones. All Saints Sunday reminds us of the line in the Apostles’ Creed that we believe in “the communion of the Saints.” We hope all are pres ent for this special Sunday.

Our theme for Stewardship this year is FORWARD 23! On October 30th, we will begin preparing our hearts for new commitments in the New Year. Our Consecration Sunday will be November 20.

On this day, we will have the honor of welcoming our guest preacher Dr. Karl Stegall. Karl served as Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church, Montgomery, Alabama for twenty-five years. He is especially gifted, as a preacher, in stewardship. We will also have a free lunch for everyone to celebrate FORWARD 23 after worship. On this day of celebration, we want everyone to save the date of November 20 to be present for worship.

One more thing, this coming Sunday, October 23, will also be very heart ening. Ed Keller, one of our most dedicated lay persons and the founder of our security team, will bring the morning message for our sanctuary services. I will be present Sunday but wanted to open my pulpit for Ed to share a message God has placed on his heart. Ed is battling cancer and is doing better this week. I look forward to seeing you Sunday!

Shalom, Philip

Lead Pastor Dr. Philip McVay philip@shalimar-umc.org

Stay Up To Date

with what’s happening at Shalimar United Methodist Church.

On Sunday, October 30, from 5-7pm we are having our very own Fall Festival! The night will be filled with lots of exciting things like Trunk or Treat, costume contests, face paint ing, and more! Who knows, you might see Pastor Matt in a dunk tank?!

We are also collecting canned goods for The Bread House, so bring one (or a few) if you are able to!

Our Fall Festival meeting is right after our 11:07 service located in room 106 in the Family LIfe Center. All are invited to attend.

On Sunday night at 5pm in room 212 in the Family Life Center, Lee Orr is having a meeting about Storytelling Welcome to those who are interested in writing a Beacon article about what God is doing in your life!

Join us for worship on All Saints Sunday on Sunday, November 6.

This is an open invitation, where we will be honoring everyone who has lost a loved one in the past year.

Our Youth Choir is selling tickets for their Annual Spaghetti Lunch on November 6th. It will be located in room 106 in the Family Life Center at 12:30pm. They will be selling tickets during the Fellowship time in between Sunday services. Tickets are $10.

Our stewardship series is starting next Sunday, October 23. We are excited to have our guest speaker, Dr. Stegall, preach on Consecration Sunday, November 20th.

We would like to invite you and your family to worship with us that Sunday and come to our FREE lunch after our 11:07 service.

Fellowship Dinner

Fellowship Dinner is from 5-6PM.

office@shalimar-umc.org

(850)

announcements & articles

Dear Church Members,

October is Pastor Appreciation Month, and with that, I’m sure there is a complex mix of emotions for most pastors. Have I served my congregation well? Am I meeting their spiritual and emotional needs? Did I miss seeing a member who needed to be checked on? My wife is out of towndid I remember to feed the dog?

I’ve had a few crises in my own family over the years. Somehow a pastor got word and called to check on me. Most recently I sent word that my mom was in the hospital and not doing well. Within 2 hours Pastor Philip was there praying with my family, which wasn’t my expectation.

It doesn’t matter if it was the pastor’s day off, they come! But when is a pastor not a pastor? I’m sure there are days when pastors and their families feel the stress of “being a pastor.” They don’t complain! God has called them!

Our pastors serve us through weddings, funerals, Bible studies, worship, sermons, baptisms, and confirmation, as well as conflicts and counseling. They help with outreach events, lead musical events and other special events and services. They take it well when we complain about what we don’t like or wish we could have, etc. Our expectations of our pastors are more than Jesus’s, I’m sure!

Let us take a moment this month to say, “thank you” and tell them how much we love them! They pray for us, so we also should pray for them! A basket is located in the Narthex and FLC lobby for cards if you’d like to write them an encouraging word!

Thank you, Lord, for our pastors! With love, Sandy Kocanowski, SPRC Chair

Pastor Appreciation month is October of each year and it is my hope that you will join the Tuesday Night Prayer Group and the Prayer Ministry team, in a commitment to pray for our Pastors (Pastor Philip, Pastor Matt, Pastor Brad, and Pastor David) each day during the month.

We hope that we can be a part of your prayer journey this October by praying for our Pastors and the SUMC. We are not asking for a certain time, only that you commit to pray daily for each of the pastors and for Shalimar. It is especially important that we be in prayer during this trying time.

You will be provided with a “31 day Pray for Your Pastors Challenge” to aid you in praying daily. The guide is for the 31 days during the month and will be available for download. I know some of you are already praying for our pastors, and I thank you for doing so.

With all that is happening in this world right now, Prayer is more important than ever. What better way to help do our part in changing the world than to start right here at SUMC. It is my belief that Prayer does make a difference so please join us in praying for our Pastors each day during the month of October. This could very well be the best gift you could ever give to our pastors.

I believe the sky is the limit for churches that pray. Join us. Thank you in advance for your support.

James Brantley, SUMC Prayer Ministry Team

A Rose By any Other Name…

Church Family,

We are so excited to welcome Jeremy Thiess to our staff. We got so excited to communicate this with you that we totally botched his title. This past week in the Worship Guide, Jeremy was introduced as our Worship Ministries Associate. Great title, but we already have one of those—the incredible Ben Savage. Jeremy is our new Ministries Assistant for part of the week and a member of our custodial staff the rest of his work week.

Jeremy will be assisting the pastors in our worship details as well as the ministry details that we have. He will also assist in our major emphases like our Stewardship campaign that begins next Sunday. The remaining part of his work week will be preparing our building spaces for… ministry! I believe we see a theme developing. We are extremely excited that Jeremy is a part of our team!!

Speaking of roses, well sort of—Ben Savage has a new title. Same job, same responsibilities, same great guy. Ben’s title has been changed to Worship Arts. We believe this gives more clarity to the role Ben has as the Freedom Worship Leader, AVL developer, and his over-arching responsibilities under my leadership.

It is joy to serve here and no matter what our title, we are the Children of God called to love God and love people!!! As always…

Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow! Brad

MATT’S MESSAGE

Look at how good and pleasing it is when families live together as one! – Psalm 133:1

Team, there are few moments that stand out more clearly of our church truly living into the call to be one, than the first week of October 2022. This idea was shaped by much planning with help from all the pastors and staff. The question we asked was simply, “How can we make Koinonia (our sermon series) come to life?” We thought we dreamed, we debated, and we landed on three services that would embody clearly what it means to be one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world.

World Communion Sunday is not something we came up with but rather a liturgical day that has been celebrated for quite some time. It is a reminder that each of us comes to the table of our Lord which has already been prepared. The bread is broken; the wine is poured. We simply come with nothing but our brokenness and are made whole by Christ’s love. At this moment, we remember that the same love that has been extended to all of us here in Shal imar has always been extended to everyone across the globe. All are in need of love, justifi cation, hope, and assurance, and in Christ that is where everyone, and yes everyone, finds it. We were made one in Christ.

Nights of Worship likewise are not new. In fact, we did one of our own about a year ago. The difference this time was that we wanted to truly bring people together. Our church has a vast array of wonderful people, which is a great thing! We have 4 very distinctive servic es. We have children all the way to adults. We have first-time visitors, and we have lifelong members. So, our challenge, if you will, was how to bring together such a diverse team. The answer: food. Everyone loves food. The more I researched and read I discovered that there were actually “Dinner Churches” that started through sharing meals. There is an entire movement of sorts that has dinner church liturgies and prayers, supper club workbooks and prompts, and even books outlining the scriptural references to food, and particularly meals, being acts of worship. This was all we needed to get started.

From there the community came together. Duchess and Magnolia Grill stepped up, vol unteers came out of nowhere, the staff and clergy made things happen, and then you all showed up and showed out. Team, we had 22 tables of 8, more than we planned for. We had people come for the first time. 8:00 folks and 11:07 folks at the same table. Singing hymns beautifully as angles and singing modern worship tunes in ways I have never heard. Sharing meals with one another and breaking down walls. This is true worship. God ordained it, Jesus displayed it, the early church modeled it, and we participated in it. Sunday night we made one with each other.

Finally, we asked how can we tangibly show that we are in ministry to all the world. We all believe this, but we can’t really fly everyone over to Cuba and back. Rise Against Hunger quickly came to mind. These wonderful people have been hosting meal packaging events for years. I did my first one with them in 2013. They bring everything you need from the sup plies to the bags to the hair nets to the music. They have it down!

I planned on having 90 folks working hard for 2 hours. We ended up with 145 people pack aging 20,088 meals in 1.5hrs. It was incredible. Children running back and forth having a blast and being so helpful. The adults at the weight stations making it happen. Some military folks came over and helped us with the setup and cleanup. It was a glimpse of the kingdom

of God. People working together from all ages and stages of life, centered around one mission, to feed those around the world we will never meet. You think about this bag of rice that we made. It will become a meal for a family. A meal to nourish their bodies and sustain their soul with the shared time together with those around them. Together we were truly one in ministry to all the world.

There you have it! I think what happened that first week of October is what God wants every week. People together united with one purpose. No one came with a cause or de bate to win. People came with hearts ready to taste and see the Lord is good, worship the almighty by breaking bread, and serve with one another to be in ministry to the world. The focus was not on those things that can divide, but rather on the things that unite or more clearly on the thing that unites, Jesus. His love for all is what makes us one! I pray we have many more moments like the ones above, and I even make a motion that we do these events every year so that the first week of October becomes Koinonia week for perpetuity at Shalimar UMC. Can I get an Amen?

- Complete in Him, Matt

DENOMINATIONAL UPDATE

The Denominational Task Force, which was established by recommendation of the Church Council has been working very hard over the past 10 weeks. All members of the task force have committed to the diligent work of finding answers to the questions that you, our congregation, are asking and need clarity on. We have met 6 times for over an hour each meeting. We collect and share resources from all sides of the issue, from Bishops and lay people alike, as well as from those in our conference and beyond. Our sincere hope is to share clearly and effectively with anyone regardless of their denominational or church polity knowledge, so that they can be informed and up to date about the issues that are present before us. Our intent is to share clear, accurate, and true information so that all who hear the presentation might learn more about the UMC, the issues at hand, the paths forward, and the state of our denomination and church.

To continue this effort, it has come time to share our work. Per the direction of the church council, we will make our first presentation on Tuesday, November 15th at 6:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary at the November Church Council Meeting. This is in no way the only or final presentation but simply the first step in reporting back to the body that gave us our task. At this meeting we will present in length all our findings, resources, and answers to questions that you likely have been asking. At the conclusion of the presentation, it will be offered to the discernment of the Church Council to make any further recommendations to the task force. One such example might be to share this presentation in a wider and broader context. This committee is not working in isolation from one another, nor are we working in isolation from the Church Council. Rather, we are an extension of the church council, which is an elected body that is an extension of our congregation. We want what is best for the kingdom of God here in Shalimar!

Lastly, after our presentation on November 15th our church and task force will be respecting the Bishop’s wishes to suspend any denominational meetings during the season of Advent. This suspension of activities for a season will not affect future options in any way. The Advent season is a time to prepare for the coming of Christ, to focus on reaching out to the community and new visitors, and to seek to serve those who need the church the most. This does not mean that we will not meet again or that this will be our only presentation, it simply means that our time during Advent will be spent bringing more people to understand the love of Christ which has come to be the light of the world. We ask for your continued prayers for our task force work, our members, our bishop, the UMC, and of course for Shalimar United Methodist Church.

Grace and Peace, Your Denominational Task Force

MISSIONS MAKING

A DIFFERENCE TEENAGER GIFT CARD MINISTRY CAMPAIGN

Blessings will be received from the church family from Sunday, October 16th through Sunday, November 20th

Checks are to be made to SUMC and on the memo line/for please include “Teenager Gift Card Ministry”.

Gift cards are purchased, and gift bags are prepared during the week of November 21st – November 25th

Deliveries to the teenagers will take place on December 1st and 2nd. All deliveries will have one of our pastors in attendance.

SUMC is making a difference in our community. Each gift card has a message that states, from those who love you at Shalimar United Methodist Church.

In 2016, 26- $100 gift cards were delivered to teenagers In 2017, 27- $100 gift cards were delivered to teenagers In 2018, 37- $100 gift cards were delivered to teenagers In 2019, 73- $100 gift cards were delivered to teenagers In 2020, 94- $100 gift cards were delivered to teenagers In 2021, 103- $100 gift cards were delivered to teenagers

We anticipate having well over 100 names again this year. Out of respect, the

of these recipients are not made public. If you know of a

in need, please contact Ron Garriga directly or share the teenager’s name and address with one of our pastors.

to Ron Garriga at (850) 240-0955 or r.garriga@cox.net

JoyfulPlace

Respite Director, Leigh J. Rice

DISTRIBUTION NUMBERS

NEEDED

Programs Age Level

Contact Us

850-651-0721 office@shalimar-umc.org

1 Old Ferry Road Shaliamr, FL 32579

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