Growingtogether novdec2013

GrowingTogether NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2013

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SHARINGTHEHEART.ORG

ADULT DISCIPLESHIP AT FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

REACHING HIGHER ER “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18)

GROWING DEEPER

“Rejoicing and celebrating have been God’s idea all along.”

Give Thanks and Celebrate

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id you know that in the Old Testament, if God’s people did not give thanks and rejoice, they would be breaking the Law? For example, God gave the command, “Rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days” as part of the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:40). Keeping God’s instructions for life in the community of faith included regular celebration, feasting, and joyful remembrance of God’s blessings.

Of course, this was not a legal matter that would consign to prosecution under the statutes of the Torah someone who didn’t look happy and “join the party.”

However, if we miss the fact that God wove the importance of periodically stopping for a time of rejoicing into the rhythms of life for God’s people, then we’ve missed something significant.

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When the community worshiped and celebrated at feast time, it was a shared, public experience. Not only was the family of faith to return thanks to God “from whom all blessings flow,” but they were also to witness to those blessings among themselves in outward celebration. It wasn’t only a matter of feeling joyful, it was an expression of the reality deeply embedded in life and in all creation that “the Lord is good . . . and God’s faithfulness endures for all generations” (Psalm 100:5).

We will have many opportunities to celebrate in the coming weeks.

Celebration is good for us as individuals and as a community of faith. We must tend to the essential questions of why and how we celebrate, to be sure, but there is a bottom line here for us: to fail to rejoice is to rebel against God. Yes, that sounds quite harsh, but it is a

sound biblical challenge with great relevance for us.

Much of the “celebrating” around us will be little more than noisemaking, an amusing distraction from the routine. God calls us to much more than that. If we do not take time to rejoice in God’s love and goodness, we stand to lose our own focus on the true source of our blessings, and we miss the opportunity to include others in what our good and faithful God is doing right here.

Let the pages of this publication lead you to new places of growth, blessing, and rejoicing this season.

Give thanks and celebrate. It’s been God’s idea all along that we do so!

John Harman Adult Discipleship Pastor

Join the Journey

Adult Discipleship Goes Easter Join us on Resurrection Sunday for a Special Event

Join the Journey Connecting and Growing Together at First UMC

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f you are new to First United Methodist Church, you’ll Faith and Practice (Abingdon Press, 2010) as a supplement find the Join the Journey experience to be an opportunity for discussion. We hope that every person in the church to make a meaningful connection. It is family has a regular place of connection especially designed to answer your questions where you can learn and grow in Join Us for a about the Christian faith, the Methodist community. We believe that Join the Special Advent Church, and life in the church family. As you Journey will help you find a pathway to that Edition in explore some basic topics in Christianity, connection that is right for you.

December!

Methodism, Bible study, and service and The current 10-week session meets at discipleship, you will get to connect with 10:05 am in Room C210. Pick up a other newcomers and begin a journey of learning and brochure in the main church lobby or visit the Short-Term spiritual growth together in this family of faith.

Studies area at sharingtheheart.org/adults to learn more.

The weekly sessions are designed to inform and equip you to This is an ongoing class that you can join at any time in its understand and respond to the biblical call to a life of quarterly cycle. So come along, connect with us, and join the discipleship. Sessions will also use United Methodist Bishop journey! Contact Rev. Liz Greenwell for more information: William Willimon’s This We Believe: The Core of Wesleyan lgreenwell@sharingtheheart.org.

Here are the individual sessions and leaders for this quarter . . .

Nov 3

The Church Serves Pastor Janet Cavalier

Dec 8

Special Advent Edition Pastor John Harman

Nov 10

Sunday School Roundup Class representatives

Dec 15

Special Advent Edition Pastor John Harman

Nov 17

Called to Grow: Intentional Discipleship Pastors Liz Greenwell & John Harman

Dec 22

Special Advent Edition Pastor John Harman

Nov 24

Visitor Information Class (meets in the Chapel) Dec 29 Pastor Liz Greenwell

Q & A and Coffee with the Pastors Pastors Liz Greenwell and John Harman

Dec 1

Special Advent Edition Pastor John Harman

Visitor Information Class (meets in the Chapel) Pastor Liz Greenwell

Jan 5

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Sunday Morning Discipleship at FUMC Faith Connections is Sharing the “Art”

Tough Guys and Drama Queens

A Sunday Morning study for Advent

Crusaders Begin a New Study

he Faith Connections Sunday morning Bible study invites you to spend the season of Advent with us. If you are looking for a place to connect with the church family during this season, Faith Connections is where you will fit right in, have a place of excellent study and growth, and make friends who are committed to being a genuine fellowship.

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lease join the Crusaders Sunday School Class on November 17 as we start the nine-week Bible study, “Tough Guys and Drama Queens,” by Mark Gregston.

This Advent, we have exciting plans. Pastor John Harman and art professor Tom Motley will team up for a series that will bring a unique perspective to the season. On December 1, Pastor Harman will lead the Bible study, focusing on the “Annunciation,” or the angel Gabriel’s announcement of the upcoming birth of Jesus to Mary. The following Sunday (Dec. 8), Professor Motley will lead our time as we explore how the Annunciation has been depicted in art, and how these visual interpretations help us to experience and to respond to the biblical story.

Tough Guys and Drama Queens Seminar provides parents of pre-teens and teens with time-tested, biblical techniques to guide you through these unavoidably challenging years.

The next two Sundays (Dec. 15 and 22), the class will take the same approach to the stories of the Magi, or “wise men” who visited Jesus from the East. This series is meant to engage the Bible and to stimulate our understanding and response to it in a way that helps us to worship and to live out the good news of Immanuel, “God with us.”

The class meets on Sunday mornings from 9:00 to 9:50, in Room C210.

Faith Connections is a growing community of interactive study, learning, and faith. A community committed to the basic principle that one of the places that spiritual growth happens is the place where people of faith encounter the Word of God together.

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Crusaders meet at 9:00 am in Room Y201 in the Hub. Crusaders is a class of parents who wish to become better equipped to face life’s everyday battles. Through Bible study, class discussions and fellowship we begin to understand the course God has in store for our families.

Please contact Jaime Windham at jaimewindham@hotmail.com with any questions.

Faith Connections is also a practical place. Basic Bible study and everyday questions of faith come together here. Bible, faith, and life intersect so that we grow together not in theory, but in our ability to live what we learn. In biblical terms, such a life is one that affects and influences the world around us like a lamp offers light.

“Build” Your Home The HomeBuilders Class Helps You Invest in Your Family

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omeBuilders currently studies from the Focus on the Family Marriage Series of books, which has a variety of topics designed to strengthen marriage relationships. We read Scripture and have great discussions. Our current study is The Surprising Marriage that is a faith journey about serving the Lord together and leaving a spiritual legacy. Our next book will be The Giving Marriage where we will study Biblical essentials to help us handle life situations.

Join us on Sundays at 10:05 in Room B205, and make an investment in your home through strong fellowship, Bible study, and discussion. Contact Bonnie at bmk19@sbcglobal.net for more about HomeBuilders.

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We Celebrate Advent A Gift for You from the ADLT 2013 Advent Devotional Guide

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n our church family, the season of Advent is a time of expectation and preparation. We turn our hearts in expectation so that by focusing on the birth of our Savior, God will make us even more aware of God’s love and grace—and more responsive to it with our lives. But we realize that this blessing of experiencing the season doesn’t come while we remain passively in the routines that easily command our time and attention. Instead, we take the opportunity that this season gives us to open our hearts and lives, and we prepare.

The Adult Discipleship Leadership Team (ADLT) has a Christmas gift for you this year in this very spirit.

We have prepared a brief daily devotional guide for the Advent season that will be available in several forms. We know how challenging this time of year continues to become, and how deeply our need to be strengthened by God’s Word of hope and grace continues to grow. Each daily meditation has been authored by a member of the ADLT, or a pastor who works with the Team, as a Christmas gift from our hearts to you.

On each page, a short Scripture passage for the day is given, and we hope that you will look it up in your favorite Bible version. A brief meditation from the ADLT follows the Bible reading. Our prayer is that the Scriptures will lead you into an ever-deeper anticipation of what God will do in and around you this Christmas, and into a place of preparedness. From this place, may you be open and alert to whatever God reveals. We further pray that the accompanying meditations will help facilitate this process for you.

Of course, the heart of all of this is the revealing of Jesus. May the very best of the season be yours, and may we share it together as a community of faith with one another and with the world.

Beginning Sunday, November 24, here’s how to get the ADLT’s 2013 Advent Devotional Guide:  Pick up a printed copy at church.  Subscribe at sharingtheheart.org/advent to receive the

daily devotional by email.  “Like” First United Methodist Church of McKinney

on Facebook and follow the daily post.  Download the eBook from sharingtheheart.org/advent

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Personal Bible Reading Reading the Bible for Growth and Strength in 2013

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oliday season at First United Methodist Church is an exciting time of expectation and preparation. In November, we will focus on thanksgiving and generosity as we read 2 Corinthians and some psalms of praise and gratitude from the Book of Psalms. In Advent, for the month of December, join us in a special series of devotional readings prepared by the ADLT (see page 5). Get access to the daily devotional through one of the available media, and join in the spiritual celebration of this season with the church family. We look forward to sharing the heart and spirit of these holy days with you through these readings and meditations.

November 2013 1

2 Cor 1:1-11

14 2 Cor 9:6-14

27 Psalm 67

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Psalm 62:1-8

20 Luke 2:1-7

2

2 Cor 1:12–2:4

15 2 Cor 10:1-18

28 Psalm 75

8

Luke 1:26-38

21 Matthew 2:1-12

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2 Cor 2:5-11

16 2 Cor 11:1-15

29 Psalm 92

9

Philippians 2:4-7

22 Luke 1:68-78

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2 Cor 2:12–3:6

17 2 Cor 11:16-33

30 Psalm 136

10 Isaiah 9:1-7

23 Colossians 1:15-20

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2 Cor 3:7-18

18 2 Cor 12:1-10

11 Luke 2:10-11; 17-18

24 Matthew 1:18-25

6

2 Cor 4:1-18

19 2 Cor 12:11-21

12 Luke 3:1-18

25 John 1:1-5

7

2 Cor 5:1-10

20 2 Cor 13:1-14

13 John 1:1-14

26 Psalm 98

8

2 Cor 5:11–6:2

21 Psalm 118

1

Luke 3:1-9

14 Micah 5:2-5

27 Matthew 2:13-18

9

2 Cor 6:3-13

22 Psalm 30

2

Romans 8:22-25

15 Luke 1:46-55

28 Matthew 2:19-23

10 2 Cor 6:14–7:1

23 Psalm 34

3

Psalm 100

16 Ephesians 5:19-20

29 Psalm 148

11 2 Cor 7:2-16

24 Psalm 40:1-11

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1 Chronicles 23:28-30 17 Romans 8:15-16

30 Hebrews 2:10-18

12 2 Cor 8:1-15

25 Psalm 65

5

Ephesians 2:1-10

18 Philippians 1:3-11

31 Psalm 8

13 2 Cor 8:16–9:5

26 Psalm 66

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Revelation 22:20-21

19 Luke 1:5-38

December 2013

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” (Isaiah 9:6)

Welcome to GrowingTogether!

GrowingTogether is the bimonthly newsletter of the Adult Discipleship Leadership Team (ADLT). Its purpose is to highlight upcoming opportunities to connect and grow in the First United Methodist Church family, and to encourage you on your journey of faith. We believe that a journey of faith is a journey of growth and that connecting with God through Bible study and with one another in Christian community are essential to our growth. If the ADLT can provide information or guidance for you along the discipleship pathway, please let us know: discipleship@sharingtheheart.org.

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This Calendar features the opportunities to connect and grow contained in this edition of GrowingTogether. For a comprehensive list of church-wide ministries and events, visit the calendar at sharingtheheart.org.

November FUMC Calendar Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Every Sunday Morning: 8:00 am

Saturday 1

2

8

9

15

16

22

23

29

30

7:00 am

Traditional Worship 9:00 am

Men’s Bible Study

Adult Sunday School Traditional Worship 10:05 am Adult Sunday School Join the Journey Wellspring Worship Traditional Worship 11:10 Adult Sunday School Wellspring Worship Traditional Worship

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Join the Journey

4

5

6 9:30 am

9:30 am

10:00 am

Women’s Bible Study

Disciple I, II, & III

10:05 am, Room C210

7

7:00 am Men’s Bible Study

Women’s Bible Study

Beth Moore 12:30 pm Disciple II

3:00 pm Legacy Journey

7:00 pm

5:00 pm

7:00 pm

Small Groups

Disciple I, II, & IV

6:30 pm

Disciple I & IV

Join the Journey

11

10

7:00 pm

Evening Worship Holy Land Class

Women’s Bible Study

Small Group

13

12

14 7:00 am

9:30 am 9:30 am

Women’s Bible Study

Disciple I, II, & III

10:05 am, Room C210

10:00 am

Men’s Bible Study

Women’s Bible Study

Beth Moore 12:30 pm

6:30 pm

Disciple II 6:30 pm

3:00 pm

Beth Moore

Legacy Journey

7:00 pm

Evening Worship

Disciple I & IV

Small Groups

Disciple I, II, & IV

6:30 pm

7:00 pm

7:00 pm

5:00 pm

Small Group

Holy Land Class

Women’s Bible Study

Join the Journey

17

18

19

20

21 7:00 am

9:30 am 9:30 am 9:30 am

10:05 am, Room C210

Disciple I, II, & III

Beth Moore

10:00 am Women’s Bible Study 6:30 pm

12:30 pm 3:00 pm

Men’s Bible Study

Footprints

Women’s Bible Study

Disciple II

Legacy Journey 7:00 pm

5:00 pm

6:30 pm

7:00 pm

Small Groups

Disciple I, II, & IV

Evening Worship

Disciple I & IV

7:00 pm

Women’s Bible Study

Join the Journey

24

Small Group

25

26 9:30 am Disciple I, II, & III

27

28

9:30 am Women’s Bible Study

Visitor InformaƟon Class/Tour 10:05 am Chapel 3:00 pm Legacy Journey 5:00 pm

7:00 pm Small Groups

7:00 pm Disciple I & IV

Women’s Bible Study

Disciple I, II, & IV

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This Calendar features the opportunities to connect and grow contained in this edition of GrowingTogether. For a comprehensive list of church-wide ministries and events, visit the calendar at sharingtheheart.org.

December FUMC Calendar Sunday

Monday

Every Sunday Morning:

Tuesday

1

8:00 am

Wednesday

2

Thursday

4

3

Friday 5

9:30 am

Traditional Worship 9:30 am

9:00 am

6

7

13

14

20

21

27

28

7:00 am

Women’s Bible Study

Disciple I, II, & III

Adult Sunday School

Saturday

10:00 am

Men’s Bible Study

Women’s Bible Study

Beth Moore

Traditional Worship 12:30 pm

10:05 am

6:30 pm

Disciple II

Adult Sunday School Join the Journey Wellspring Worship

6:30 pm

7:00 pm

Traditional Worship

7:00 pm

11:10

Evening Worship

Disciple I & IV

7:00 pm

Small Groups

Adult Sunday School

Small Group

Women’s Bible Study

Wellspring Worship Traditional Worship

8

Join the Journey

9

10

11

7:00 am

9:30 am 9:30 am

10:05 am, Room C210

10:00 am

Women’s Bible Study

Disciple I, II, & III

12 Men’s Bible Study

Women’s Bible Study

Beth Moore 6:30 pm

12:30 pm Disciple II

3:00 pm Legacy Journey 7:00 pm

5:00 pm

6:30 pm

7:00 pm

Small Groups

Disciple I, II & IV

7:00 pm

Evening Worship

Disciple I & Iv

Small Group

Women’s Bible Study

16

15

Join the Journey

18

17

19 7:00 am 9:30 am

9:30 am

Men’s Bible Study

Footprints

Disciple I, II, & III

10:05 am, Room C210 12:30 pm Disciple II

3:00 pm Legacy Journey 7:00 pm

5:00 pm

7:00 pm

Disciple I, II, & IV

6:30 pm

Disciple I & IV

7:00 pm

Evening Worship

Small Groups

Small Group

Women’s Bible Study

Join the Journey

22

23

24

10:05 am, Room C210 3:00 pm

Worship Services

Blue Christmas Service

2:00, 3:30, 5:30, 7:00,

5:00 pm

9:00 & 11:00 pm

Disciple I, II, & IV

7:00 pm Small Groups

Join the Journey

29

30

31 9:30 am Disciple I, II, & III

10:05 am, Room C210

5:00 pm Disciple I, II, & IV

7:00 pm Small Groups

FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 315 N. CHURCH ST. MCKINNEY, TX 75069 SHARINGTHEHEART.ORG

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972.562.8556

DISCIPLESHIP@SHARINGTHEHEART.ORG

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