the newsletter of first christian church (disciples of christ)march 27, 2012

THEvolume xxv | no. 85

july 31, 2012

Attention—All Current & Want-to-Be Candlelighters!CANDLELIGHTER TRAINING AUGUST 19

The Candlelighter (Acolyte) has the most important role in our wor-ship services, as they are charged with bringing in the light of Christ each and every Sunday. As such, we need to help these folks by training them!

On August 19 at 9:30 AM (before worship), we’ll have training for all current and want-to-be candlelighters. This training is mandatory; you will not be scheduled to be a candlelighter if you are not in at-tendance at this meeting.

Acolytes must be no younger than entering second grade and no older than entering fifth grade. Very, very responsible First Graders are also welcome, based upon their parent’s consent and how their parents believe they will handle fire.

Notes of ThanksHi Everyone, was so good to be home and go to church. Was won-derful to see my many friends. Was thankful for the prayers while I was sick and in the hospital and the many cards I received. There is nothing like church friends. I go to Community Christian Church here in Camdenton. Everyone is friendly and nice. The church minister came to visit while I was in the hospital and brought me communion. She is a very nice lady. Hope to see everyone again soon. Yours—Jim Riddle

Colonel and Lou Kindred thank the members of our caring church family for the many expressions of kindness, cards, gifts, and calls at the time of our sadness, the death of Colonel’s older brother, Charles Adam Kindred, known fondly as John in this community. Thank you, Ryan, for the comfort of being with us. —Colonel & Lou Kindred

Youth Group Starting in the FallStarting this fall, we will be having regular Youth meetings on Wednesday evenings. We will meet at 6:00 and go until 7:30. Rev. Ryan will lead our time together, and we’ll be engaging in a variety of activities, from hanging out to service activities to prayer and worship. These times are open to all youth from grade 6 through grade 12. Middle school students and high school stu-dents will meet together at first, but as soon as each group has 10 or more students, they will meet separately.

Ryan will need some adult youth sponsors to help him with this time as well. In order to be a sponsor, you need to be at least eight years out of high school. If you enjoy being with our youth and want to encourage their growth in faith, please let Ryan know.

Meanwhile, we will need plenty of people praying for our youth and supporting them in various ways. Begin praying now! Stay tuned for opportunities to support them as they become avail-able.

cwf collecting school suppliesBelieve it or not, it is time to be thinking about buying school supplies. This week’s Smithville Herald has a listing of what the Smithville Elementary School K-5 students need. As we did last year, we are asking those who wish to contribute to bring school supplies that are on this list to donate to the Resource Office. These will be given to students who are unable to afford them. If you would like, you may purchase a backpack and fill it with the supplies needed. Please be sure to mark it with the appropriate grade. Thank you in advance for helping us with this very worth-while project. School supply lists are available in the Fellowship Hall.

current culture

friends, you gobble up their lives, adopting and being adopted and fitting yourself in just so. You need a family and you love them like a family and you make them love you back just that way, and they do.”

Now, you’re probably looking at that quote and saying to yourself, “Huh?” Lauren’s experience is one that I want to suggest many of us have, though. We each have different communities of which we are a part, but the Christian community creates for us a different kind of community. In the church, we shape a family together, and that family comes with all of the beauty, joy, quirkiness, weirdness, spontaneity, dysfunction, disappointment, and amazing celebration of every other family.

I encourage you to join us on September 13 as we continue to explore these spiritual memoirs, but I encourage you before that to reflect on your own story: what is the story of your journey with God and where do you find yourself along that road now?

With blessings for the journey and happy reading,

Ryan

A Word from Ryan

Have you ever read a “Spiritual Memoir?” Sure, you’ve read biog-raphies and autobiographies of celebrities or historical figures, and they have portions of those books in which they share thoughts about faith or a small portion about their life in search of God. But, a Spiritual Memoir is a specific genre of book in which an author is writing only to tell the story of their life in search of God. Many of these memoirs are beautiful stories of individual faith journeys, in all their twisting and turning. Throughout the summer, a small group of our members have formed a book club to read some of these “spiri-tual memoirs” and meet to discuss them over dinner. We began with Take this Bread by Sara Miles and just finished Girl Meets God by Lau-ren Winner. We’ll be meeting again on September 13 at 6:30 PM for book club to discuss Fall to Grace by Jay Bakker.

Of the two books we’ve read, there have been some wonderful ideas and images for us to reflect on and be faithful in. For example, Sara Miles talks about the first time she took Communion:

“The entire contradictory package of Christianity was present in the Eucharist. A sign of unconditional acceptance and forgiveness, it was doled out and rationed to insiders; a sign of unity, it divided people; a sign of the most common and ordinary human reality, it was rarefied and theorized nearly to death. And yet that meal remained, through all the centuries, more powerful than any attempts to manage it. It reconciled, if only for a minute, all of God’s creation, revealing that, without exception, we were members of one body, God’s body, in endless diversity. The feast showed us how to re-member what had been dis-membered by human attempts to separate and divide, judge and cast out, select or punish. At that Table, sharing food, we were brought into the ongoing work of making creation whole.”

Sara’s experience rings a bell deep within our Disciple souls. Each Sunday, we gather around the communion table and say “All are welcome.” Our table is as wide as we can stretch our arms, and we say again each Sunday, “You are welcome, regardless of

_________________________ (fill in your own blank with whatever God will accept later on).” Miles captures centuries of Christian theological battles and denominational divisions and boils it down to a simple statement: communion helps us to help creation to-wards wholeness.

Lauren Winner’s book focuses a great deal more on the journey of faith. Winner grew up in a Jewish synagogue, but converted to Christianity in her young adulthood. She talks about how her faith is a constant struggle to get all of the different aspects of her life to make sense together. She speaks to how, in her conversion to Chris-tianity and her growth in faith, she gains some things and she loses others:

“One of the things that happens is, you feel family-less, even if your own family doesn’t cast you out, and you lean on your friends and your classmates and all the people in your new religious world more than you should. Your roommates, and their parents, and their

August Fellowship Dinner: A Big Thank You!Boy Scout Troop 412 will provide the dinner on Sunday, August 19th. You just need to stay after church and let the Boy Scouts do the rest!

We are very thankful for the First Christian Church for sponsor-ing Troop 412. This is our THANK YOU to YOU!

The menu to be served includes hot dogs and all the fixin’s, po-tato salad, baked beans, thank-you cake, and drinks. Just stay after church and enjoy the meal!

current culture

food pantry reportproverbs 12: 4 & 5 Thanks to: Betty Warren, Steve & Mia and Buster for garden veggies, and Timothy Hahn for canned food donations. Thanks to Judy Clough for eggs. Thanks to our volunteers: Joyce French, Stacy French, Alice Spengler, Alyce Richards, & Perry Winn. Watching the donations and food come in is an awesome experi-ence, sending it out is a humbling experience. Our needs right now are spaghetti, cereal, bar soap, toothpaste, canned fruit, & feminine hygiene products, but any and all things are appreciated.

Love, Rick isaiah 43: 25 & 26

va benefits fair—august 4Veterans: there may be VA benefits that you don’t know about! Come to the VA Benefits Fair on August 4 from 10:30am to 12:30pm to learn more:

VFW—E. Howard Porter Post301 Washington StreetKearney, MO 64040

Learn about veteran’s benefits & enroll for health care benefits. If possible, please bring a copy of your DD-214.

a look ahead

july/augustbirthdays

JULY 31: Ruth Yazel AUGUST 1: Virginia Caster, Tiernie Darr, Mary Justice, James Osborn AUGUST 2: Kent Bridges, Earl Soetaert AUGUST 4: Tony Morgan AUGUST 5: Beth Lake, Max Miller

AUGUST 6: Connie Murphy AUGUST 7: Keston Wimberly

Children’s Church Schedule

school-ageAUG. 5TH Jonica Lincoln and Cheryl Merideth

AUG. 12TH Linda Neer and Ken Lippincott

AUG. 19TH Kathy Hamilton

AUG. 26TH Brenda Dion

preschoolAUG. 5TH Shelly Frala and Lauren Frala

AUG. 12TH Traci Easton

AUG. 19TH Ruth Anne Porter

this sunday, august 5

GREETERS, EAST DOOR: Denney & Shirley French

LAY READER: Susie Clower

DIACONATE: Steve Prout, Dale French, Jim Owen,Kathy French, Jenni Osborn, Conner French

CANDLE LIGHTERS: John Manka & Cole French

CLEAN UP COMMUNION: Matt French

GREETERS, WEST DOOR: John & Pam Maedel

CHILDREN’S SERMON: Ryan Motter

PREPARE COMMUNION: J.D. Osborn

ELDERS: Mike Gordon & Larry Driver

PICK UP SANCTUARY: Jim Mitchell

next sunday, august 12

GREETERS, EAST DOOR: Ed & Val Blosser

LAY READER: Kathy Atkins

DIACONATE: Jessica Roberts, Cara Massie, Sue Lake,Cindy Mayberry, Linda McComas, Cassidy French

CANDLE LIGHTERS: Charley & Kayla Lincoln

CLEAN UP COMMUNION: Cindy Mayberry

GREETERS, WEST DOOR: John & Joyce Summers

CHILDREN’S SERMON: Bill Drake

PREPARE COMMUNION: Sue Lake

ELDERS: Matt Dion & Darsi Hartman

PICK UP SANCTUARY: Jessica Roberts

FirstChristianChurch

(Disciples of Christ)

201 North Bridge StreetSmithville, MO 64089-8266phone: 816.532.0773www.smithvillefcc.orgoffice@smithvillefcc.org

Ryan Motter, pastor cell: 913.707.2870email: ryan@smithvillefcc.org

Mark Holcomb, music ministerVelva Fausett, organist Janet George, pianistGreg Atkins, treasurerJennifer Schultz, office manager Abby Carr, communications designer

a look ahead

july/augustbirthdays

JULY 31: Ruth Yazel AUGUST 1: Virginia Caster, Tiernie Darr, Mary Justice, James Osborn AUGUST 2: Kent Bridges, Earl Soetaert AUGUST 4: Tony Morgan AUGUST 5: Beth Lake, Max Miller AUGUST 6: Connie Murphy AUGUST 7: Keston Wimberly

Children’s Church Schedule

school-ageAUG. 5TH Jonica Lincoln and Cheryl Merideth

AUG. 12TH Linda Neer and Ken Lippincott

AUG. 19TH Kathy Hamilton

AUG. 26TH Brenda Dion

preschoolAUG. 5TH Shelly Frala and Lauren Frala

AUG. 12TH Traci Easton

AUG. 19TH Ruth Anne Porter

this sunday, august 5

GREETERS, EAST DOOR: Denney & Shirley French

LAY READER: Susie Clower

DIACONATE: Steve Prout, Dale French, Jim Owen,Kathy French, Jenni Osborn, Conner French

CANDLE LIGHTERS: John Manka & Cole French

CLEAN UP COMMUNION: Matt French

GREETERS, WEST DOOR: John & Pam Maedel

CHILDREN’S SERMON: Ryan Motter

PREPARE COMMUNION: J.D. Osborn

ELDERS: Mike Gordon & Larry Driver

PICK UP SANCTUARY: Jim Mitchell

next sunday, august 12

GREETERS, EAST DOOR: Ed & Val Blosser

LAY READER: Kathy Atkins

DIACONATE: Jessica Roberts, Cara Massie, Sue Lake,Cindy Mayberry, Linda McComas, Cassidy French

CANDLE LIGHTERS: Charley & Kayla Lincoln

CLEAN UP COMMUNION: Cindy Mayberry

GREETERS, WEST DOOR: John & Joyce Summers

CHILDREN’S SERMON: Bill Drake

PREPARE COMMUNION: Sue Lake

ELDERS: Matt Dion & Darsi Hartman

PICK UP SANCTUARY: Jessica Roberts