4102 NEAL ROAD * DURHAM NC 27705

www.mcmannenumc.org

The Messenger

This is a pot luck meal so please bring a dish to share!

It is time to celebrate

the end of the preschool year, our

graduating four year old class and the

beginning of summer!!!

Welcome

Summer

Picnic

Saturday, May 20th

@5 PM—7 PM

The Scout Hut beside the

McMannen UMC Playground

H I G H L I G H T S

Bounce House

Bubbles

Chalk

Corn hole

And more!!!

May Committee Meetings

Preschool May 9 @ 7:00 pm (E201)

Finance Committee May 23 @ 6:30 pm

Sunday, May 14

8:00 am

All are welcome!

Our Church Family: James & Marti Bennett; Murlene Dermott; Joe

Pietrantoni & Family; Emma Jean Phelps; Preschool families; Don Roche;

Barbara Rovetto; Family of Gene Smith; Wendell Family; Joanne Wheeler;

Ruth Yarbrough; church staff; Illuminate Camps; Upward Soccer League

Friends and Family: Mack Albright; Family of Diane Arrowood; James

Avery & Family; Kim Beard, Mary Beard Rannow; Mike Beard; Doug

Blackwell family; Lois Blanton; Bray; Earl Brotherton; Lee Brotherton; Karen Chamberlin; Parker

Coleman & Family; Russell Couch; Ethan Craig; Mary Ann Drake; Connie Eva; Frank & Pauline Foley &

family; Ginny Gantt; Rich Goward; Mickey Grossman; Ann Gunter Drake; Family of Jack Heath; Family of

Cheryle Holland; Rochelle Howard; Mike Huey; Joe & Family; Lois Jones; Connie Kearney; Jimmy King;

Mrs. King (Pam Blalock’s mom); David LaBarre; Bob Liertz; Jan McMannen; Rev. Lewis McMannen;

Kathy Mincey; Rick Minnotte; Mary Ann Norris; Lori Patton; Dean Porterfield; Family of Claude Raiford;

Louis Rivers; Pauline Roberts; Doug Rogers; Jan Romasanto; Susie Salmon; Mary Ann Sifferlen; Family

of Malbert Smtih; Ralph & Betty Spickerman; Westley Stone; Dot Sykes; Judi Tilley; Priscilla Toms; Jim

Waddell; Taylor Wagner; Doug Williams; Matt Williamson; Burke Wilson III; Melanie Wilson; Sam Work;

the unemployed and their families; the victims of violence; travel mercies; Christian Believer Bible

study group; Christians being persecuted; our armed forces and military; Earthquake & Flood victims;

terrorist victims; law enforcement; Hurricane recovery

Care Facilities: Cordelia Blalock (Emerald Pond); Marian Clark (Croasdaile); Lella Dezern; Sadie Micol

(Brookshire); Mildred Neal (Croasdaile Village); Emma Jean Phelps (Emerald Pond); Judy Smith and

Irene Webb (Eno Pointe)

Teacher Appreciation Week is

May 1-5. The McMannen UMC

Preschool Board

invites you to

participate in showing love to the teachers:

Dana, Teresa, Cheryle & Courtney and our

director, Jackie.

This can be as simple as bringing a flower,

a card, a gift card, baking a treat, or any

ideas you can imagine.

CLUBS Movie Night Friday, May 19 @ 7PM

McMannen Fellowship Hall

This movie has some truly exceptional messages such as the power and priceless value of family, having a healthy relationship with your parents and valuing all of your emotions. It is amazing the way it captures the preciousness of one person’s life — all of our memories, triumphs, defeats. So put on your pajamas or comfy clothes, grab your favorite blanket or

pillow and be prepared to enjoy yourself. Movie snacks will be provided.

Donations are accepted so Children’s Ministries can continue

to provide this type of monthly family event.

Paint and Praise is a monthly worship service which appeals to our families with younger children in the

2- 12 age group, but all church members are welcome. During this service we worship using music, scripture,

literature and art. Come see what the excitement is all about! If possible, RSVP to Jackie (jackieb@mcmannenumc.org) to make

sure we have plenty of supplies.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Psalm 150:6

Saturday, May 6th 6:30—8:00 PM

Soccer Celebration Saturday, May 20th

10 AM—12 PM

Morreene Road Park

Awards will be given

out and tons of fun

will be had by all!!

Order forms available

in the church office

for special orders.

25% of sales are

donated to the

church.

$5

$5

$12

$12

$12

$30

$20

$20 $20

Cash &

Carry

Roses

See

Anggie in

the Office

One of those internet music websites led me to a song by Johnny Cash that I’d never heard before: “Five Feet High and Rising.” It’s a folk song that was first released in

1969, and Johnny narrates that he wrote the song remem-bering his real life experience growing up on the 'Flat Black Delta land of Arkansas.' Successive verses of the song describe the increasing severity of the floodwaters, first claiming the fields, then the “hives and the bees,” then “the chickens are sleeping in the willow trees” then the “cow’s in the water up over his knees”. At first his papa sent him and his mother away to safety, but even his papa had to go to higher ground when the river water flooded the house and all hope of riding out the flood was gone.

Water can be devastating. We remember hurricanes like Katrina, Floyd, Fran, or Matthew, flooding out the low-lands and forever altering countless lives. Flooding water is not a modern phenomenon. I’m reminded of the ancient flood in the very first chapters of Genesis, and later the psalmist cries in Psalm 69, “Save me O God, for the flood-waters are rising around my neck!”

Lack of water can be devastating too. The drought of 2007-2008 had people here in the Triangle really worried, as the reservoirs were drying up and everyone was trying to conserve. Even now, the United Nations is warning that severe drought and famine is once again facing east African regions, with tens of millions at risk of starvation. Lord have mercy. The lead-contamination crisis in Flint has necessitated people subsisting with bottled water for years! Lord have mercy. Not much has changed. Long ago, the Israelites panicked and God had to provide water from a rock as they wandered through the dry and dusty wilderness. One of Jesus’ last words from the cross was the agonizing declaration “I thirst.” Psalm 42 reminds us “Like a deer pants for water, so my soul longs for you.”

During one of Cash’s descriptions of the reason “Five Feet High and Rising” is so meaningful to him, he says that

“My mama always taught me that good things come from adversity if we put our faith in the Lord. We couldn’t see much good in the flood waters when they were causing us to have to leave home, but when the water went down, we found that it had washed a load of rich black bot-tom dirt across our land. The follow-ing year we had the best cotton crop we’d ever had.”

I asked the members of a Bible Study one time to draw a graph/timeline of their personal history of economic prosperity. The “scale” of the graph was to range from the “worst of times” at the bottom of the graph to the “best of times” at the top, and from “a long time ago” on the left to “Just now” on the right. They were to label a few of the

ups and downs with notes like “Daddy lost his job” or “Momma had enough to put some away every week.” I would imagine, that for Cash in the time of his song, the flood would have been a big dip on the graph, followed by a spike for the next year’s cotton crop.

I then asked the Bible Study members to draw another line describing their faith journey, with this scale moving from “fear and doubt” on the bottom to “abundant faith” on the top, corresponding with the events of the first line. I bet you can imagine what the graphs looked like. Some of the best moments of faith and spiritual blessing occurred during the leanest economic time. The two lines never mirrored or exactly corresponded to each other. The lesson of the lines? Our faith journey is not necessarily tied to our cir-cumstances. We can experience blessing in hardship, and even spiritual droughts in times of prosperity. The opposite is sometimes true as well. Our faith journey requires constant nurture, and community with others. (I encourage you to make such a graph as part of your devotion – then perhaps share it with a friend, or weave the lesson you learn into a testimony!)

What does this graph have to do with water, flooding and drought? Water is vital to our survival. But water can also threaten to flood us out, become scarce, or contaminat-ed. If my wholeness is tied to water levels (or anything material for that matter) I’m in for a rough and uncertain ride. However, if my faith journey and Christian practices of love, hope, joy, kindness, justice, forgiveness, community, generosity, and hospitality are nurtured and expressed independent of (or in spite of) my circumstances, I will discover that the Kingdom of God is always at hand, in times of plenty or in times of distress. I suppose the same is true regardless of how many people worship on Sunday morning, whether I “got something out of the sermon,” whether I get a raise or am passed over for a promotion, or whether someone is gossiping about me. If my faith journey is anchored in Christ’s love by the power of the Holy Spirit, whether the water is “five feet high and rising” or whether in the rich black post-flood soil my cotton crop is thriving I can remember the words of Psalm 16:

With God at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me . . . You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Whether you are dealing with drought, flood, or normal levels of circumstances, may you be filled with the joy of God’s presence.

Pastor Ed

The next meeting will be Friday, May 12 at noon. Our program will be presented by

WRAL’s Scott Mason “The Tar Heel Traveler: Stories from the Road” This project is made possible by funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide

nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Maxie calls those on our PrimeTimers list, but the event is open to all.

RSVPs are necessary for lunch. $5 for a wonderful home-cooked meal. You are welcome to attend the presentation only at 12:30 pm for free.

Contact Anggie in the church office with your lunch reservation by Monday, May 8.

Did you know that the church has

space available? McMannen has space available for any size group for

birthday parties, company events, homeowner’s associations, baby/bridal showers or even weddings. Prices are reasonable to

outside parties and rent to church members is usually free (donations always welcomed!).

Contact Anggie in the office to schedule.

Come hear the Boys of Summer sing the National Anthem! Thursday, May 18 at 7:05 pm. Deadline to order May 11.

$12 per ticket Reserve your seats with Anggie in the church office.

Please always refer to the calendar

on the McMannen website for the

most up-to-date information.

Download our calendar information:

A file can be downloaded and imported into any calendar program that will let you import a comma-delimited text file. Most calendaring software, like Outlook, Lotus, etc. has this fea-ture built right in.

Simply click the ICAL symbol on the calendar (bottom left corner) on our mcmannen-

umc.org website to download it to your hard drive.

Then open your calendar software and import it.

(SH)

7 pm

4102 Neal Road

Durham, NC 27705

919-383-1263

Fax: 919-383-0546

mcmannenumc.org

Mission: To proclaim

the gospel of Jesus

Christ to the world and

to live it out in loving

witness to whomever

we meet with the

purpose of changing

hearts and

strengthening the

community of

believers.

D eadline for the

next newsletter, “The

Messenger”, is Monday,

May 22— 9 am for all

events through June.

Sunday Mornings

8:45 am - Worship

(in Neal Chapel)

10 am - Sunday School

11:00 am - Worship

(in the Sanctuary)

Come and Worship!

Staff Ed Priestaf, Pastor

pastorEd@mcmannenumc.org

919-274-8061

Jackie Bolen Director of Children’s Outreach

and Ministries jackieb@mcmannenumc.org

Anggie Thompson Office Administrator

anggiet@mcmannenumc.org

John Benton Director of Music Ministries

johnb@mcmannenumc.org

Floalice Reaves Organist