Dear Church Family,
April was an exciting month at Hoffman! April 1st marked the one year anniversary of starting our new worship service. We had a wonderful meal together to celebrate what God had done through our Unbinding Your Heart series. I also need to say a special thank you to all of the work that our Trustees have done in the church. We have had a lot of big projects and little projects that turned into big projects. They have been here at the church for countless hours to get the work done. Thanks to everyone who helped with all of the repairs, updates, and remodeling. It has been a very busy, but good month at Hoffman.
I know this is hard for you to believe, but Wesley is turning one on May 6th. We will be having a birthday party for him here at the church on May 11th. You all are invited to come and celebrate with us. We just ask that you RSVP by emailing Chanda at cwilliams620@icloud.com. If you do not have e-mail, you can call our house at 698-4747. We have been very blessed to have this little man in our lives, and we are excited to celebrate his first year!
During April, we have been in the midst of this new series called Getting Fit, where we have talked about the importance of spiritual and physical fitness. We are going to conclude the series on May 5th. The end of the series does not mark the end of our journey to fitness. It is only the beginning. Actually, on May 5th, we are going to invite everyone to join us in a prayer walk where we will put both our pursuit of both spiritual and physical fitness to work. On that day, we will also issue a walking challenge for our church. I hope you will join us on May 5th as we wrap up Getting Fit.
Then, the following week we will begin a series that I am very excited about on The Lord’s Prayer. This is a prayer that is so near and dear to our hearts. I would guess that most of you can even recite it from memory. However, I think sometimes our familiarity with it often causes us to forget about the meaning and power of this prayer and just “go through the motions.” Therefore, I decided we would spend 6 weeks discussing the Lord’s Prayer. We will be unpacking each petition and what it means in our lives today. I hope that you join us for this exciting series that explores the prayer Jesus taught us.
As we enter May, it is time for us to get ready for Annual Conference and our Missional Offering. The missional emphasis for the 2013 Annual Conference Session will be Imagine No Malaria. This United Methodist campaign to eliminate deaths due to malaria is making a difference every day. Just a few short years ago, statistics showed a child died every 30 seconds of malaria. Today, malaria’s impact has been cut in half thanks to the efforts and support of Imagine No Malaria and other organizations. Imagine No Malaria's plan focuses on Prevention, Treatment, Education and Communication to eradicate this disease.
At the heart of the program is distributing mosquito nets that literally save lives. Each mosquito net costs about $10. We will be collecting money from now until the first week of June. We are adding a twist this year—a competition between first and second services! For each $10 donation, a piece of net will be posted on the sheet across from the office (White net 1st service, Red net 2nd). Mark your envelopes or checks, “Malaria 1st Service” or “Malaria 2nd Service” for your service to get “credit”.
Of course, I am very excited about Annual Conference this year. It marks the end of my journey toward ordination. While I know that it is not close by and do not expect you to come, I do want you to know that you are welcome to join us at the ordination service on Tuesday, June 11th. If you are looking for transportation, Jim Mitchell has a sign-up sheet for you to sign up on. It will be an exciting and memorable time!
Yours in Christ’s Service,
Yours in Christ’s Service,
Pastor Justin
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