ME25, NoGo, New Worship Schedule

THIS WEEKEND AT ST. ANDREW’S

NEW WORSHIP LAUNCH

Saturday, 5:00

Sunday, 8:30 & 10:00

Bruce preaching: ATONEMENT:

Why Jesus Jumped into the Volcano

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE NEW SCHEDULE

Children’s Sunday School will be offered concurrent with all three services.

Saturday evening is designed as very informal, “come as you are.”

The Youth Hour is Sunday at 10:00.

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My first attempt at using the new logo as a banner to these mailings was a no-go. We’ll figure out what went wrong and try again.

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Let me warn you that I’ll probably wind up giving away the ending to ATONEMENT this Sunday—referring to the movie/book. It is out on rental, now, so you can see it over the weekend, I suppose.

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I grew up knowing basketball as a game of shooting, finesse and fundamentals. I have been dismayed to watch it devolve into huge people driving to the hoop, resulting in either a dunk or a foul. What a joy then to see this Curry kid from Davidson, a throwback to the pure shooter.

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In conjunction with the Luis Palau Festival, St. Andrew’s has participated in the Gallup Organization Membership Engagement Survey, taking the survey three times in the space of six months. A couple of weeks ago, then, Mandy Barkhaus, Diana Faust, Mark Roberts and I attended a seminar at the Gallup campus to review the results and begin making plans for building on what we learned. Those plans include formation of an Engagement Team and a series of listening sessions this fall.

Today marks the first of a 23-week series on results of the survey—one week for each of the 23 Member Engagement Items. We begin at the beginning, #1: AS A MEMBER OF MY CHURCH, I KNOW WHAT IS EXPECTED OF ME. St. Andrew’s ranked pretty well on this. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 representing STRONGLY AGREE and 1 = STRONGLY DISAGREE, we were at a cumulative 4.19. To give you a sense of where that puts us, relative to other congregations, the median Gallup score is 3.92, which, it was explained to us, puts St. Andrew’s significantly above the average..

So what exactly IS expected of members at St. Andrew’s? Four things:

1) We expect your PRAYERS. We expect you to pray for the congregation, the other members of the fellowship and our various ministries. As a means of encouragement, we ask members to sign our MOPED (Minute Of Prayer Every Day) register, which can be found at the entrance to the sanctuary. A minute of prayer for the congregation may not sound like much, but it’s more than a lot of Methodists are praying, and put enough minutes together and it adds up!

2) We expect your PRESENCE. We aren’t interested in more names on the membership register. At St. Andrew’s, we expect our members to participate in the whole life of the congregation, making attendance at worship a priority. We are painfully aware that we are living in fast times, with many demands on our member families. This is a driving factor in our decision to add a Saturday evening come-as-you-are service. Your presence is a great joy and we want to make worship as accessible to as possible to as many as possible.

3) We expect your GIFTS. Christians give, not because the church needs to receive, but because the believer NEEDS to give offerings to the Lord. In turn, St. Andrew’s promises to be excellent stewards of what we receive, delivering maximum bang for the ministry buck.

4) We expect your SERVICE. Here’s the equation: Worship + 1. We expect you to worship with us and find one other place to plug in. There are many and various ways to live this out at St. Andrew’s. If you’re looking for a place of service, stop by CONNECTION POINT in the Rotunda.

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Upcoming YOUTH events:

• March 29 Middle school ice skating at Tim Moylan Tranquility Ice Plex 7:30pm to 9:30pm.
• March 30 Parent Advisory meeting in the youth room 11am to 11:45am.
• March 30 Senior high bowling, laser tag, go-karting, arcade games at Thunder Ally 4:30pm to 7pm
• March 30 Service project (helping clean the Children’s Museum for kids with poor immune systems) 5:30pm to ?
• Remember no youth group at the church this Sunday March 30^th

Please e-mail Bob no later than Wednesday March 26 to sign up. (Please drop off and pick up your youth off at the ice rink for MYF or at Thunder Ally for SYF) YOUTH ARE ENCOURAGED TO BRING THEIR FRIENDS!

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PRAYER MATTERS:

• I know Nancy will appreciate your prayers as she goes in for what should be minor hand surgery, tomorrow, and I’ll appreciate your prayers as I endeavor to play Nurse Bruce in what we trust will be a very speedy recovery
• Sandi D. has asked that we pray for her sister, CHRIS G., who is battling cancer.
• We celebrate the birth of ISAAC H., son of Jason and Deb.

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Romans 3:21-26

But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and it is attested to by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he has passed over sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Christ.

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BRD