Deerfield has exciting day with Yankee Baseball

     Last week, Deerfield UMC hosted Bobby Richardson, a former player with the New York Yankees who still holds the record for playing in 30 consecutive world series games. It was such a great time to open the doors to the community as Bobby and his wife Betsy came to share their story of their life of faith together, a lot of information about Yankees baseball, and he also participated in a radio interview with me on the morning he was going to be speaking at our church. What was the most exciting thing to me about the event was that the opportunity fell into our lap. If we can learn how to say yes, when God opens the doors for us to open the doors to our community, I wonder how that will change the face of the United Methodist Church. That night we received an offering in a collection basket to be divided between the mission work that his daughter is doing in Africa, and our Relay for Life Event. We are so blessed that the community did come out for the event, and they did give to two very worthy causes.
     Last Friday Watauga County celebrated their county wide Relay for Life Event. I planned to attend the event and told our Relay Team that I would help in any way I could. So they signed me up for a big role in speaking to lead the ceremony that night, and I was grateful for the opportunity. As I walked laps around the track at Watauga High School, I saw the names on lumanaria of those we were honoring and those we were remembering. It struck me that so many of the names I read are people that I now serve at Deerfield UMC. I gave the Lord praise that he brought them healing and has allowed me the opportunity to get to know these people and to serve them. My life is so much richer because of each one of them. Relay was a spiritual event to ask God's help to bring a cure for cancer and a spiritual event to work together for a common cause, and to pause with thanksgiving for those who were there to walk the track because God had brought them healing. It was spiritual and moved my heart to participate.
     During the last week, we celebrated Vacation Bible School using the theme: "I love to Tell the Story." Using puppets and skits and fun songs, we used the scripture from the book of Acts to tell the kids in our church and community the story of how much Jesus loves them. It is our hope that we will be able to launch a new children's ministry this fall when school is in session using the puppets and skits and music to reach the kids in our church and community for an ongoing time of discipleship. At the end of each night, our music teacher, Pat Lanno would lead us in the song, "We're going to Chicago," and we would sing and dance and laugh and have a great time to close out each evening. Thanks so much to all the workers who have put in extra hours over the summer to help with the Bobby Richardson event, Relay for Life and Vacation Bible School. We could not do what we do without people working hard to make these opportunities possible. God has blessed us so richly with these opportunities to bind our church family together with a common purpose as we have worked on each project.
     We still have two projects to work on before the end of the summer. We want to build a playground for the children of our church and our community and a water garden. So we still have some fun things to do together and we will have something to show for our labor at the end of each day. Please contact Deerfield UMC if you would like to come and join us for the work we are doing in the name of Christ here in Boone NC.

Relay for Life Coffee House a Great Success

     Sunday evening at Deerfield UMC, Boone came alive with a common purpose, to help raise money to find a cure for cancer. The Deerfield UMC Relay for Life Dream Team came up with the idea of our church hosting a coffee house to invite the community to come in and join us for a time of music and a meal and fellowship to help raise money for Relay. So what a success the event was! Blessings beyond our expectations. For those here who are cancer survivors and for their families, I know this event held great meaning. And for those who have lost loved ones, it was a chance to remember that we carry on the fight to find a cure. For our listening enjoyment, we had 10 musical groups come and share with us, and even Kermit the frog came by for a song and made a special guest appearance. He will also be our preacher for conference Sunday, which is Pentecost Sunday,  if you would like to come to Deerfield on that day, you are invited and you may be surprised that Kermit can make the transformation into a really great preacher.
     The event was attended by about 150 people from the church and the community. We did raise about $2000.00 from that specific event that day towards our whole relay goal. We stand at about $5400.00 collected towards our goal of $7500.00 so we could use even more financial support on this mission. We want to say thanks to everyone who gave so willingly of their time and talents to make the event a success not just in raising money, but also to make it a spiritual event. The Holy Spirit was with us, and we give the Lord praise. Earlier Sunday morning in worship, we had studied from John 14 where the scripture teaches about heaven and how Christ has gone to prepare a place for us, a place with many rooms. During the children's message, I invited the children to dream about what would be in their room in heaven if they got to go to heaven today and tell God just what they wanted. I asked them what color would they paint their room, and the answers came: blue, purple, green, yellow and pink. I asked them if they would put a refrigerator in their room in heaven and they all laughed. Later on in the sermon for the grown ups, I shared my concern and my hope for the future of the United Methodist Church as a whole.  We need to focus on becoming a church of the future. We have to figure out how to reach young people and help them understand that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, now while they are eager to learn. Then after the sermon, when it was time to take up the offering, a little girl, I am guessing maybe 6 years old, insisted to her mom that she help her mom take up the offering. So she came up the aile with her mom and the other young woman taking up the offering and helped along the way. The little girl had been to children's church and had not heard what I had just said about our need to reach the young people, and how we had to call on God to show us how to do this great work. In John 14:14, where the scripture teaches that if we ask for anything in the name of Christ, he will do it for us. The words had just come out of my mouth that we are asking God to help us reach the young people and teach them to know the ways of Christ, and in just moments, a little one comes forth and offers to serve. It was a Holy Spirit filled moment, that spilled into a Holy Spirit filled day. We know for sure that God hears our prayers, and God will provide us with hope for the future, in great events like Relay for Life, worthy causes to find a cure for cancer, and on regular Sunday mornings in worship. God will give us the courage and leadership that we seek to help our church step into our future with hope. Praise be to the one who is the way, the truth and the life.
    

What does it mean to be a family?

     For many United Methodist clergy families, we deal with the question of what it means to be a family sometimes at a great distance from our blood kin. After the death of my father Howard McAdams on October 1, 2010 and then the fire at the parsonage on December 29th soon after that, I have really come to appreciate how much I love my family, even though we are separated by the miles. For me this week, being an Aunt to my nephew Ronnie Lee McAdams meant driving from Boone to Granville-Vance Community College yesterday to see him graduate from Basic Law Enforcement Training.  His dad Ronnie has recently been in the hospital with a head injury that required surgery and is doing well recovering from that. When my nephew called on Monday to tell me he had passed his state exam, I was thrilled! It is an honor to have a close relationship with my six neices and nephews who keep up with me, and I with them through emails and text messages and facebook. When my neice Callie recently ran in a full marathan, what a huge celebration. When my brother Ronnie took a fall, that would require surgery, what a shock and the prayers for him to make it through began from our whole church family at Deerfield UMC. When my son got sworn in as a law enforcement officer while he trains at Surry Community College, what a great sense of pride. When Stuart, my nephew learned that he would not graduate and have to take a nursing course at UNC Chapel Hill over again for the fall semester, my heart went out to him with disappointment and love and support. I am so glad he held  his course to stay on track and keep pressing on for the fall semester. I hoped he would have supportive people around him to help him figure out a new plan, and he has, and thanks be to God for their help.
    So being a family after the death of both of my parents is a challenge for me and my siblings to try to figure out how to continue to see each other and keep up with what is going on with our families. We want to keep the tie that binds us together strong. When all of us work full time and the sisters live a distance away, we face the same challenges that many of you may face. What binds a family together through the hard times, is the love of Christ that is enduring. Being willing to serve each other in a time of need is something I honor about my brothers and sisters and have taken for granted more times than I have remembered to be thankful. Now in our family mix, throw in two full time United Methodist pastors and three police officers, just to start the list of busy people who work hard and still love each other. I live with a regular family, and we face regular challenges, sickness, pitfalls and dysfunctions like everyone else. What it means to be a family for me is continually shaped by the way my parents raised me to honor them, even though they have already gone on to be with the Lord.  The way our parents raised their five kids in church and to live by the 10 commandments still makes a difference in the way I love my siblings.  It honors the memory of our parents for our family to love each other, to make an effort to stay connected, and to bring honor to Christ no matter where we live. This past Sunday in preaching from the 23rd Psalm, we were reminded that the Lord leads us in paths of righteousness for his names sake. When we love, and serve and give, and for me right now- to drive a lot of miles to stay connected,  people can see that what motivates us is the real deal, the love of Christ, and that truly does bring honor to his name. I am counting it a blessing to know the strength of the love of a strong family.  I pray for every family circle represented by you the reader, that God's hand of love will be your strength this day for you and your entire family. We pray God will strengthen each family, bring down walls, shower us with endurance and patience, and give us courage to risk loving each other more by the day. Oh, how we want to honor Christ in our home. Lord, let it be so.

Are you reaching the next generation for Christ?

    The United Methodist Women held their 28th annual luncheon this past Saturday to raise money for a scholarship for a senior at Watauga High School, and to help raise money to build a playground here at Deerfield, so we can better serve the children of our community. The women of the church thank the Peddler Restaurant for the donation of our fabulous meal that they catered for the event. Included in our events for the day on Saturday was a fashion show from local clothing stores, and an auction of several baskets of goodies like picnic items, or gardening items, all fixed up in a beautiful basket, just in time for Mother's Day. We fed about 130 people for the dinner and it was a huge success as far as funding our scholarship and raising funds for the playground. It was a long standing tradition with the goal for providing hope for the future generation.
   The emphasis of that event was for the benefit of children and a teenager from our community. In a recent post from our D.S.  Rev. Fred Jordan, he gave us a link to watch a short video clip by Dr. Lovett Weems. After watching that video, it talks about the huge need in the life of the United Methodist Church to reach young families before we lose vast numbers of United Methodist Churches because their members are dying out. On this very day, I have met with a young mother who is asking our church to provide some kind of ministry to young families with Bible Study and the opportunity to grow in their faith together. She worships here regularly and attends Sunday School here regularly, yet there is a spiritual hunger for more. Praise God for that hunger and for the courage to ask for more!  The great challenge for our church is to address the spiritual needs of young people. Weems says we have failed miserably as a United Methodist Church to do that. If Deerfield UMC is going to be any different from the current trend in our denomination, we have to figure out how to meet the spiritual needs of young people, and young families and train them up to be disciples of Jesus Christ. It is our scriptural mandate to pass on this good news to the next generation. We don't know yet how we will meet this need, but at least there is a spiritual hunger there on the part of the young people. Church, that puts the ball in our court to help disciple them so they can grow in their walk with Christ. Let's get busy and figure out how will be the best way to bring our church into a ministry filled with vibrance, youth and hope for the future. That is a huge task, but God is with us, and God will lead us.  Here is the link to the short video clip by Lovett Weems. I hope you will take the time to watch it. It is worth the time. http://vimeo.com/22392014

Serving Christ daily can bring unexpected laughs and hard challenges

    I hope that you have enjoyed a great season of Lent and Easter Sunday. Today after a day off for Easter and a regular day off, it was back to work, business as usual today. So on my way to go make a hospital visit to a patient at Watauga Medical Center, when I got out of my car I heard an odd sound. Something squeaking. So I looked around and there was a truck parked in the parking lot with a camper shell on the back of it, with the side panels lifted up and inside of that camper shell making those squeaking noises, turned into oinks. Yes, that's right, oinks. It was a little pig, about 100 pounds that came over to the side of the truck to give me a great big hello. I have seen a lot of pigs. I have traveled to see patients in lots of different hospitals, but this was the first pig I have ever seen that loved it's owner enough to come and make a visit to the hospital. So I snapped a shot with my cell phone, and I hope the picture comes through. After visiting with the pig, taking her picture, talking pig talk to her, I went on about my work, which was to go make a visit to a patient. It was a laugh out loud scene. Good enough to share, so I am sharing the picture with you on todays blog. It made me laugh out loud and I hope it does the same for you.
     This week, we are getting ready for our next biggest event after Easter, the bi-annual ham and chicken supper put on by our United Methodist Men. We set up the tables for the event tonight. We expect a huge crowd on Friday night. As the community comes in to eat with us, say a prayer for us to talk to as many people as we can for the cause of Christ, and give them some real food, the Bread of Life. We want to make sure that we use every opportunity to say a word for the good of the cause of Christ that we can. Why is it that it seems so much harder to talk to your immediate family about the life changing power of Christ than even to a stranger? If you are in a place to talk to your family member about spiritual things, our prayer for you is that God will give you the courage to give a bold witness, that we are an Easter people. We serve a risen Lord who does still have the power to change lives, and does change lives forever. If we did not have that hope, where would we be? Life continues to bring so many opportunities to speak for Christ on a daily basis, I want to encourage you to not avoid the hard talks with the people closest to you, God will give you the words to say, and let you know when the time is the right time. God is with us, not against us, and for someone living far from Christ, that is a good place to start. Remind them, or share with them maybe for the first time, that God is for them. Those few words can open huge doors for our witness to the good news.