The Children’s Coordinators (Martha Ingliss and Lyda Kiser) have selected a beach theme for this year’s VBS. Members of the church, Discovery preschoolers, and any friends you wish to invite are welcome. In order to reach more children, it is the dream of the  Children’s Coordinators to offer VBS during the day this year. To make this dream a reality, we will need adults and youth to volunteer. Speak to Martha, Lyda, or call the church office if you can help. Come “hang ten” in the fellowship hall June 27th-July 1st. Ages 3 through 12 are invited to participate!

Registration forms are available in the back of the sanctuary and at the VBS display located in the church narthex.

Camp Hours and Fees

Each camp will be held Monday thru Friday from 9am-12pm each day. Fee is $60.00 per child per week.

For more information, see the Summer Adventures brochure.

Please join us for a day of heartwarming stories of grace and redemption. Our guest speaker, Robin Harnist, has an evangelist’s heart and a passion to see people grow in their faith in Jesus!

The day will include special music from Joanne Lovick, dynamic testimony from our speaker Robin Harnist, crafts with Kathleen Bouw, and a workshop with Robin to help you grow in your faith. Lunch can be ordered from Panera Bread (for $9.45) with your registration or feel free to prepare your own lunch to bring. Drinks will be provided. You may decide to prepare a picnic basket with friends that are also coming!

The cost for the day is $10. Checks can be made to First United Methodist Church with “Women’s Rally” written on the memo line. Some may consider buying a gift certificate for someone else who would like to attend. It’s sure to be a day you won’t want to miss! We also are “steppin’ out” to give to others. If you have any pairs of old shoes, please bring them for a donation to “Save–a-Sole”. The only requirement is that the shoes be dry and banded, bagged or tied together as a pair. They will be shipped to West Africa where they will be cleaned and repaired, providing much-needed jobs. Once refurbished, they will be taken to the impoverished region’s charitable network.

Please complete the registration form below and mail it to the church or drop it off at the church during one of our services before May 31st so will we have a count to help us have enough supplies for everyone. If you have any questions, please call 662-2348 or speak to Martha Inglis or Robbin Wilfong.

Sunrise, April 24th 6:30am

After Jesus’ death, the disciples were out fishing when “someone” on the shore called out to them (Jn. 21). The disciples only later recognized the man on the shore as being Jesus. Celebrate the risen Christ in our midst. Join us for an outdoor service that will include: drama, music, a campfire and Holy Communion at our church’s Apple Pie Ridge Campus (directly across from Apple Pie Ridge Elementary School).

Easter Morning Worship, April 24th 8:30 and 11:00am

Join us for the most refreshing hour of the year! Pastor White’s sermon will be based on John 20:1-18 and anthems will be provided by the Chancel Choir. These services will be held in our beautiful sanctuary located at 308 North Braddock St. (diagonal to the Handley Library) in Winchester, VA. A breakfast will be served in the fellowship hall between the services.

Solid, Coconut, Peanut Butter & Chocolate all covered with Milk Chocolate.  Eggs will be ready for pickup any time after April 11th.

The proceeds from the fundraiser will help offset the cost of our youth mission trip. Please make checks payable to FUMC Youth. Order forms and payments due Friday, April 8th.

Thank you for your support!

Download Easter Egg Order Form Here

For more information please visit the Discovery Preschool website.

For more information, please visit the Discovery Preschool site.

• The Sunday School Superintendents led a walk to “George Washington’s Well” where children, youth, and adults learned about their watershed address.
• The UMYF hosted a “Nothing But Nets” awareness camp out on the Apple Pie Ridge campus for youth, adults and children.
• The United Methodist Men served 120 meals at the Living Faith Center in the old Patton’s Furniture Warehouse.
• The Committee on Finance completed the “Nothing But Nets” drive on April 25th which will purchase 108 malaria preventing bed nets through the UMCOR Advance Special.
• Parish Health kicked off a campaign for “birthing kits” which will provide mothers in the Third World with rudimentary supplies for delivering babies. So far we have 64 kits!
• The UMYF invited the congregation to join them in caring for God’s creation by recycling items that are often thrown out around the church.
• The Discovery Preschool packaged non-perishable lunches for those who seek assistance at our own church door.
• The Church Trustees recycled obsolete church computers.

Although in the Old Testament there are instances in which God punished sin through natural disasters, this perspective is neither supported by other portions of the Old Testament or by the New Testament.   An earlier Old Testament idea implies that a Godly life prevents hardship.  If a person is good, kind, loving, prayerful, and worshipful, then he or she will reap the blessings of God and nothing bad will happen to him or her. Most people remember Noah and the flood in Genesis.  Noah, a righteous man, is told by God to build a boat that will save his family and the innocent species of the world from a flood sent to destroy the unrighteous people. This story and others similar to it lead people to conclude that natural disasters are God’s punishment for bad behavior, retribution for sin.

But look further in the Old Testament and we find that suffering comes to the righteous and unrighteous alike. The 73^rd Psalm, and other similar Psalms, point out that righteousness does not protect one from disaster.  In the book bearing his name, Job’s home is destroyed by a tornado yet the text says he was a “righteous man.”   Job’s good behavior was not a shield from the natural calamities that affected the world around him.

In the New Testament, Matthew 5:45 states that God “makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends the rain on the just and the unjust.”  Given these scriptures from the Old and New Testaments, it is hard to make the case that natural disasters are punishment for sin. With these words, Jesus seems to disconnect sin from the forces of nature.   Jesus is describing that God and all that he created is present for the just and unjust alike. God’s love is not whimsical or conditional.

Though some may try to make the case that the earthquake was God’s judgment, I would like to think that there is another way to look at this tragedy altogether.  When the apostle Paul was on a mission trip, he encountered a great earthquake (Acts 16:25-33) which destroyed the jail cell in which he was living.  After the event, Paul’s jailer and the jailer’s entire family became Christians.  Others became followers of the Christian way as well.  The earthquake became an opportunity for him to witness to his faith in Christ.  He took the terrible and turned it into a triumph, through Jesus Christ. Paul turned what is unquestionably an event that was tragic into an opportunity to share the love of God with others, inviting them to have the hope that God provides. Perhaps this earthquake will be an opportunity for contemporary Christians to share their faith as well.  This will be a time when we will reveal our truest character through our words, prayers, and actions. We can respond with judgment.  Or, we can be a Christian witness through mercy ministries, prayer, and finding ways to show God’s love.  Which will it be?