United Christian Ministries is in need of cereal.
To donate items, please drop them off at UCM’s building at 191 Skyland Drive. Thank you!
Midweek Meals to Resume TONIGHT
Mid-week meals resume tonight, September 3 at 5:30 p.m. in the MFC. Costs are $12 for adults, $7 for K-12th grade, and college students as well as pre-K are guests of the church (no charge). The menu tonight will be meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, roll and dessert. Join us!
1st Explorers After-School Program Update
1st Explorers After-School Program
The First Explorers theme for this past week was “What Makes Me Special?” with the Bible verse of the week being Psalm 139:14. Students worked through multiple activities and identified things they do well, their interests, and other attributes that make them special. We were reminded that God has a special purpose and plan for each one of us. Students enjoyed chapel with Kaitlyn and visits from 4H and Generation Kids. It was a busy and fun week at After School!
Midweek Meals to Resume Wednesday, September 3
Mid-week meals resume this Wednesday, September 3 at 5:30 p.m. in the MFC. Costs are $12 for adults, $7 for K-12th grade, and college students as well as pre-K are guests of the church (no charge). Please remember to get your reservation turned in to the office by noon Monday so we have an accurate headcount. Sign-up sheets and pew cards will be available as well!
The menu that evening will be meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, roll and dessert Join us!
Giving the Jesus Way
United Christian Ministries is in need of cereal.
To donate items, please drop them off at UCM’s building at 191 Skyland Drive. Thank you!
First Explorers After School
Mission Moment 8.27.25
Kelly Adams
CBF Director of Clergy Support
“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
–Matthew 18:20
It seems silly to type it, let alone say it aloud, but what is saving my life right now is my cell phone. I refuse to leave home without it, and not just because I need the maps app frequently to help get me around in an area in which I’ve lived less than a year. I don’t leave home without my cell phone because it is my connection to those whom I hold most dear.
It is the way I hear the voices of my husband and son when I travel, which is often. Hearing their voices is reassuring and grounding when I’m in the chaos of an airport or missing morning snuggles. It is a gift to stay attuned to the daily lives of the two people I love most in the world.
It is also the way I stay connected to my oldest and dearest friends. There’s a WhatsApp thread through which five of us who have known each other at least since high school message daily. The subject varies; some are messages about the joys and challenges of motherhood and work; but more often they’re memes about getting older or growing up in the 80s and 90s. Our connection is life-giving because it is to people with whom I can be my most genuine self. There are other folks with whom I stay connected mostly through my phone: a few former coworkers who are dear friends, the matron of honor from my wedding, and my mom, who can never have enough pictures of her grandson.
My phone is also how I stay connected to co-workers through text threads that serve primarily to help one another and think together. These threads can and often do digress into humor that is often well-timed and much-needed. It is a crucial link to each other when we’re traveling separately and when very few people around us understand the nuances of our work.
So, it’s not the cell phone that is saving me after all; it’s the connection it provides to the rooted relationships I need to truly thrive both personally and professionally. What and who are the connections that are saving you?
Pray, Practice, Ponder
Gracious God, You are generous to place in our lives people who reveal something of your goodness and grace. Whether it’s one person or 20, we are grateful for the rooted relationships that reach out or answer at just the right time, reminding us we are loved and giving us hope when we most need it. For these friends and loved ones, we give you thanks and praise. Amen.
Pray…Give…Go.
Giving the Jesus Way
United Christian Ministries is in need of cereal.
To donate items, please drop them off at UCM’s building at 191 Skyland Drive. Thank you!
Mission Moment 8.20.25
Greg and Sue Smith
CBF Field Personnel, Carthage, Ark.
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” –Ruth 1:16
Have you ever found yourself staring at something—or someone—so intently that, without realizing it, you were crying? It could be a beautiful landscape vista that created in you an amazing sense of awe. Or a masterful painting that penetrated your soul more deeply than anything ever had before. Or an act of kindness so genuine and compassionate that it reminded you, despite humanity’s waywardness, that God did pronounce our creation to be “very good.”
I have. I recently found myself brushing away a tear. It happened when I beheld, as if for the first time, the gift of my grandchild. Just the thought of that moment even now brings tremendous life, joy and peace to my soul.
Sue and I have six grandchildren, each a gift of salvation. Together, a gift more wonderful than words can describe. A gift that saves me time and again.
Whether my gift comes…
When one of my grandchildren cries out “Pappa” or “Abuelo” (I go by both!); or
When I kneel next to the younger grandchildren and watch the helicopters and airplanes take off and land at the local airport; or
When I hang a picture on our wall or a drawing created with care on our refrigerator; or
When I toss a ball or shoot hoops and we talk about the day; or
When I watch them play with their friends with such joy and enthusiasm; or
When I hold our youngest in my arms and gaze at a big, toothless smile looking back…
It’s all the same. Each is a precious, wonderful and joyful gift from a loving and saving God.
The biblical Ruth couldn’t contemplate life without her family. That is the essence of her plea to her mother-in-law Naomi not to send her away. While I cannot “cling to” my grandchildren as Ruth clung to Naomi, I share her sentiment of life as unbearable apart from the ones who give meaning and joy to our own.
If I had enough space here, I would also include Sue, my children, my parents, my sister and her family and others as God’s gifts of salvation in my life.
But the faces, smiles, laughter, silliness—even the mischievousness—of my grandchildren signify at this stage of my life a vital, yea critical, way God is saving me.
¡A Dios sea la gloria!
Pray, Practice, Ponder
Who or what brings so much joy to your life that imaging it moves you to tears? Today, ponder how God might be using this gift as a part of God’s salvation, your restoration and your wholeness.
Pray. . .Give. . .Go.