Save The Roof, Share The Love

Help us save the roof by donating HERE

 

In 2016, First United Methodist Church of Sanford almost closed after 142 years. During 16 weeks of praying by a small, faithful group of long time Sanford community members, we came to understand that the story of this church wasn’t over. Small but determined, we committed to using our space and historical footprint to love and serve our Sanford community. In 2018, we celebrated all the good being done by local groups and nonprofits and sought to bless, affirm, support and encourage that good work in Sanford. Thus, the Neighborhood CoOp was born, a low cost, collaborative space for nonprofit and social enterprise groups seeking to do good in the city of Sanford. We also renovated classrooms, partnered with other faith communities and support groups, and sought to build a radically hospitable church where all (and we mean ALL!) are welcomed and loved.
In the last five years we’ve overcome near-closure, a pandemic, and even termites! But Hurricane Ian left a devastating mark on our campus and our hearts. The roof was irreparably damaged in the storm, causing water intrusion through light fixtures, historic artisan plaster, and ceiling panels. Paint is beginning to bubble, walls are beginning to peel and we’re still discovering all the damage that was done. After Ian blew water into one of our major air conditioning units, a small electrical fire happened between Ian and Nicole. We rushed to patch the roof wherever we could, but Hurricane Nicole only furthered the devastation.
We are heartbroken but we are also tenacious! We have seen what’s possible by the grace of God and the collaboration of a community. We know this will not be our last hurdle and we are sure that together we can overcome it.
Help us to save the roof and all the good it holds!

Learning to Be The Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation

For the last 12 weeks I joined a great group of people from our church to read and discuss a book by Latasha Morrison entitled Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation. The book was not an easy read and it required hearing and discussing things that were not comfortable. It made us come to grips with real history that many of us never heard because others were afraid to teach it. We learned of horrific things done to African-American people and the internment camps for the Japanese-American people. We made it local and personal by taking a “field trip” to the Goldsboro Museum. We learned of Goldboro’s history as one of the oldest African-American founded communities ( an incorporated city) in the United States, which thrived until it was forcibly annexed and its character destroyed.
But this was not just a history lesson but more a lesson on how history must be confronted (with the fears, perceptions and frustrations it creates) in order for reconciliation to happen. Many times it would have been easier to tune out and say, “Not my problem.” or “I wasn’t even born then”. But, as followers of Jesus Christ we are called to be peacemakers and promoters of reconciliation. Love your neighbor as yourself” sometimes requires recognizing and laying aside our privilege, position, or power.
If you have a chance to read this book, read it. Even better would be to read it with a group!
— Scott Russell, member First UMC Sanford

Church Opening and Protocol

Greetings, church family!

We know this finds some of you reading the subject and sighing, “finally!” and others saying, “I won’t be around for quite a while.” First let us say, wherever you’re at we totally understand the need for each of us to make wise decisions for our families. We love and respect you and we’re so glad to share in this church family together, even as we have been physically apart from one another in an effort to love our most vulnerable neighbors. That is, after all, at the center of the gospel’s call.

In this time apart, we have tried to learn from all the resources available so as to make the wisest choices for our community, including resources made available through the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. We were so fortunate to have direct access to learning from Dr. Frederick Southwick, former Chief of Infectious Diseases for the University of Florida and a professor of Medicine and Molecular Microbiology. As a Christian, a scientist, and a United Methodist seeking to equip local churches in this difficult time, he provided two interactive webinars to give guidance around what provisions should be prioritized as churches consider when and how to reopen. We HIGHLY suggest everyone watch this webinar. You can access it here:  https://www.flumc.org/reopening-churches-webinar-video

We’re writing to notify you of the leadership team’s decisions, as well as the process and timing for the resumption of church activities. As you likely have seen, Florida has quickly seen a rise in the number of cases of Coronavirus. Because churches have unintentionally been hot spots for the spread of the virus in a number of places, we have sought to be wise and to always be guided by our three Wesleyan rules: Do no harm. Do all the good you can. Stay in love with God. With those rules, Dr. Southwick’s advice, and the guidance and requirements from our Conference in mind, the leadership team has decided:

We will begin abbreviated in-person gatherings on Sunday, July 19th. 

  • This service will take place at 9 am and will last approximately 30-35 minutes. Whether the 19th will be inside or outside is not decided at this point since the level of risk goes up with indoor gatherings and we are currently in a peak. Eventually, as the numbers plateau, we will continue to hold this service indoors weekly at 9 am for the foreseeable future.
  • Masks will be required for all attendees and if you do not have a mask, we’ll have some available for you.
  • Hand sanitizer will also be available and the sanctuary will be marked off so as to ensure folks have adequate space between seats.
  • We won’t have any congregational singing in these in-person gatherings at the advice of Dr. Southwick, Emory University Healthcare, and considering much of the research that’s coming out about communal signing. We can, however, exit the building and sing the doxology on the steps (spaced apart) as our parting blessing (so start working on those epic harmony parts now!) https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e6.htm

We will continue to broadcast the live-streamed service (a full service which will include music and last approximately one hour) at 10 am since we anticipate that this will be the primary mode for most of the congregation [& just as importantly, folks who have not previously been part of the congregation] for a while. In reading the congregational survey, we learned that there are many who are not yet comfortable with attending so we want to maintain the full-service live stream for those who will worship from home.

Small groups will be able to reconvene on a case by case basis as they wish and in consultation with Leadership. All small groups, if meeting indoors, will have to comply with the mask mandate and should take all the precautions necessary including no group singing and maintaining an appropriate distance. Now is also a great time to start new digital small groups for those folks who have wanted to connect but who might have restrictions about driving at night, being available during kiddos bedtimes, or dealing with work schedules. If you’d like to start a new small group, email us!

While there may be some of us who would prefer fewer stipulations for gatherings, we must remember that there may be folks who would like to attend groups or worship but will only do so if the space is safe. Our efforts to work together, take all precautions and consider those at highest risk are both a matter of hospitality and care for our neighbors. May we, in all we do, remember these words from Philippians:

In humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of human beings. 

Grace & Grits and Picnic Project will continue to collaborate on providing maximum food in the form of groceries to the community, likely for the remainder of the year. We are so grateful at how supportive all of the Sanford community has been. Folks who do not go to church, and other churches wishing to support, have reached out and provided assistance in these endeavors through PP and G&G. Folks can receive groceries on either Friday from 10a-12p or Sunday 1p-3p, every week at the alleyway entrance. We are currently seeing about 115 unduplicated families every week and because of PP’s partnership with Second Harvest, they are able to purchase 5-7 days worth of groceries for a family of 3 for less than $6. We also have had an incredible group of church folks who have stepped up to (safely) help sort groceries, glean fresh produce available from local farms, and drive all over the tri-county area to pick up available items when they are free, like milk and eggs. THANK YOU! We see about 10 new families each week, many of whom are folks who have never needed grocery assistance before. Please know to all of you who have helped, donated or just cheered on the work that this has been an incredible opportunity to share God’s love and abundance with our Sanford community. More information will be provided in a couple of weeks about a conference-wide initiative called Fill The Table to engage 100,000 Methodists and provide 3 million meals in Florida. This partnership between the UMC and the AME churches is an excellent opportunity for us Christians to live out God’s love in tangible ways together.  

Friends, we know at this time that it feels like there is more uncertainty than firm ground to stand on. And yet there are a few things we can always count on: God has not abandoned us. We are wholly loved. We are called to love in all we are, say, and do, at all times and in all places. And, God will work all things for good, even when they aren’t quite good yet.

We love you and we are always grateful to be your pastors. We are also extraordinarily grateful for the work of the Leadership team in this time. If you think about it and know them, send a thank you the direction of Carole Pegram, Larry Kozak, Sue Eppard, and Dick Willink. They have worked at odd hours and on all sorts of platforms to try and find the best way forward for us as a congregation.

Here is a link to a PDF document that outlines in detail the opening plan and protocols:

Opening Plan and Protocol for Congregation

Grace and Peace,

Pastors Meghan and David

Pastoral Letter 5-31-2020

 

Dear Church Family,

As you likely know now, this week our country saw another killing of an unarmed black person, George Floyd. After a subsequent lack of swift institutional response, other responses came on social media and in the streets from people who are heartbroken, exhausted, and rightfully angered at these continued injustices year after year. When we look at the long history of our country, we know that the violent and unjust treatment of black folks is the norm, not the exception.

Our own Christian history is an illustration of this. When enslaved persons were brought to church in the earliest days of our country, that became the primary place for a reminder that, “slaves should obey their masters.” No talk of Exodus. No talk of Paul’s word that in Christ there is no slave or free, Jew or Greek. No mention of the Holy Spirits radical inclusiveness at Pentecost. Instead, historical records show that the church often became a place that co-signed on the evils of the day and was even the arbiter of selling enslaved people sometimes. Likewise, historical baptismal records show a different catechism for enslaved people and whites. Black folks were forced at their baptism to confess that God had preordained their enslavement and that becoming a Christian meant being a good slave.1

Our own Methodist history is an illustration of this injustice. When Richard Allen was ordained in St George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in 1786, he and other black Methodists were pulled off their knees while praying and thrown out for violating segregation in worship.2 He eventually founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church because of persistent unequal treatment. And when Methodists decided you could not be Methodist and own people, many churches in the south decided to leave and form the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Our own church was formed in those ranks, as evidenced by our own historical documents. We did not all reunite until 1939 when black Methodists were subsequently placed in their own ‘Central Conference’ to limit voting power in General Conference matters. When we finally repented as a denomination in 2000, amidst the AME, AMEZ, and CME churches, Bishop Carr of the AMEZ church shared, “We were compelled to leave not… with what you said, but what you did. Not with symbolism, but with substance. And my hope is tonight that you would move from symbolism to substance.”3

See, our problem has not only been unequal treatment under the law, but a gross portrayal of unequal treatment under God. The church is liable here too. Racial injustice is not a problem that exists ‘out there’, it is sadly in here. It is in us. And as people who believe in the power of sin and repentance, we must have courage to see the plank in our own eye (Matthew 7:3-5).

We are heartbroken for our country and our world, but mostly for our black brothers and sisters who have been trying to speak but who have often been unheard, or who have seen a lack of concrete change. We all know already that this world is not as it should be. And often, when we look around and ask God what to do, God says to his followers, “What’s in your hand?” (Exodus 4:2). In other words, God says to us, ‘Where are you right now? What do you have? Let’s use that.’

We have learned in our own community that when responses came after Trayvon Martin’s killing, people were not simply heartbroken and outraged about his death but the appearance of a system that protects unequally. People were exasperated by a long history of racial injustice that has never been fully uncovered or openly repented of. This inequality travels deeply and across time frames. Many of the families in Goldsboro had their land taken and their streets renamed when the city of Sanford revoked Goldsboro’s charter in 1911, after Goldsboro was the nation’s second black incorporated town.4 While that is simply one story, memories like that may help us better understand why some feel that our institutions have served to cause more harm than help or protect them. We know that not all police seek to do harm, in fact at some protests around the country, police have joined in. We know not all institutions are corrupt and not all stories are those of heartbreak, but when the heartbreak hasn’t been healed, wounds persist. We may not be the same people who created broken systems, but that does not negate our call in rectifying them.

What’s in our hand is the question for us today. How might we bend our ear toward God and our neighbor? How might we make an impact on this world for the sake of the gospel declared by Jesus in Luke 4, who said, “I have been anointed to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Our question is: how do we join Jesus in his work in this time and place?

Certainly, there are many folks concerned about the violence that has erupted at some protests around the country. And rightfully, there have been calls for people to organize and make long-lasting change rather than simply to be a fiery flash in the pan that leaves destruction but not much else different. At the same time, we must not forget Martin Luther King, Jr’s helpful illumination,

Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”5 

In some listening we’ve done, we’ve learned that many people of color in this country feel like generations of peaceful efforts have still not fully resolved the injustices they know so intimately. Many people of color are exhausted from the decades of trauma which continue to pile up. Many marginalized people in our world are looking for a way to express their voice and to see real social change. We must ensure that such avenues fairly exist or in the words of Howard Thurman, people who “have their backs against the wall”, will continue to feel without voice or fair treatment.6

Imagine the pain of years being abused, mistreated, and fearful, and then there never being a time of public repentance for the things you’ve experienced. Readers of scripture are not unfamiliar with the need for repentance before forgiveness, with the need for the whole story to be remembered and told truthfully. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us (1 John 1:9-10).” Now certainly there is personal sin and there is corporate sin: and in our communal confession we confess both. We confess the personal and individual ways we have done harm or left undone the good which God has called us to do. That is to say that personally doing no harm against black folks does not negate our possibility of failing to do some good to work for righteousness and justice. But we also confess the corporate sin that plagues us and our world, beyond our individual consciousness and personal desires. Yes, we may not have personally used hateful terms, but have we failed to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters helping us to see injustice in our systems? Have we rolled our eyes and asked ourselves why ‘they’re still complaining about…”? Have we maintained our distance from neighbors who are racially or culturally different from us because the stories we hear are too painful?

We know that since much of this congregation has been around longer than we have, and that some of you have been working toward equality and justice for longer than we’ve been alive. This is not to say that those efforts were useless or that all of us have always been on the wrong side of history. And yet as followers of Jesus, we know that sin (like the sin of racial injustice) takes a long time, and many generations to root out. Rarely does a sinner need repenting once. Rarely does a married couple go to counseling for a single session. Sometimes when they cut out the cancer, it takes another surgery to get it all.

We are no prophets and we do not know all the good that needs doing. We are simply young preachers in our first UMC appointment, looking shockingly at the same world you are. We pray our own prayers for wisdom and discernment in these uncertain times. And yet as we celebrate Pentecost, the birth of the church when God gave new eyes and new language for each to understand one another;

When God poured out the Holy Spirit on all flesh;

When God commissioned all of us to be part of God’s work in the world

…it seems appropriate that we might ask ourselves, Lord, who are we all to be in this time and place?

 

So how do we in Bishop Carr’s words move from symbolism to substance? We believe these may be a few things that could start or continue our journey toward justice:

As our friend and pastor at Lakeside UMC, Dan Wunderlich says, maybe we can begin by admitting, “I know there are many things I don’t know. This may be one of those things.”

  • We can listen clearly and empathetically to voices of the black community. For some words from black United Methodist pastors in the Florida Conference, check out: https://spark.adobe.com/page/shT2J0McH8voc/
  • We can learn the history of our city. When they are open and it safe to do so, visit all three of the museums in our community on the same day and learn the full breadth of our own history.
  • We can vote for local and national policies that take seriously the current inequalities and what we need to do to remedy them.
  • And we can listen to God, stirring our hearts, inviting us to see and participate in “making all things new (Revelation 21).”

We love you. We consider it a privilege, always, to be your pastors. And, we know that the Lord isn’t finished with any of us. What have you read that has changed your heart or mind? How has God shaped you, that you might share with the rest of us? Thanks be to God, the creator, sustainer, liberator and redeemer who has promised that nothing in life nor death, no angels nor demons, no powers nor principalities, nothing in this life and nothing in the life to come will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38).  May God’s love propel us all forward, onward toward perfection in all we are and all we do.

 

Grace & Peace,

Pastors David & Meghan

 

For some reading that has been helpful, check out:

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh

I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

Living into God’s Dream by Catherine Meeks

 

References:

  1. https://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/catechisms/catechsl.html
  2. https://www.ame-church.com/our-church/our-history/
  3. https://religionnews.com/2000/01/01/news-story-methodists-issue-sweeping-apology-for-institutional-racism2/
  4. https://www.croomsacademymuseum.com/about-us/
  5. https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm
  6. Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinherited. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1949

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Devotion from Bonnie Klein

Job 11:13-16
“If you direct your heart rightly, you will stretch out your hands toward him. If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away, and do not let wickedness reside in your tents. Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish; you will be secure, and will not fear.  You will forget your misery; you will remember it as waters that have passed away.
Okay, I know Zophar was the youngest of the men who came to judge (or help?) Job. He was full of zeal and advised Job repent of whatever he must have done to call down God’s wrath. He must have done something, right? Actually, as we know, Job was not at fault.
But these are powerful lines, and I think they still speak to us of God’s forgiveness and the glorious way it can feel to be right with God, to lift up our faces without blemish, to remember whatever bad things we may have done but are no longer doing as only a distant echo. What relief!
We are in difficult times now. Perhaps it’s a good time to pray over and take action against behaviors we know we should change, and to reach out for help if we need it.
Holy Father, forgive me. Please shine your light into the dark corners of my life and sweep them clean. Give me the courage to make the changes I need to make, to put sin away from me, and to desire only you. In Christ Jesus’ name. Amen

COVID #19 Update (4)

Living in our new reality

What a whirlwind week it has been! Who knew we could cram a whole year’s worth of news, a full hurricane season’s worth of disaster prep & a whole month’s worth of TV into one week?!? We certainly didn’t until now!

We are writing to give everyone some updates about the rhythms of our life together in this new reality. As we thought about the gifts of the early church, we have continually reflected on the gift that it is to know that the Cloud of Witnesses before us have endured great hardship and that they have given us some gifts to order our life together, however we find ourselves ‘together’. As we have reviewed the CDC’s guidelines and been guided by the wisdom of our Bishop and leaders, we aren’t sure when we will be able to worship together in person again. Because those guidelines have changed swiftly, we want to quickly establish rhythms for us in this in-between time while we wait to see what is wisest for our community life.

Worship
We will continue to offer worship Live on Facebook until we are able to be together again. We will post the service to our website ASAP after it is over so those without Facebook can still watch. We encourage you to get the bulletin (will be posted and emailed) and follow along live.

For now, we will only do Sunday morning worship style but in the future, we may include some Sunday evening-style elements. Stay tuned.

Easter
We have made the decision to postpone our celebration of Easter until we can be together again. Since Lent feels exactly like the season appropriate to our lives, we’ll shift our Easter celebration to being our celebration of returning back to communal gathering as well.

Adapting Established Ministries
If you are in a small group or class, check with your leaders about whether you’ll continue to meet virtually or whether it is cancelled temporarily.

  • For our Meal Ministries, we have transitioned all meals to grocery distribution in a streamlined effort with Picnic Project, Grace and Grits and the church. We are distributing groceries purchased through Second Harvest Food Bank (at 19 cents a pound) on Fridays from 10am-12pm and Sundays from 1pm-3pm. We’re following all guidelines for safety (no folks in the building, distancing, sanitation, limited volunteers, etc). We shop or get a delivery on Thursdays and then sort for distribution Fridays and Sundays.
    • If you would like to help with this effort and you and your household are low-risk, we could use (a max of) 5 volunteers on Thursdays to sort.
    • Our plan is to distribute until the money runs out (Grace and Grits and mission funds) or the crisis is over. If you’d like to give to this food distribution effort, you can give through PayPal online (http://fumcsanford.org/giving/ and then email us if its designated for a ministry) or by sending a check with Grace and Grits in the memo line.
    • We also need assistance transporting food. We can only get one delivery from Second Harvest every two weeks and we already know the need outweighs our transporting capacity. If you have a truck or a transporting idea, please let us know. We will shop at Second Harvest on Thursday mornings (the week of no delivery) and as of right now, do not know how we will transport the food.
  • For our Family Ministries, Angie and Tom have been working on some incredible resources for you, including an online portal for resources (more info Sunday) and some special projects you can do at home.
    • We will also move our 5th Sunday Ellen’s Bears Tea Party to Google Hangouts. SO, grab yourself some tea while you’re in the grocery frenzy and gather your bears at home for a digital tea party. EVERYONE IS WELCOME to share in some tea together!

New Ministry Opportunities 
We know that the Holy Spirit is unbound by time or space or even pandemic. And so, we have a couple new opportunities for ministry together:

  • We will now host virtual pastoral care hours a couple times a week. Meghan will hold Mondays 2- 4pm available and David will hold Wednesdays from 10a-12pm available. Obviously if you need to talk or connect, just let us know but we wanted to make those times available in case you want to video or phone chat. Email or call us (our church numbers still connect to our phones at home) so we can figure out how to meet.
  • We will have a weekly 30-minute prayer call together on Wednesday mornings at 9am. We’ll have one person lead us through a prayers of the people format and anyone is welcome to join us! Just be sure to mute your microphone or phone when you aren’t talking to minimize background noise. You can video or call in using a regular phone!
    • Weekly Prayer Call (see a link to the call on Facebook)
  • On Sunday evenings beginning next week (3/29 @ 5:30pm), we’ll host a video/phone discussion of Discovering Our Spiritual Identity by Trevor Hudson. It is a book/workbook about spiritual practices and our way of connecting with God. We have loved it and Hudson is a Methodist pastor, therapist, and a teacher with experience working in South Africa in difficult circumstances. More to come on this but for now, get the book (delivered safely to your home) if you’d like to join us!
  • Our Lay Leader is working on compiling call lists for us so we can stay connected to one another and check on folks who may be vulnerable.

So, here’s our community’s weekly schedule–> 

  • Mondays: pastor’s hours (2-4) and discussion group at 6:30
  • Wednesdays: prayer call (9am) and pastor’s hours (10-12)
  • Thursdays: food buying, transporting & sorting
  • Fridays: food distribution (10-12)
  • Sundays: Worship (10am), food distribution (1-3p), evening discussion group

We hope everyone still has their ‘water reminder’ (see the worship service from last week if this sounds nuts!) somewhere visible as we walk through these crazy times together! We love you and we consider it the greatest joy to be your pastors. Please let us know how we can help to care well for you in this difficult time.

Peace,

Pastors Meghan and David

p.s. If you know seniors who are food insecure but who may be nervous to come to food distribution for health reasons, please let us know and we can try to arrange for delivery.

We need you!

Have you ever thought, “I’d love to serve but I’ll wait until God gives me a sign?” Great news: Here it is!

Y’all already know we believe that (1) everyone has something to give, (2) everyone has something to learn, and (3) the world literally needs you to be who you are. So, maybe God is whispering JUMP IN! Check out some of these ways we need help around the church or in serving the community. Maybe one of them is just right for you:

 

  • Helping out in worship
    • Reading or praying in the Sunday morning service (10am)
    • Reading or sharing our blessing at the Sunday evening service (5:30pm)
    • Setting up for food and tables for the Sunday evening service (4 hr/month)
    • Singing in the choir
    • Serving as an usher or greeter
    • Helping to plan special services (arts, music, visuals, creative experiences)
  • Helping out around the church
    • Assisting in the office (1hr/ wk)
    • Cleaning up/organizing around the church (1-3 hrs/wk)
    • Opening the doors or locking up (1hr/wk)
    • Answering the phones when staff is out (as needed)
    • Assist with making quilts or afghans for grieving, ill or hurting community members (2hr/wk)
    • Volunteering in the nursery (2 hr/month, background screen required)
    • Hosting outside groups on site, welcoming, locking up, assisting as needed (varies)
    • Serving on a ministry team (like connecting with special events in downtown Sanford or planning parties)
    • Planting flowers or edible landscaping around campus (as needed)
  • Helping to serve the community
    •  Weekly Aldi grocery pickup and sorting in partnership with the Picnic Project (Wednesday, Friday 2 hr/wk)
    • Helping to host Grace & Grits on our campus (answering ?s, showing folks around, cleaning, 3hr/wk, 4-7pm)
    • Helping with admin related to Grace and Grits (as needed)
    • Drivers to provide rides for homebound or elderly folks (as needed, background check required)
    • Drivers to pick up bread donations from local grocery stores (1-2 hr/wk)
    • Creating and leading new ministries that invest in our community like tutoring, job skill training
    • Bring coffee or breakfast to one of our local day labor sites weekly (varies)
    • Leading a support or recovery group through established models on campus (4 hr/month)
    • Starting a small group for particular interests, age groups, hobbies, studies (4 hr/month)
    • Serving in the kitchen or the toiletries closet at Picnic Project or Grace & Grits (1 hr/wk)
    • Start at Fresh Expression (meeting new people in new places in new ways! https://www.freshexpressionsfl.org/)
Or maybe there’s something else you just know in your guts that you’re being called to do?

 

Message us on Facebook, call the office (407.322.4371), email us at info@fumcsanford.org or send a carrier pigeon if you’re ready to jump in!

Making Friends, Building Bridges

We’ve had an incredible opportunity to begin building friendships with folks from the Husseini Islamic Center in Sanford and we’re so grateful! Early on in the Fall of 2017, right before Hurricane Irma, some folks from the Outreach Team at HIC met with us over a cup of coffee and dreamed about how we might work together. We learned that Minaz, their outreach director, had her own medical transport company. She not only offered to connect us to local resources if we needed them, but she also offered the assistance of her community and her own family in the event of an emergency. An offer is nice of course…

But the most powerful thing was that the first phone call I received after the storm was over was from Minaz! She wanted to make sure all of our homebound church members were alright, asked if anyone needed transportation assistance, and even sent some folks from HIC to help another Methodist church clean up after the storm.

Since then, we’ve had a chance to eat together, serve together, tour each other’s places of worship, participate in an interfaith panel hosted at the mosque and share in an Interfaith Iftar during their month of Ramadan. At our most recent visit, the topic of discussion was our world’s shared need to embrace humility, conversation and friendship across societal lines.

What Interfaith work isn’t:

  • Minimizing our differences or pretending like they don’t exist
  • A covert operation to convert eachother
  • A suspicious investigation to reinforce our biases
  • A one-time event for the #gram of it
  • Superficial conversation

What Interfaith work is:

  • A recognition that in the presence of our differences, we share a common humanity
  • A chance to humbly learn and build friendships
  • An opportunity to understand your own faith better
  • An interruption of the single-story narratives told about folks*
  • A *great* chance to try new foods (!)

In our world, there is much to be lamented, and much to be changed. Some days, the world looks insurmountably divided and hurtful… and then relationships like this happen, and bring hope and joy and learning.

Thanks, HIC, for being such good friends to us and for seeking to make this world a less divided place!   

*Never heard about the danger of a single story? Check out this TED Talk.