Join us on Super Bowl Sunday for soup, salad, and all the fixings.  We are going to have several more meals on Sundays to raise money for Mountain T.O.P. and other mission work.  Many thanks for the support our congregation always shows our UMYF.

AWAKEN TO AN

Come to Hickory Bend UMC
605 Stewarts Ferry Pike
Nashville, TN 37214

Walk through a Sacred Space and into your own Epiphany.

Youth, children, babies, and adults are most welcome.

January 8-15, 2012
6:00-8:00 each evening

Spend a few minutes, an hour, a lifetime, or an eternity.
For more information call 615-403-8455.

This Christmas Eve, Summit Hospital will be almost empty.  The only people there will be patients in ICU, their families, a few families in maternity, and the faithful staff who work so hard to make sure they are given care. For several years, Hickory Bend has taken a holiday meal to Summit Hospital ICU on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Easter.  If you would like to be part of this ministry, speak to Jeannie, Gabby, or any of the Youth.  For more information, call 615-403-8455.

We had a visitor Sunday who was hitch hiking to Knoxville from Michigan. Michael is a disabled vet, recovering from PTSD. He had a job he loved working twenty hours a week in a furniture store.  It was his favorite job, but he had just lost his job at a furniture store, because he hurt his back. So now he is physically and mentally disabled.  His father died in June.  Michael’s dad was a rock. His mother didn’t mind him living with her until recently.  He calls her often, but she is busy. Michael is a history buff, and the Civil War is his area of particular interest. There is a Civil War course at the University of Tennessee he would really like to take. In the course, the class travels to several Civil War battlegrounds, and the professor is a good story teller. Michael had his military disability check sent to Knoxville. Knoxville is close to Gatlinburg. Michael’s family had a wonderful time in Gatlinburg when he was a child, and he would like to go back.

Michael hitch hiked as far as Exit 219, and he got out of a car in the pouring rain. From the Interstate, he could see the steeple, and he thought that he might be able to get out of the rain for a while at the church.  Michael was christened as a child in the Catholic Church, went to catechism, was confirmed, but then they moved. Their family never reconnected with a church.  When Michael saw that our church was a United Methodist church, he was hopeful. Michael’s platoon sergeant in Somalia was a Methodist, and he used to talk to Michael all the time. “He really talked to us. He was a really cool guy.  He took great care of everybody.  He cared about all of us, and he cared about the Somalians, too.  He had a really different way of talking to people. He talked about people, you know, like he really cared. He cared about our families and if we were writing to them all the time and letting them know what we were doing. That we were okay.  He took great care of his own family, too.  That guy was a Methodist. He told me I had to get back home and get into a church. I told him I was Catholic, but he said I should just go to any church. It didn’t have to be Methodist or Catholic, but everybody has to go be with a church.”

So Michael saw the steeple, saw that he was at a United Methodist Church, and stood under the front porch for a few minutes before people started arriving, making coffee, making a breakfast burrito, (where did that sausage come from?) warming up pastry, pouring apple juice, and introducing themselves.

Ethel asked him where he ate last night.  ”I didn’t eat last night.”

“Where did you eat lunch yesterday?”

“I didn’t eat yesterday.”

He ate Sunday, though.  attended Sunday School, sat with new friends in the worship service, and went to lunch with new friends.

And people gave him money.

He came to lunch with more new friends. He couldn’t eat all of his lunch, because “People gave me so much breakfast, I can’t eat all of this.”  He asked for a box.

Michael said, “I might have enough money to get a bus ticket to Knoxville!” Robbie hopped on the phone to find out how much a bus ticket to Knoxville was.  She couldn’t hear in the restaurant, so she went outside to be able to hear the ticket agent.

I asked Michael how much money he had.

“Forty-seven dollars.”

Robbie returned to the noisy restaurant.  ”A bus ticket to Knoxville is forty-seven dollars.”

Dear Friends,

Don’t forget your gently used or new undies for our homeless guests! Please bring these important items for our sweet friends at Room in the Inn. There will be a suitcase in the Fellowship Hall to collect these items.

Emalie

Many thanks to our new innkeeper, Joe Gleaves.  He has all the qualities we need in an innkeeper.  He remains cheerful and helpful on very little sleep, and he listens to ridiculous stories with patience and calm.

Join us on the second Friday of the cold weather months as we welcome our homeless guests to Room In the Inn at Andrew Price UMC.  We need cooks, servers, dish washers, inn keepers, lunch makers, coffee makers (people who can make coffee, there is a coffee maker machine there, but it is not fool proof), and gentle listeners. Call Emalie or Judy if you would like more information. 615-403-8455.

We used a theme of the hobo.  A hobo is someone who is homeward bound.  During Holy Week we are all homeward bound.  Going home to our Father who is waiting for us to come home.

One evening, a young man walked up from the apartments behind the church.  He walked through the sacred space with Katelyn and Sammie.  He moved slowly from station to station, politely asking permission before he wrote on the paper or used any paint.  He also quietly talked to the girls.

This gentle young man, told the girls that he had many friends who did not believe in God, but that he had always known that God was real.  He said that he had always wanted to be closer to God, but he wasn’t sure how to be closer.

He told Katelyn that he had always wanted to go to church, but he thought you had to be invited, and no one had ever invited him.

INVITED HIM?  No one?  NO ONE?

His friends talk about God and about their churches, but no one had invited him!

How could this happen?

Katelyn and Sammie welcomed him, encouraged him to come Sunday, and come Wednesdays, and come to UMYF, to bring his family, to bring his friends, but mostly, they invited him to come to church.  To come in.  To come home.

For a while, we had very few people coming through the sacred space.  It had crossed my mind that we had done a lot of work for very little benefit.  I am ashamed that I ever thought about it that way.  Even if this young man does not return to Hickory Bend, he has been invited to a church.  He knows he is always invited to God’s house.  He knows where he is welcome and where he belongs.  He has been invited.

Another evening a real hobo visited!  He came to the end of Maundy Thursday service and stayed to go through the sacred space.  He introduced himself to all of us as Doug.  He insisted he didn’t need anything — any money or food — anything.   Larry helped him with the readings.  At the stations where everyone is invited to leave their burdens at the cross, Doug broke down sobbing.  Larry guided him to the chairs in the Hobo Rest station.  Larry was guiding him to the comfortable, pink chair that is usually in Brother Gary’s office.  Doug was resisting and looking at the other chairs, especially the folding chairs across the room.  He behaved as if he did not deserve to be in a special chair.  Doug kept apologizing for crying.  He finally composed himself and sat drinking tea and visiting with all of us for quite a while.

Others stopped and asked about being part of a church.  They didn’t know how to come in or where to sit.  It makes me wonder how many people are out there, waiting for a personal invitation.  Waiting for someone to ask them to their own Father’s house.  As Albert says, “Welcome to the house of the Lord.”  Come in.  Come home.

Grace and Peace,

Emalie

One dollar, every week for a year secures your membership!

You will be supporting our Youth and their chaperons on mission trips!  You will also be buying Flamingo Insurance!  Should those pesky birds invade your land, we will remove them promptly and cheerfully!  Don’t wait!  Join now!

Note to Ken and Eve White:  We noticed that your memo on your Club 52 check said, “For mafia extortion.”  If you think we won’t cash that check, you don’t know us very well.  It’s in the bank, baby!

Hickory Bend will be welcoming more homeless guests to Room In The Inn this season.  Our first evening is November 26th, the day after Thanksgiving.

We will need many of you to volunteer again, and we would love to have new volunteers!  Will you join us for any of these duties?

• serving supper
• bringing part of the meal
• making beds
• handing out lingerie
• making lunches
• doing laundry
• inkeeping
• making breakfast
• cleaning up

Have you considered spending the night with us?  We always need more inkeepers.  You will spend the night with our ten guests, visiting, playing a game, listening, or just sitting quietly.  The fragile lives of our guests have been torn apart by broken relationships.  Do you have an evening to sit with a homeless guest?  You’ll never forget your conversation. Your friendship is healing and comforting to our guests.

If you have any questions about joining our ministry with Room In The Inn, call Judy at 615-754-4482, or Emalie at 615-403-8455.

The trustees and the Long Range Planning Committee will prioritize the projects that require mostly time and attention.  These projects include: showing movies outdoors, recording the entire worship service for the website, repairing the cold water tap in the men’s restroom, cleaning the trail and garden, inviting more people to Sunday School, cleaning and sprucing up the shelter, building our membership by inviting others, improving our phone system, setting up the ceiling fan, trimming trees to increase visibility, moving the wi-fi, setting up an account with PayPal.

The second category contains projects that we believe can be accomplished with reasonable effort.  The projects in this category, in the order prioritized by the council are:

1.  Moving forward with the Building Entrance
2. Replacing the fellowship hall floor
3.  Replacing the kitchen floor
4.  Paying our apportionments in full
5.  Installing a safety gate

To guide us in our progress completing these major projects, the council has decided to form a building committee.   The top priority identified by the council is our new building entrance!  We have plans for a visible, obvious, accessible, welcoming entrance for our church building!  Jim Adair has agreed to serve as the chair of this new committee.  Many, many thanks, Jim!

For the Pie In the Sky category, in no particular order, we have listed a new building, a new sanctuary, following the original master plan for building and expansion, increasing curb appeal, giving back more, establishing an endowment, adding more staff, establishing a soup kitchen, building a retreat facility, adding a viable child care center with its own wing, adding a large kitchen with an island and two sinks, adding showers and laundry so we could host Room In The Inn, adding a women’s restroom.  These projects are for Long Range Planning to address.

Please let your council members know of your hopes and dreams for HBUMC.  We can work together to make all of these wonderful ideas come to life.

Emalie