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.

Join us for Christmas at Hickory Bend UMC!

Join us for a simple Christmas Eve service.

Please join us for congregational singing, special music as the children act out the Christmas Story from Luke.

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.”

William Wallace Brown, Jr., who died Oct. 17, 2004, at age 68, was given a permanent resting place in the burial garden at St. John’s Episcopal Church, across from the White House, according to The Washington Post. St. John’s is called the “church of presidents” since nearly every U.S. leader since James Madison has worshiped there.

Mr. Brown was invited into the church by President George H.W. Bush. One day in 1989, Mr. Brown was waiting outside the church, as was his custom, when he spotted the president striding into the worship service.  He called out, “Mr. President!  Will you pray for me?”

William Brown had lived on the streets for fifteen years. His gloves and shoes were riddled with holes, and his coat was threadbare. Yet, he had the temerity to ask the president to pray for him. President Bush did not agree to pray for this homeless man. He made him a better offer.  “Mr. President, will you pray for me?”

President Bush answered, “No. Come inside with us and pray for yourself!”  Mr. Brown accepted the president’s invitation that day, and continued attending the church until his death in 2004.  Members reported that Mr. Brown placed a crumpled dollar bill into the silver collection plate every week.

William was invited into a church by the president. Who invited you to come inside?  Whom will you welcome into God’s house?

Please join us in welcoming our homeless guests to Room In The Inn.  Will you pray for this ministry?  Will you come and see for yourself?

Call Judy or Emalie for more information. 615-403-8455.

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.

Hickory Bend’s Vacation Bible School Theme for 2011 is:

SHAKE IT UP CAFÉ-

Register Here online or in person!

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation . . . – 2 Corinthians 5:17a

In this kid-friendly café full of chef’s hats and aprons, pots and pans, checkered tablecloths, and chalkboard menus, kids explore the Bible as a cookbook filled with recipes for living out God’s word. Through interactive lessons, that are easy for kids to apply to their lives today, boys and girls will celebrate biblical festivals that reveal ingredients for being a follower of God.

All Children and Adults are Welcome

Sunday July 24 through Thursday 28^th.

All family members and friends are invited to the Thursday final night Celebration and graduation program and meal.

5:30 light supper served

6:00 to 8:00 break out sections with puppet, music, story, mission, discovery, craft, and games for kids and an adult class following the same theme.

Our SHAKE IT UP CAFÉ Carry Out order:

Take the love of Jesus and share it with everyone.

Join us for four evenings of Shake it Up!  Where we learn to carry out God’s recipe!  We are trying something new at the request of our youth.  They would like to have their own VBS before the children’s VBS.  The youth have said that as much as they love working in VBS being on staff, they don’t want to miss any of the fun or the Bible stories!  Yes.  That’s what they said.  We will study the same Bible stories the children and adults will be studying, but these lessons are named at youth.  We will learn how to be ready for God’s call, give happily to God and others, believe in Jesus as God’s son, and remember Jesus’ life and teachings.  While we are learning, we will also be preparing for the children to come the following week.  God calls us to shake up our lives and follow Him!  Come learn with us how to carry out God’s recipe.

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