Consider yourself in a new career.  You welcome weary travelers, wash dishes, distribute underwear and toiletries, and listen patiently to the stories of difficult journeys.  Is this the kind of work that appeals to you?  Why not join us this Friday night at APMUMC and see if you have a future in inn keeping. You might be able to get in on the ground floor of a growing and challenging field.  The work isn’t that hard, your co-workers will show you the ropes, and the benefits are out of this world!

Call Judy or Emalie if you are interested in an inn keeping internship. 615-403-8455

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

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.

Please come!

We will hold our next Administrative Council meeting on February 20th, right after the worship service.

Committee chairs, our focus will be on our finances, so please look at your plans and programs in terms of finances so we can make good plans together.

Everyone is welcome to attend.  You do not have to be a council member.  If you have concerns, or questions, or ideas, please let someone on the council know.  We have some financial challenges right now, which I think are probably temporary.  We have some wonderful opportunities.  If you are not currently a council member, please consider serving on the council.  We can do even more for our community and beyond, when everyone is involved.

Grace and Peace,
Emalie

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

Our recent Council Retreat focused on discovering our unique gifts and exploring where they lead us in ministry. Everyone on the council was asked to complete a rather lengthy survey compiled by Charles V. Bryant.  As a council, our strengths are perhaps not surprising, or perhaps they are astonishing!  Out of 32 listed in the survey, here are our council’s top ten:

10.  Pastor
9.  Spirit-Music
8.  Discernment
7.  Humor
6,  Faith
5.  Hospitality
4.  Administration
3.  Leadership
2.  Teaching
1.  Service

Does anything on the list surprise you?  Do you think something is missing?  If you are interested in taking Bryant’s survey, we have several copies available.

How do you see God calling us into ministry here at Hickory Bend UMC?  Where do your gifts call you into the Church and into the world?

Isn’t it wonderful to have a congregation, gifted and called into service to celebrate our ministry?

Emalie

Are you looking for a new career?  Probably not.  Are you looking for a new way to serve the least of these?  Probably so.

Please join us for our last Room in the Inn for the season.  Come and see what innkeepers do.  We would love to have a cadre of innkeepers trained for Room in the Inn next year.  Do you have a couple of hours to come visit and see what we do?  Come to Andrew Price UMC any time after 5:30 Friday night, March 26.  Bring your children or your friends.  Bring anyone who would like to see what happens when you offer hospitality to those most precious to our Lord.  You will be amazed.  You might not find a new career, but the benefits are out of this world!

Call Judy or Emalie