Summer Reading: Journeying through Acts

Many of us look for a good book or two to accompany us on vacation or to occupy our imaginations during the long days of summer. So this summer, Boone UMC will be reading through the book of Acts. TheActs of the Apostlesis a theological story thatdepicts how the earliest Christians made sense of what God had done in Christ Jesus, how that was in continuity with what God had been doing in and through Israel, and how the earliest of Christ’s followers would sort out living life together as Church.

Acts is an adventure filled with arguments and debates, miraculous conversions, martyrdom, storms,shipwrecks, imprisonments, and theamazing beginnings of the Church. Our series, Summer Reading, will begin Sunday, June 4th and run for 11 weeks. A reading plan will be available to guide your daily or weekly reading. Come join usas we walktogether through this amazing book.

They Will Know We Are Christians by….

Somewhere along the way we became convinced that we need only to say that we are Christian, that words alone should convince others of our faithfulness to Christ. But are words aloneenough? Annie Dillard once observed, “Jesus told us…that his disciples are to be salt and light in the world. We have to shine if we follow Christ. We have to be salt.“

Words do matter, but, words alone are not enough. Words about Jesus divorced from a life that resembles Jesus areempty piety and can even be harmful. The best witness to our faith, to our relationship with Christ, is when our words and our lives are in sync. Join us during the month of
May when we’ll explore the theme”They’ll Know we are Christians…”.

Disordered Love

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We all love a lot of things and sometimes we get our loves out of order. For instance, when we allow the love of being popular to hinder the way in which we love our friends, that is sin or “disordered love”. For the Sundays of Lent, March 5 – April 9, we will explore several ways in which our love can be “disordered”.

Historically known as the seven deadly sins – pride, envy, wrath, gluttony, lust, greed, and apathy – are expressions of disordered love. They undermine and distort the perfect love of God and neighbor to which we have been called and they diminish our lives and the lives of others. Jesus walks the way of perfectly ordered love for us and through his cross and resurrection makes it possible for us to love well. Join us as we prepare for Easter and the celebration of God’s perfect love.

March 5 Gluttony Matthew 6:16 – 18, 25 – 33
March 12 Greed Psalm 49, Luke 12:13 – 21
March 19 Lust Matthew 5:27 – 30, Galatians 5:13 – 25
March 26 Wrath Proverbs 29: 11, Ephesians 4:25 – 32
April 2 Envy Genesis 4:1– 10, James 3:13 – 18
April 9 Pride Matthew

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New Sermon Series – Pray Like Jesus

Prayer changes us, so much so that Jesus taught his followers how to pray. And a risky prayer it is, calling on us to place our trust in God, to confess our sins, and to forgive others. Beginning January 1, we’ll walk through the Lord’s Prayer and consider what it means have our lives shaped by the words first found on Jesus’ lips. Is there any better way to begin a new year than learning to pray like Jesus?