Tinney Chapel Today

TINNEY CHAPEL KIDS PERFORMED AS SANTA AND MRS. CLAUS during our church's Christmas variety show. Here, Parker Smith, left, appeared as Mrs. Claus, and Kenny Mattox played to rave reviews in the role of Santa Claus. In today's children's sermon, Tinney Chapel Senior Pastor Duncan Graham reflected with the kids on the true meaning of Christmas. In today's adult sermon, the Pastor offered suggestions on making the most of a clean slate provided by the challenge of a New Year. Photo by Jami Smith.




CHAPEL NEWS: January 2, 2005.

NEW WAY TO KEEP RECORDS OF SUNDAY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE INTRODUCED today. Each Sunday School Class has been issued an attendance notebook which is intended to help Tinney Chapel UMC make accurate reports of attendance to the District and Conference offices. Each Sunday School Class Teacher is requested to ensure that all attendees sign in each week and post the daily total on that page as well. It may seem an inconvenience, but it will be worth it. The notebook remains in your classroom, where it will be checked weekly by Tinney Chapel officers. Thanks in advance to all!

DISTRICT TRAINING AT FIRST UMC, SULPHUR SPRINGS

ALL CHURCH OFFICERS URGED TO ATTEND.

SATURDAY, JAN. 8

Registration & fellowship: 8:30 a.m.—9:00 a.m.
Opening Worship Service: 9:00 a.m.—9:45 a.m.
Connectional Reports: 9:45 a.m.—11:00 a.m.
Morning Workshops: 11:00 a.m.—12:30 p.m.

Lunch ($5.00 each) catered by Chicken Express, Cokesbury Store & Connectional Displays.

BIBLE READINGS TODAY

Readings for Epiphany Sunday: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12.

SUNDAY WORSHIP TODAY

MORNING SERVICE, 9:00 A.M.

Greeters: Bobbie Hollingsworth & Frankie Brewer.

Soundman: Bob Deitering.

Ushers: Frankie Brewer & Bobbie Hollingsworth.

MUSIC

Pianist: Pat Hollingsworth.

Songleader for hymns: John Futral.

Songs: I Will Sing The Wondrous Story; At The Cross; The Old Rugged Cross; Near The Cross (a Fanny Crosby Hymn).

Morning Prayer & Lord’s Prayer: Pastor Duncan Graham

LITURGY BY ASSOCIATE PASTOR GENE MILLER:
Call To Worship
Offertory Prayer
Doxology
Gloria Patri
Apostles Creed

CHILDREN’S SERMON TODAY: 01-02-04

Senior Pastor Rev. Duncan Graham’s sermon to the children today was a question-and-answer exercise about the Christmas Season.

“What did you get for Christmas?” he asked. Then: “What did you get that you really like?” The answers, slow in coming, were varied: A robe, a video game. “Did anyone get coal and switches?” asked the Pastor, playfully. Then the Pastor turned serious: “Thirty to fifty years from now, you will reflect and remember the years when you got certain things for Christmas.

“But, you know there’s one gift we have already received that just keeps on giving: Like the Energizer Bunny,” said the Pastor. “Of course, that’s Jesus Christ and the Salvation we have because He lives in our hearts. Salvation continues forever, with no end. Always remember that it’s the most important thing in your life.

“Christmas pageants will also loom large in your life,” said Pastor Graham. “You will look back and remember the pageants you participated in to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.”

In his closing prayer, the Pastor asked the Lord to help us all image Christ and make Him evident to others in our own lives. He acknowledged Jesus as the greatest gift in each of our lives and prayed that we bless the Name of the Lord all the days of our lives.

ADULT SERMON TODAY

Pastor Graham’s adult sermon today might very well have been titled, “The Amazing Maze.” In it, he discussed the twists, turns, bends, crooks and blind alleys we encounter as we search for the Righteous Path in our walk through life as committed Christians. The first question we normally ask ourselves, explained the Pastor, is just what are our goals?

“Before finding Jesus Christ, we might think of creature comforts as a primary goal,” he explained. “Or, we might think of a certain degree of happiness with as few backtracks or sorrows as possible.” Unspoken in the Pastor’s analogy might be the notion that, absent a strong Christian faith, backtracks might quickly lead to backslides!

“Somewhere along the way, however, we find Jesus, accept Him as Lord and Savior, and we then begin to understand that our way of life is not necessarily the way to go,” said the Pastor. “Rather, we should be seeking His Way. Once we know Jesus, we realize that Jesus is all we need to know to make our journey a success. Still, we usually must endure lots of trial and error before we ever get it right. I doubt that anyone, other than Jesus, ever got it completely right from start to finish. Instead, we have to back up, regroup, re-track and start over in a different direction from time to time.

“We soon learn that God’s grace allows us to keep doing all that, and He gives us the strength to do it,” added Pastor Graham. “I realize that you may not often hear a voice telling you that you are on the right way during your walk. But, thank God for the times when that does happen, for we are often walking in what seems like a maze. I’m going to read now from Ephesians 2:1-10:

1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

---New King James Version

“The point here,” said Pastor Graham, “is that God has a plan for all of our lives. He knew us before we were born into this world, and His plan for us was already in place. But, even with the existence of a plan, it isn’t certain that it will work unless we agree to it. We can try to avoid buying into His plan for us. We can neglect the plan. I expect we have all tried to walk away from the plan, in favor of our own plan! That’s when we get lost in a maze. That’s when we encounter dead ends or brick walls. Instead of walking against God’s plan for us, we need to buy into it and walk in agreement with it.

“God has protected us,” emphasized the Pastor. “He promises us the riches of His grace, but we have no idea what Heaven will be like. Personally, I think He also has a plan for each of us in Heaven, and that each of us will be doing different things according to different schedules. In other words, we will not likely all be sitting around on clouds playing harps in Heaven. But the Apostle Paul gives us cause to look ahead and rejoice! Paul tells us that God has already caused us to be seated in heavenly realms with Jesus Christ, in this life.

“And what does the Lord require of us,” the Pastor asked, rhetorically, quoting from Micah 6:8 where we learn the answer: To love mercy, act justly and walk humbly with our God if we are to reach God’s way of life. To realize God’s purpose for our lives, we must walk by faith in Jesus Christ. That is a way that has fewer dead ends, fewer bumps and bruises. He gives us this way. You will not always know what the Lord wants. If you are close to the Lord, spiritually, you may know what He wants! But there will always be times you have to walk by faith, and not really know.

“One goal we need to pursue is that of peace,” added the Pastor. “If we don’t have peace in our lives, we need to find it. God’s plan for our lives may call for us to reach one or more particular people, to do things for them. If we follow all these clues, we have a chance to find fulfillment, joy, peace and all the fruits of the Spirit. As we walk, we should constantly be discerning the Will of God as best we can through the creativity He creates within each of us. We most often do this by using the love and faith we have in ways to enrich the lives of others!

“I’ve never been big on New Year’s Resolutions,” confessed Pastor Graham, who indicated that he never saw much evidence that those who do make such Resolutions actually are successful in keeping them. “Still, each New Year does offer us an opportunity to turn over a new leaf. The old slate is gone, and while we can not change yesterday, we have some power over today and tomorrow. When we walk in His way, we may find ourselves walking out of our comfort zones, and that can be good for us. It may cause us to stretch ourselves in finding new ways to give love and support, and to minister to others: family, friends, strangers.

“We should look for ways and means to serve others while walking in faith in God and Jesus Christ,” added the Pastor. “I believe the greatest way to serve God, other than worship, is to serve others. It can be our chief expression of service to God, our offering to God. Part of God’s plan is to save us, all of us, if we are willing.”

In his closing prayer, Pastor Graham said, “Oh, gracious, heavenly Father, we pray that you will indeed reveal to us Your Will, by Your Word, prayer or meditation. By Your Spirit, draw us close, that we may be more obedient. Amen.”

CLASSES TODAY

SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS TOPICS

WISE ONES, Frankie Brewer: Spreading The Good News.


LADIES BYKOTA, Peggy Boyd: The Kingdom Of God.


Tinney Chapel Men, Bill Knoop: The Case For Christ, a study by Lee Strobel. (A multiple-week study.)


OVERCOMERS: Jenna Nelson: The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. (A multiple-week study.)


YOUTH: Ronny Ellison for Stephen Graham: Life.


CHILDREN: Linda Hallman: New Challenges.


The Remnant Class, Joe Dan Boyd: NOAH’S LEGACY: Genesis 10:1-6.

The Remnant Class handout is below:

REMNANT RIGHTEOUSNESS (Life Lessons # 250)

Take home lessons from studying Genesis 10:

1. Commentator Vernon McGee calls this a chapter of genealogies, of families, which are the origin of the nations of the world, and apologizes (sort of) for giving it short shrift when measured by space.

2. “It is far more important than the space I’m giving it,” confesses McGee, especially if one is interested in ethnology and anthropology and the story of mankind on the earth.


3. He tells us, McGee does, of a master’s degree by one H. S. Miller, who charted the origin of the nations, using Genesis 10 as a basis for the threefold division of the human family, revealed to us by the three sons of Noah: Ham, Shem and Japheth.

4. In his short commentary, McGee also says it is clear that neither the sons of Japheth nor the sons of Ham ever made up what some call the “lost” 10 Tribes of Israel.


5. In his brief commentary, McGee also refers back to the curse on Canaan (from the previous chapter and our lesson last week), but says he is not prepared to speculate on why the curse was on Canaan and not on any of the other sons of Ham.

TODAY’S DATE: 01-02-05

The Remnant
Sunday School Class
Tinney Chapel UMC
Winnsboro, Texas

ASSIGNMENT FOR NEXT SUNDAY, JAN. 9, 2005

READ GENESIS 10:7-32

Afterwards, reflect upon these things:

1. The sons of Japheth.
2. The sons of Ham.
3. The sons of Shem.

HOLY COMMUNION WAS SERVED DURING TODAY’S WORSHIP SERVICE


LEADERSHIP LIST 2005


(updated by Nominating Committee 12-16-04, approved by Administrative Council 12-20-04, distributed in church today, January 2, 2005)

Chair of Adm. Council: Marcella Salter; (Ex Officio member of Finance Committee)

Assistant Chair of Adm. Council, L. R. Kemp

Lay Leader: David Stanton; (Ex Officio: Nominations, Finance, PPR)

Assistant Lay Leader, Donna Futral

Treasurer: Elaine Knoop; (Ex Officio: Finance)

Financial Secretary: Peggy Boyd; (Ex Officio: Finance)

Recording Secretary: Carolyn Beavers

Membership Secretary: Josephine Garrett; Assistant, Angela Wylie

Chair – Children’s Ministries: Sadie Jordan; Assistant, Heidi Crow

Chair – Youth Ministries: Donna Futral; Assistant Chair, L. R. Kemp

Chair – Education: ____vacant_____________

Chair – Evangelism: Bob Deitering

Chair – Family Ministries : Jenna Nelson, Gabrielle Mattox

Chair – Golden Ministries: Mary Marrs

Chair--Missions: John Futral

Chair – Sunshine: Frankie Brewer

Chair – Telephone Committee: Linda Stevens

Lennie Norlock

Mary Marrs/Imogene Myers

Lou Wilkerson

Chair – Stewardship: Charles & Sherri Brewer

Communications Coordinator: Joe Dan Boyd

Print Newsletter Editor: Zonnie Griffin

Bulletin & Calendar Editor: Elaine Knoop.

Lay Members, Annual Conference: Elaine Graham; Joe Dan Boyd, Rule 5, Agency Chair.

Worship Committee:

Angela Wylie (chair), Helen Miller, Elaine Knoop, Roger Schneider, Elaine Graham. Communion Stewards: Josephine Garrett & Wanda Hardin. Pianist & Choir: Pat Hollingsworth.

Finance Committee:

Zonnie Griffin (chair), Linda Burdett, Don Norlock, Treasurer,
Financial Secretary, Chair – Stewardship, Trustees Representative, Chair of Ad Council, Pastor, Lay Leader (David Stanton).

Pastor-Parish Relations Committee:

Lay Member – Annual Conference (NV)

2005 Mollie Stanton 2005 David Wylie

2006 Dick Beavers 2006 ____vacant_______

2007 John Futral (chair) 2007 Jenna Nelson

Trustees:

Pastor (NV) Trustees to elect chair & finance rep.

2005 Mickey Tinney 2005 Bob Deitering 2005 Randy Stanley

2006 Marcella Salter 2006 Cheryl Ann Newton

2007 Bill Knoop 2007 Dick Beavers

Nominations Committee:

Pastor (chair), Lay Leader

2005 Angela Wylie 2005 Carolyn Beavers

2006 David Stanton 2006 Joe Dan Boyd

2007* Charles Brewer 2007* Ronny Ellison

* nominated (and approved) from the floor at charge conference

NV = Non Voting Member