What is an Agape Meal?  The Agape Meal, or Love Feast, is a Christian fellowship meal that is often practiced in Covenant Discipleship groups or other small groups.

The New Handbook of the Christian Year gives this definition: “A simple, ritual meal in the context of which hymns are sung, Scripture is read, and testimonies and stories of faith are shared. John Wesley instituted this after the Moravian pattern. All such meals derive from Jewish and early church meals such as are referred to by Paul, and they symbolize the unity of fellowship in the love of Christ which the saints at rest will share. Signs of the agape are the loving cup and bread.”

Ash Wednesday emphasizes two themes: our sinfulness before God and our human mortality. The service focuses on both themes, helping us to realize that both have been triumphed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

During some Ash Wednesday services, the minister will lightly rub the sign of the cross with ashes onto the foreheads of worshipers. The use of ashes as a sign of mortality and repentance has a long history in Jewish and Christian worship. Historically, ashes signified purification and sorrow for sins.

It is traditional to save the palm branches from the previous Palm Sunday service to burn to produce ashes for this service. Sometimes a small card or piece of paper is distributed on which each person writes a sin or hurtful or unjust characteristic. The cards are then brought to the altar to be burned with the palm branches. The ash cross on the forehead is an outward sign of our sorrow and repentance for sins.

-Adapted from The United Methodist Book of Worship

St. Valentine was a Christian priest and martyr who lived about A.D. 270. The Roman emperor at the time was Claudius II. Claudius had been a successful general. He would not allow his soldiers to marry, because he wanted to make sure they could go to battle quickly. He thought family ties would make the men reluctant to leave home. Because Valentine promoted marriage and family life, he was jailed and later convicted of going against the orders of the emperor. He was martyred on February 14, the day we remember him and our loved ones.

While he was in jail, the jailer’s daughter befriended him. He wrote her a letter of appreciation and signed it “Your Valentine.” The tradition of exchanging valentines grew out of that heartfelt gesture.

The Finance Committee is responsible for the financial health of our church.  To help fulfill that responsibility, the Committee has prepared the following Goal and Action Plans for this year:

GOAL: 

• Develop additional funds to meet our established church missionary programs.

ACTION PLANS

• Increase efforts to grow new visitor attendance and church membership.  Coordinate with Brenda Bishop, Chair for Come and See.
• Identify and implement new fund raising projects.
• Solicit donations with emphasis on companies we do business with and Foundations.
• Keep church congregation informed periodically of our financial position and seek their help.  (Participation in one or more of our fund raising efforts; increasing their pledged or non-pledged contributions.)

We encourage everyone in our church to join in with your help and ideas.  Just contact any one of the Finance Committee members to get started. The important thing to remember is that we are all disciples of God.  And with everyone’s help we can successfully continue to fund all of our missionary programs.

Bob Fisher

On-Call Parish Nurse Schedule

This is a schedule of the parish nurse that is on-call for the needs of our congregation.

• Jan. 23-Feb 6    Nancy Nelson
• Feb. 6-Feb. 20    Deb Stone
• Feb. 20-March 5    Gloria Ivey

Did you know that heart disease kills more women in Oklahoma each year than all forms of cancer combined?

Every year heart disease claims the lives of 460,000 women in our country. In fact, it’s the No. 1 killer of American women, and that means that someone’s mom, aunt, sister or dear friend will lose her life this year.  The National Wear Red Day is Friday, February 3, 2012.  And the Go Red Sunday is February 5. We are asking you to join us in supporting this event by wearing red those days — men included!  This is a great way to kick off the Heart Month, a time for us all to jump start OR continue a heart healthy lifestyle. This month there will be handouts available and information on the bulletin board to help answer your questions you may have about our state’s and nation’s number one concern.

Here are a few tips to get started (with your doctors pleasing, of course):

1. Move more with a goal to moving for at least 30 minutes 5 days a week. You can break this up in 10 minute intervals if needed at first.
2. Eat smart by adding more fresh fruits and vegetables to your diet. Avoid those quick fatty meals that leave you groggy! Add fiber and reduce sugar intake.
3. Sleep more! Can’t sleep? Check with your doctor to see if you have sleep apnea.
4. Lose a few as carrying extra weight saps your energy and increases the work load on your heart and increases blood pressure.
5. Lighten up! Managing stress can be one of the most important step for all of us.

 See you at church wearing RED!

At a special dinner, Gomes found himself sitting next to “a very large football player.”  Trying to make light conversation, Gomes asked him what he did.  The young man answered that he worked in sports theory.  Intrigued, Gomes asked him what sports theory was all about, and Gomes said that he explained it in simple enough terms that even he understood.  Gomes learned “that is was the process of imaging, of getting the brain to play through all the right plays over and over and over again, to anticipate and to respond in the brain so that the plays and the actions are patterned, and that by the time you actually do a play, on that one time the brain doesn’t know that you haven’t done it dozens and dozens of times before, and so has perfected your ability to perform.  It isn’t practice, this kid said to me, it’s imaging.”

Football players do this.  Musicians do this.  Public speakers do this.  Why can’t Christians do this?  What would it be like for you and me to image a life that is Christ-like, to invite our brains to play through a day that is courageous, a spirit that is repentant, a compassionate heart, and loving words.  Over and over again we can imagine such a life and as the pattern settles itself not only in our brains but in our hearts, then perfection of love becomes something to be grasped, if even for a moment.

Imaging a life of love is more than practicing in our minds what it might look like.  It is making real in our hearts a life that God calls us to perfect now.  May God engender in us the desire to do so, not only so that may experience a quality of life that is beautiful, but so that others may feel our love and believe and know a quality of life they have not known before.                  Peace, Tracy

]]> http://www.shumc-tulsa.com/2012/02/10/the-image-of-a-loving-life/feed/ 0 http://www.shumc-tulsa.com/2012/02/10/computer-class/ http://www.shumc-tulsa.com/2012/02/10/computer-class/#comments Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:21:15 +0000 FisherCreative http://www.shumc-tulsa.com/?p=955 Do you have questions about your computer programs, iPhone, iPad, or Facebook?   Tracy is offering her amateur expertise to help those who have questions about their electronic device or a program on Wednesday, Feb. 8th at 10 am at the church.