Enthusiastically United Methodist

8^th Sunday after Pentecost
Just these lines, my friends …

… to say what a special day celebrating Madeline Kamp in worship and then afterwards in The Commons. The morning came with surprises as well, with two of our former pastors, Ken Lyon and Linda Kelly coming along to honor Madeline. Click here to watch our Deep Kids celebrating Madeline by singing “This Little Light of Mine.”

We are going to miss her so. Thank you, Madeline for all the years of your life invested in children and all of us.

We also want to celebrate and recognize Becky Stegall, our Communications Assistant, who will be leaving Church staff to serve at Christian Adoption Services. Her last day with us will be Wednesday, July 21. She began serving on staff with Youth Ministry in 2008, and most recently supported Pastor Brad with Global Impact efforts and our Communications Ministry. We wish Becky all the best in her new endeavors!

I love that scene in the old television series Sanford and Son where Fred has called the doctor but wasn’t sure what kind of doctor he wanted or what he got. The doctor introduced himself by saying, “I’m a pediatrician” … to which Fred said, “Glad to know you; I’m a Methodist myself!”

Well, Fred, I’m thankful to be a Methodist as well.

Speaking of being a Methodist, we’re off to a good start in our summer series, “Why I am Enthusiastically a United Methodist Christian.” If you missed Sunday, you can watch here.

Wednesday Devotional

I hope you’ll also take a few minutes to watch my “Why I am Enthusiastically a United Methodist Christian – Part 1” devotional for today.  We’ve created these videos to supplement what we are doing on Sunday mornings. Please here to watch.

Important Dates for Your Calendar

• July 18 – Open House through the morning for our new Memorial Garden/Columbarium
• July 25 – We will be celebrating Habitat for Humanity during worship and the many persons who made possible the most recent Habitat build.
• August 17 – Community Forum at Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, 7 pm.
• August 21 – Our 6^th Annual Hug-A-Cop Event at Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church. Drop in 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm for wonderful food and around the table conversations with friends from Mt. Moriah, First Baptist Matthews, Cross and Crown Lutheran and Matthews Presbyterian. All to say thank you to law enforcement in our community.
• August 22 – Back to School/Church celebration.
• August 29 – 5^th Sunday Fellowship with our friends from Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist.
• September 12 – Our 8:15 am worship service will return.

This Sunday in Worship

We invite you to join us in person or online this Sunday at 9:30 am (contemporary), 11:00 am (traditional) or 12:30 (Spanish – in person only).

In our Spanish-speaking CCH community, Pastor Roldan will be preaching from I Samuel 22:1-5 with his message titled, We Still Have a Lot to Learn.

At 9:30 am and 11:00 am, we continue with our summer series, Why I am Enthusiastically a United Methodist Christian. Pastor Paul will be preaching and his sermon is titled Because I am a Work in Progress from Philippians 2:12-13.

In addition, I’m so excited for the debut of our Matthews United Methodist Orchestra this Sunday, July 18. They will be playing a beautiful arrangement of Great is Thy Faithfulness. Craig Estep, our Director of Worship and the Arts says, “We’re so fortunate to have such incredible talent here at Matthews. I love the idea that we can count on their gifts to worship God together.”

The Wilson family will gather this next week in Blowing Rock. There will be 13 of us, including Karen, Chuck, our four kids, spouses, grandchildren, Grandpa and MacKenzie’s (our youngest) special new boyfriend. Oh my! You’ve heard the stories before about how vacation weeks can be quite the adventure for us. Will we survive seven days together? Who knows? … but there will be stories and memories.

And now, as we are excitedly making our way slowly and carefully out of a global pandemic, may we never forget to remember … God does God’s best work in moments like this.

We are in this … together,
Dr. Charles (Chuck) W. Wilson II

Did you know that John and Valarie Ross were honored with the Village of Lake Park’s 2021 Hometown Heroes Award on July 4? The award is given not only for their contributions to the Village of Lake Park, but also for their service to the community outside of the village. The Ross family has been a part of Matthews United Methodist since 1991. Congratulations, John and Valarie.

Did you know that Bob and Ann Haegele, another wonderful MUMC family, were recipients of the same award in 2019?

Did you know that the children and parents at Deep Family Worship made their own Stain Glass Window depicting their thanks and love for Miss Madeline on her last day with us? What a special gift for her to treasure!

Did you know that there have been 1741 confirmands under Madeline’s leadership? What a legacy Madeline leaves of bringing young people to Christ!