Our new series that begins this week is called "All Things New" and it reminds us that church isn't just a place that we go to, but something we do. It's also a verb, not just a noun. We're changed when we have an encounter with the resurrected Jesus, who doesn't just transform us for a moment, but into something new forever. And our newness isn't something that we keep only to ourselves, but something that's shared as a part of a community, a family of faith and humanity, that is held together and sent out into the world by the Spirit. So, how will be this new thing that the resurrection of Jesus has called us to be as we "do church?" Let's look at how we can be a part of making "all things new."

This Lent and Easter, we are focusing on the life and faith of one of Jesus’ most famous disciples. In Peter, we see a person who is both steadfast and unsteady, a dear friend and a betrayer, a follower and a wanderer. In Peter, we often see ourselves. Peter's journey is an imperfect one, but one that keeps him with Jesus all the same. By following Peter’s journey, we watch the story of Jesus unfold through the eyes of a very normal human trying to figure it all out, just like us.

We have a month between the end of Christmas and the beginning of Lent, and sometimes this time of year gets lost between recovering from one holiday and getting ready for the next. It might even seem like God takes a break and we don’t hear from the Divine during this downtime. However, our Creator doesn’t take a break and is still speaking to us. So, for the next few weeks together, our theme is listening. Listening and action feed each other as grace forms us into the people of God. We’ll be looking for ways to create space for listening that connects with the call to act justly and kindly.

In our previous message series, we looked at how rejoicing is a large part of living into God's love for us. Now, as God's love comes to be with and for us as Jesus, we're going to be journeying through the story of Jesus' birth in Luke where we see example after example of rejoicing being a part of Jesus' life from the very beginning. We remember the lyrics to that classic Christmas hymn 'O Holy Night' where we sing "a thrill of hope the weary world rejoices" and look for the places in this world that allow us to be rooted in rejoicing as we celebrate the birth of God With Us: Emmanuel.

This week, we'll be kicking off a new series called "Marathon." We're in this time where summer is over, school has started, and the holidays are still a couple months away. It's a time where things can begin to feel kinda like a drag. And we can start to feel that way about our own faith as well. In between the big events in the life of the church, these ordinary days can feel so very boring and it's easy for us to slip out of our faith into a sense of complacency. And this is where we are reminded that our faith, and life in general, is a marathon, not a sprint. No matter how much we might want to run to the "next big thing" we can't. Things will happen in their time, and we have to find ways to maintain our faith throughout the entire journey, not just at the high points. So, we'll be journeying through Exodus and the people who were heading to the promised land. They, too, were eager to get to their destination and started to get worn down during the time between "the great escape" and the "promised land." What can we learn from what they went through, to help us continue to sustain our faith and not let it slip in the down times?

What is the book of Revelation about, really? This is a question that a lot of folks ask. When you read through it, it appears to be this book filled with frightening imagery, confusing symbols, and violent prophesies. Many of us have been taught that Revelation is all about the future; that Revelation is a book that tells what will eventually happen at the end of time. The end result is that most of us avoid it entirely. Or, if we do try to read it, we get through it and don’t understand most of what we read. What if I were to tell you that the Revelation of John is not some scary book about war and the Antichrist and plagues happening on all people left here after the rapture (which the rapture isn’t even in the Bible, it’s a made up thing inserted by theologians to explain away other things) and is instead a book written to a people who were in a time of dire trouble, threat of violence, and horrible fear. What if I were to tell you that Revelation is not a book telling us what is going to happen in the future, but is instead a book that seeks to tell us that even when the world has thrown its worst at us, God is still God, good will still win over evil, and the Divine will always be working to make sure the worst of things is never the last of things? I’d like to invite you to join us over the next several weeks as we break down the book of Revelation and see what it is, and isn’t, about. I think you might be surprised. It might move from becoming the book you knew nothing about and avoided to one of your most favorite promises in the Bible. We’d love for you to be our guest.

There are all sorts of stories we see in the Bible of redemption, of change, and of hope. We’ll be looking at four of those stories and see how we can transform difficult times in our life for the better through Christ and each other. Because no matter how many times we may fall down, Christ is always there to help us rise up from our doubts, our denials, our judgments, and our conflicts. Join us as we look for all the ways we can rise up.

This week, we're going to be starting a new message series here at Fredericktown United Methodist Church called "Connect." This is a series where we learn about how we United Methodists practice our faith through our membership vows. We are a connectional church, meaning we believe in supporting, helping, and leaning on each other in order to accomplish things that are greater than we ever could on our own. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said that there is no holiness but social holiness, meaning that holiness is something we receive in and through community. Journeying through our membership vows, we will learn about how we can connect to God, to each other, and to our community through our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Join with us as we learn about being uniquely United Methodist.

We're starting a new series here at Fredericktown United Methodist Church this week called "Who are we?" Throughout Lent, we worked on the spiritual process of asking. We asked questions of Jesus and had questions asked of us. All of that culminated with the celebration of Easter Sunday where the questions we asked helped us to see what we need to let go of so that we can pick up resurrection and share that life with everyone we meet.

So, now as we enter into Eastertide as a resurrection people, what does that mean for us? What does it mean to carry resurrection with us into the world and how does that shape our identity? In the grand plan of God's work in this world: who are we and what is the part we have to play? I hope you'll join us over the next several weeks as we learn together about who we are in the light of the resurrection.

We're kicking off a brand-new series this week that will take us all the way through Lent called: Asking. Through our lectionary Scriptures, we're going to see these moments when someone asks Jesus a question or Jesus asks them a question. In each of these question-filled moments, the people are seeking something that they need in their lives and looking for answers. So, this Lent, we're going to focus on asking questions. They won't always be easy to ask, but they'll help us to find what we need. Let us engage in the holy and spiritual practice of asking.