A Message from the Pastor
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Happy September!
I am in a study group with other clergy on the District looking at a document called "Wonder, Love and Praise: Sharing a Vision of the Church". It is a document created by the Committee on Faith and Order of the United Methodist Church. It is a wonderful document outlining our beliefs as Methodists and how we might come to a shared vision of who we are moving forward.
In reading and studying it, I am reminded of why I became a pastor. I believe in the church. I believe that the church was created to be the body of Christ to the world. That the potential of the church is far beyond what we might understand. If you think about the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, our belief in the church comes right after our belief in the Holy Spirit.
Wonder Love and Praise describes it well when it says "The life of the church is a sharing in the life of the Triune God, and the mission of the church is to communicate that possibility to a world in need: to serve as "sign and servant" (25, p. 15) of God's saving presence
to the world." This sharing has a Greek word we use called "koinonia". It is translated
"communion," "sharing, "participation," "partaking," "fellowship," and "community." Koinonia is what the church exists for and what it is called to offer the world.
Throughout October, you will hear us talk about stewardship of our finances. This is the time of year we ask the congregation to make pledges for what they could give to the church in the year ahead. It helps us to know how we can be the church in the community; how we will be able to serve those in need; how we will be able to staff ourselves to continue to extend koinonia to our community; how we can fund ministries that will reach out to all people. I want you to prayerfully consider how you will give to God and help support the church that God has ordained to be the body of Christ. I believe in the church and, as your pastor, I will continue to lead in ways that will help those who enter these doors experience God's love and in turn communicate that love and grace to a world in need. May we share in that mission together!!
Blessings!
Pastor Jason
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Youth Group meets each Sunday from 5 to 7pm for food, fellowship and following Christ. Here are a few upcoming dates to highlight on your calendar:
- Sunday, October 8th is our Second Sunday Service. Youth will be assembling 100 school back packs to be taken to UMCOR. (This activity counts toward service hours for school or scouts)
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Sunday, Oct 29th is our 2nd Annual Pumpkin Fest at Miss Anne's house to include: A pumpkin carving contest, capture the flag, camp fire and marshmallow roasting.
- Friday, Nov 10th- Sat Nov 11th: Youth Lock-in. Games, activities, a movie and lots of snacks are just a few of things we will do in this fun overnight event.
(Some photos from bowling last Sunday!)
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Confirmation (Open to 7th-12th Grades)
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What is The Journey? It is the name of the Burke UMC Confirmation process!
Confirmation refers to the decision a person makes to respond to God's grace with intentional commitment, publicly reaffirming his or her baptismal vows before the congregation and becoming members of the church. The confirmation ceremony will occur on Palm Sunday this year! It is the first public affirmation of the grace of God in one's baptism and the acknowledgement of one's acceptance of that grace by faith. In other words, the confirmand is taking responsibility for living as a member of the body of Christ and for fulfilling God's purposes in his/her life. The confirmation process includes fun weekly classes, an opportunity to build new friendships, ask questions, discuss ideas, visit other faith communities, and more!
The kickoff meeting will occur on October 29 after church! Please sign up in the entryway to participate. To learn more - visit the Confirmation web page or see Ellen Quisenberry (Confirmation Coordinator) or Pastor Katie.
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Sign up in the entryway to attend!
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Burke Gives Back
Helping Feed Hungry People
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We are so excited about the response we are receiving about our Burke Gives Back event! Over 190 community members have signed up on line to pack meals with Rise against Hunger, and many of the volunteer opportunities have also been picked up by members of the community.
How can you help:
- There are still volunteer slots open-visit burkegivesback.org and click on the "volunteer here" button
- We will be accepting donations of non-perishable food at Terra Centre that day-drop yours off between 9:00 and 1:00 and see what's going on!
- If you want to support the event financially, you can do that on the website (click the "Donate" button) or you can drop a check in the offering plate and note in the memo line "Burke Gives Back"
- Continue to pray for this event. Our challenge has been to reach out into the community and we are hoping this will be the first of many events we can organize that will educate and benefit our community!
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Join Chancel Choir for Christmas Music Kickoff Rehearsal on Saturday, October 14, 10 AM - 12 PM.
New members welcome!
Contact Tammy for more information.
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Mission Marketplace
A Craft Fair with a Purpose
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New to Missions Marketplace this year is that all proceeds will be sent to UMCOR to support hurricane victims.
Please join us that day-do some holiday gift-buying and support the life-giving work of UMCOR!
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Children's Ministry
Kristin Kelso, Children's Ministry Coordinator
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Children are inherently curious. They view the world around them with wide-eyes and a seemingly unending string of "why" questions. Capitalizing on this curiosity is a great way to teach empathy for the world around us. You can plant good seeds of knowledge within the hearts and minds of your children when it comes to understanding and applying good stewardship principles.
Teach them to put others first. When you put the needs of others before your own, you'll be amazed at how God blesses your life in ways you cannot imagine. Look for needs in your community and act on them. Whether in goods or services, your actions will teach your kids how to give generously. Be intentional about your giving. As a family, talk about where you donate money or household items or clothing or your time and talents and why these places are important to you. 1 Peter 4:10 says, "Based on the gift each one has received, use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God." Show your children how giving is always more rewarding than receiving.
In Sunday School (Preschool through 12th grades), we collect an offering each week that goes to supporting our UMC Missionary to Cambodia, Clara Biswas. Clara manages the Street Children Ministry
which serves children living in orphanages or in poor areas in four communities in Cambodia.
The Street Children Ministry offers better nutrition, education and Christian guidance to children who are susceptible to malnutrition and injustice. The ministry strives to develop activities that enhance the children's lives today and give them opportunities for the future.
Cambodia is a country damaged by war. Children make up half the population. Clara Biswas, the General Board of Global Ministries' missionary serving with the ministry, said it really is transforming lives. "We are offering them a future through education," Biswas said in a recent article. "We are protecting them from being trafficked. We are helping them know that each one is a beloved child of God. We are raising a generation of confident leaders in Cambodia."
The Street Children Ministry has an annual budget of $63K and a third of that budget is supported by gifts like the check we send from our Sunday School offering.
Each week, Sunday School students bring their dollars, quarters, dimes nickels, and pennies. We collect $10-$25 weekly from our classes. Our goal this year is to support Clara's ministry with an annual offering of $1000. Our hope is that your children will want to scour the car and sofa cushions for "lost coins", share a portion of their earned allowance, or agree to a weekly offering that's comfortable for your family.
If we look around our community and listen to what's shared on the news, it's evident that our culture needs a major shift in the knowledge and understanding of stewardship - the management of all the things on Earth that God has entrusted to our care. So why not start with kids?
If we instill stewardship principles within the hearts and minds of children from the earliest stages of human development, there's a greater chance that we'll experience a generational shift that will make the world a better place for us all. And wouldn't that be a blessing to us all?
If you're interested in learning more Children's Ministries, please contact
Kristin Kelso, Children's Ministries Coordinator, for more info.
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BUMC Leadership Structure
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One of the things I find myself sharing with clergy who are first stepping into ministry is that when we get ordained as an Elder, the language we use is that we are set apart for the task of Word, Sacrament, Service and Order. Most pastor's call comes from a desire to share the Word, administer the sacraments or live out a life of service to others and God. I imagine it is rare that pastors say, "I just am so jazzed up about ordering the institution of the church". I was no different. I loved helping people and felt blessed to be called to do that from a faith perspective. But what I tell young clergy is that on a pie chart of what you do on a regular basis, word, sacrament and service combined might fill up 40-50% of your role. Order is the rest of the pie. And you learn that this part of our call, when done poorly, can be devastating in living out the other parts. When we take that part of our call seriously, ministry can flourish in pretty amazing ways.
So when I come to a church, I ask a lot of questions about how the church is ordered. What structures and processes are in place and how are they best facilitating ministry. What I learned in my first six months at Burke was the leadership structure that the church has was not facilitating ministry in quite the way it was designed. And also, there was not a lot of understanding by staff and laity of why we had this particular leadership structure when many churches had moved away from that structure years ago. This began a conversation with my chairs and some staff members about what steps might we take to better structure ourselves. Over the last six months this group has looked at what other structures are present in other United Methodist Churches and what might work best at Burke UMC. This group is hoping to bring some recommendations to Administrative Board in November with the hopes to hold some open meetings to present to the congregation and get any other input that may help us finalize a structure that may begin as early as June of next year upon approval by the DS at a charge conference.
Please be in prayer as the leadership begins looking at this and if you are interested in learning more about our current model or what we are looking to move toward, please feel free to talk to any of the group and find out more. Again, we hope in January/February time frame to have some time to share in more detail, so you will have opportunity to hear more about it.
Leadership Structure Group: Ken Panos, Robert Greenwood, Susan Kinsley, Bruce Tiso, Wes Griffin, Katie Webster, Jane Wilson, Susie Street, Jason Snow
Blessings,
Pastor Jason
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Thanks to everyone who participated in representing BUMC at this year's festival! Representatives from UMM, BUMP, Grounds and Property, Children and Family Ministries, the Fellowship Team and the Missions committee made sure our booth was well- staffed.
Despite our disappointment in our location at the festival, from all accounts we had a successful experience! Our focus was on distributing information about our upcoming Burke Gives Back event and to highlight the hurricane needs by filling "flood Buckets".
All the pre-stuffed red BUMC bags were distributed, several coin collection cans for Burke Gives Back were taken, over $250 raised for UMCOR were just a few of the highlights. Plus Kevin Taylor got 2 additional sponsors for our Burke Gives Back event! There is no way to put a value to the number of people in our community that were touched by you as you talked to them about our upcoming Burke Gives Back Hunger event, the flood buckets and our response to the hurricanes, and about our church in general. I think that this group really lived into Pastor Jason's challenge to help our community better understand what Burke UMC is all about.
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BUMC rose to the District's challenge to not just provide flood buckets for the hurricane-ravaged parts of our nation, but to be a collection hub here in Northern Virginia. Our own church provided 36 buckets, and we collected another 100 from other local churches as well as about 100 health kits that local churches assembled. On Sunday night, September 17, the youth loaded the bus with the collected buckets (this was truly a "bucket brigade" !) and on September 19, our faithful and always -ready -to -volunteer Jim Coile drove the filled bus to Richmond, where our buckets joined those of other parts of our conference.
Those buckets left on September 21 enroute to the UMCOR depot in Louisiana for distribution to the affected areas. We are continuing to collect buckets and kits-if you are interested in knowing what goes into a bucket, visit the display in the entryway!
Special thanks to Mike and Marianne Holmes who found the best places to buy the ingredients and got the cost of the buckets under $35!!
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CONGRATULATIONS KATIE GLICK!
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We are so proud of Katie Glick, the Director of Burke United Methodist Preschool, for being chosen as an Emerging Leader by the Northern Virginia Association for the Education of Young Children.
Katie is a gifted leader who demonstrates authentic faith, genuine passion, creativity, and kindness in all she does. She is a blessing to BUMP and to BUMC.
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WANTED: a couple who is interested on taking on a project 6-8 hours per week of recycling used wheel chairs!
Joni and Friends-Wheels for the World is a non-profit started by Joni Eareckson Tada after she experienced an accident early in life that left her a quadriplegic (joniandfriends.org). Here in Northern Virginia, for the last 10 years Aileen and Phil Velthius have contacted nursing homes and other places where wheel chairs are used, and have collected them. It's actually a very organized process ; the Velthius's go pick up the chairs and store them in a trailer that has been donated. When the trailer is full, it is pulled to a prison in southwestern Virginia, where the inmates have been given the skills to restore them. The chairs are then taken to third world countries where access to this equipment is limited.
Aileen and Phil are looking for a couple to take their place as the contact here in Northern Virginia (Aileen is 86!!). They are very willing to train the new volunteers for as long as it takes to get them up to speed. Aileen says she spends 2-3 hours per week on the phone and they spend 3-6 hours driving to pick up chairs each week, so it's not very time consuming.
Please contact Jane Wilson if you have any interest in this and she will make the introductions!
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"Do you have the gift of compassion and encouragement?
Are you a good listener?
If you find it in your heart to care for others, our newly created Nurturing Care Ministry may be for you! We are ready to form and train Care Teams to visit those in our congregation who are hospitalized, having surgery, in rehab, or who are "shut in" and unable to attend church.
The two teams will be led by Karen Evans, Karen Panos, April Kaminski, and the Pastoral Staff. Training will be provided early summer. If you have questions or are interested, please contact
Karen Evans or sign up is in the Narthex.
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October & Upcoming Mission Events
Help us make a difference in our community & world!
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WEEKEND FOOD BAGS
By Barbara Nowak
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It's exciting to see the Holy Spirit at work, but I only seem to be able to recognize it after the fact. Last night at BUMC, the power of the spirit of love was evident in our Fellowship Hall where Jane Wilson was organizing all the items needed for the Weekend Food Bags.
Every month during the school year BUMC provides "Weekend Food Bags" for food insecure children attending schools in and around Burke. These children receive a bag of food at school on Friday to help them get through the weekend with something to eat. Food items are donated by our church family, but last night there were not enough workers to prepare the bags. Jane had sent out an email looking for workers, and had some good people on hand, but not enough. I happened to be in church for a Bible study by Adam Hamilton based on his book, The Call. I knew Jane had been working since before 4 pm and she certainly looked like she could use a little extra help, so I offered to make an announcement in my class. Jane thought I should just go on to my Bible study (because that's important, isn't it?). The Holy Spirit had another idea and used me as an instrument of peace to suggest to a couple of people in class that Jane could use some extra help. Before you know it, the Spirit had "warmed their hearts" and brought most of the class to the Fellowship Hall where we quickly finished the work of gathering food items into bags for God's children. We prepared 500 bags of food that will be distributed to 125 children over the course of 4 weeks. Stop by next month (4
th
Wednesday at 6:30 pm) and offer your hands to help! Discussion during class afterwards was quite lively, too.
Dates this school y ear for Weekend Food Bag Packing are:
October 25, Nov. 28, Jan. 31, Feb. 28, Mar. 28, Apr. 25, May 20
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On Saturday, September 30 a big group of us went to Shalom Farms , an 8-acre farm outside of Richmond originally begun as a ministry of the United Methodist Church. The farm grows produce for areas of Richmond where access to fresh produce is limited, and they run several programs helping people learn about the health benefits of adding produce to their diets. The farm has professional farmers, but the majority of the actual work is done by volunteer groups like ours that visit, learn about the program, and then work on the farm. This year we moved about 8000 sandbags (not really that many-it just felt like that many!) and picked some fresh peppers and carrots that the kids were able to taste right out of the ground.
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Can You Offer A Ride?
We have a church member living at the Braddock Glen Assisted Living Facility in Fairfax who would like a ride to/from worship each week. If you are willing to be part of a monthly rotation to pick this member up (walk inside to get her from her room, bring her to worship, drive her back and assist her back to her room), please let
Pastor Katie know.
This is a beautiful way for us to be family to one another.
Thank you!
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Listen on line any time! Click on the Sermon Archives image (or the same image on the main page of our web site) to listen to sermons from previous Sundays.
Sermons are uploaded each week by Thursday if not sooner.
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Burke UMC: Welcome Statement
Welcome! We are a caring community from various backgrounds, drawn together by the love of God and the transforming message of Jesus. We believe all persons are of sacred worth and dignity as part of God's creation and as demonstrated by the ministry of Jesus Christ.
We welcome everyone without exception - everyone means everyone - regardless of age, race, ethnicity, gender, family structure, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, economic background, political affiliation, physical or mental ability, faith history or life experience.
We recognize among us differences in theology and biblical interpretation, and we covenant to accept, respect, and love one another along our faith journeys. Please join us, because wherever you are on life's journey, there's a place for you here at Burke United Methodist Church!
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