The next blood drive, offered by First Grapevine and Carter Blood Care, will be held in the Family Life Center on Sunday, July 17, from 9:30 AM until 1:30 PM. You may make your appointment online by using the QR Code below or the link. (Appointments are made in 20-minute increments, beginning at 9:30 AM) If you have any difficulty, please call Miriam Ward at 817-488-1650 or contact her by email ([email protected]). She will be happy to assist you.

The Campus Angels Ministry is looking for Church members interested in supporting College Students with regular cards and small care packages through out the 2022-23 school year. The ministry would also like to hear from all current Campus Angels ministry college students and incoming new college student freshman, if you would like to have a Campus Angel for the 2022-23 school year.

If interested in being a Campus Angel or having a Campus Angel assigned to you, please sign-up below.

At First Grapevine, we are dedicated to doing all we can to keep our children, youth, adult volunteers, and staff as safe as possible. In order to do this, our conference adopted the use of the Ministry Safe Safety program. All adults who volunteer with youth and children are required to go through Ministry Safe training. We will be hosting several Ministry Safe trainings leading up to VBC for our new volunteers.

The upcoming trainings will take place July 17 at noon, on July 19 at 6:30 PM, and on July 20 at noon in the Office Conference room. Only new volunteers who have not previously been trained need to attend this class. To RSVP for the class, email [email protected].

The Be Our Guest neighborhood meal has been canceled in July and August and will resume Tuesday, September 20. The team is working on preparing things so we may return in September with the full program serving family-style meals on tables with tablecloths, using real plates and utensils, and featuring live music. We are looking forward to a reset and refresh of this program. Watch for more information coming in August.

July 25 - 28

Bring your child to Vacation Bible Camp (VBC) at First Grapevine! They will enjoy 4 days of fun, laughter, and learning about Jesus. This year's VBC is called "Making Waves" because it's possible for kids and volunteers to create a ripple effect that can impact the world around them in ways they will never forget. God put you on this planet to do the same thing - to make waves. You won't want to miss our favorite week of the year!

Want to serve your neighbors and hang out at the pool at the same time? We need volunteers to take kids in the church van from Shady Oaks Mobile Home Park to the Pleasant Glade Pool in Grapevine on Wednesdays from 2:15-4:45. Admission is free for all, including church volunteers! This is just another example of the church and the City of Grapevine working together for our neighbors. Help some kids enjoy an afternoon at a cool pool where they can show off their new swimming skills! Contact Debbie Price ([email protected]) to volunteer.

We cannot feed our kids without you. We are seeking volunteers who are able to go out and serve lunches for Feed Our Kids. This is a very rewarding serving opportunity to distribute food and spend time with the children in our Grapevine Village. We encourage you to sign-up and if you have any questions, please email Sue Schultz([email protected]).

Each year, teen gifts are the hardest for us to get for our families so the Grapevine Police Department is gathering Teen Gifts to be distributed during their Santa Cop program.

They are looking for items like earbuds, selfie lights, funko pops, instant print cameras, or any cool teen gifts. Donations can be dropped at the House of Shine (334 S. Barton St.) or at The Chamber (200 Vine St. E) throughout the month of July.

This team brightens people’s lives weekly. The recipients are surprised and thrilled to receive flowers during a time when they may not be at their best. It truly helps to know someone in the church is thinking about them when they are going through difficult times. What better way to serve God than to brighten someone’s day with fresh flowers. The Altar Flower ministry team needs volunteers to help put the flower arrangements together and deliver the flowers to the recipient’s home. If you are interested in serving in this ministry, please email Amanda ([email protected]).

The Wednesday morning men's Bible study were the literal hands and feet of Jesus last Wednesday as they helped one of our own with a drainage and erosion issue. They were living example of what it means to a church and to uphold it by gifts, service and witness.

To the members of First United Methodist Church Grapevine, Texas:

As members of the army national guards, we want to thank you all for your support of our mission here in the country of Egypt. We are also pleased to have received your goodie package full of snacks that will surely be used to benefit our bellies (lol) and our morale as we continue here for another nine months before we are replaced with another group of soldiers from Mississippi. Tell Sam (age 6) that we now have his soldier pic hanging on our refrigerator to remind us of our future leaders that look up to us and the reason we do what we do. We have certainly sacrificed a great deal of time apart from our own families, so we know how important it is to continue to strive to focus on making sure the people from these countries can continue to raise their families in a secure environment. Our role here is to maintain the Blackhawk helicopters that are required to conduct our operations in the land of Biblical importance. We get a chance to swim in the red sea and visit Mount Sinai, Israel, Luxor, Cairo, St. Catherine’s, and Alexandria, among other places. As you can see, this is a once-in-a-lifetime deployment that is desired by many. Thank you for your continued prayers for the safety of our troops while here as well as our return to the states at the end of our mission. God bless you all!

Sincerely,

Sargent John Combs (Blackhawk Section Chief) and all Aviation company soldiers

Thank you to all of our Feed Our Kids team and 385 volunteers (who spent about 800 working hours) to help make this year's Big Week successful. Around 3000 kids were fed at the six Grace sites. Thank you for all your work & support! A huge thank you to our sponsors this year: Chicken Express, Tikiz Shaved Ice, Marcos Pizza, First Grapevine Thrift Shop, and Sonic.

We are excited about our ministry and missional events. This is just a friendly reminder that we have some procedures to make your ministry or missional events successful. Our Media and Communication Guide lists deadlines for e-news, updates to the website, ministry spotlights, videos, and more. The First Grapevine Brand Identity Standard Guide will help to ensure that your marketing materials are in line with the church's brand standards. If you have an upcoming event, be sure to let us know by filling out the Room Request form on our website (FirstGrapevine.org/roomrequest) or by entering it into ServiceU so that our staff can help make your event possible. We couldn't do church without you. Thank you for helping others experience and share God's love!

First Grapevine, A United Methodist Church

FirstGrapevine.org | Link to E-News