This Sunday is Palm Sunday. This Sunday we open up the sanctuary. This Sunday we go back to having both a 8am and 10:30am service. This Sunday we have a traditional service at 8am with Carol Hipp joining us to play piano/organ with Holly leading us in singing the hymns AND Joe Coleman singing a song for special music. At 10:30am we will have a lively service with songs of worship and praise, it might get a little rowdy. Oh.. and we will have some Adult Sunday school classes after the 8am service. George Tuggle is also going to be leading a ZOOM Sunday school class and if you are interested in joining that one reach out to him for call-in/sign in information. We most likely will have Palm branches to wave but they have been "stuck" at the Baltimore Postal Service facility for a couple of days now so let us pray they arrive. Palm Sunday is they day when we remember people came out to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem crying "Hosanna" which means "Save Us". Those words are still needed now more than ever and so we will cry out for Jesus us to save us from our brokenness.
A couple of housekeeping tips on worshipping in the sanctuary. You will need to wear a mask or face shield into the building. If you forget or do not have a mask one will be provided to you to wear while you are in the building. There will be a sign in station where you can get a bulletin and other items so keep walking when you come through the door until you get to the sign in table. At the sign in table there will also be a place to put prayer requests because we will not be sharing them during the service, you can also email your pray requests to Karen Wivell. We will not pass the plate during the service but your monetary offering can go in the wooden box that is next to the sign-in table. There are hand sanitizer stations throughout the church and they are there for you to use them. You are NOT required to have received a vaccination in order to attend worship. In the sanctuary we have not roped off pews so there is not a guarantee of being 6 feet apart. I will not be wearing mask while on the altar and any singers we have on the altar will not be wearing mask so we ask that the front pew on each side remain empty just to give added space. IF you are concerned about being at least 6 feet apart from everyone else we will have the downstairs set up with chairs that are spaced over 6 feet apart and the service will play on the television down there. Currently, we will not be having a fellowship time downstairs in order to increase health safety. Of course if you are very worried about your health we will still be live-streaming both services on YouTube and Facebook. We will offer the ability to call in using a phone at the 10:30am service. Attached is the bulletin that you can view or print out. Here is some further details about ways to access our services.
You can catch the Facebook Livestream at: https://www.facebook.com/tomscreekumc .
We will start the Facebook Livestream at 7:50am and 10:20am and you will see messages on the screen and hear music playing. This is the best option if you want to interact with others online. Feel free to chat to each other before and during the service. You can put prayer requests in the chat. This is great way to be able to interact with others if you watch it live with others in your church family who are staying home but want to worship as part of an online community. It will continue to be there to watch later and feel free to share or create watch parties in order to share it with others.
You can catch this livestream on our Toms Creek UMC channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6E7eCwH2ZGYspkSCF0CGw/featured. We will start the YouTube Livestream at 7:50 am and 10:20am and you will see announcements scroll and hear music playing. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON THE CORRECT SERVICE OR YOU MIGHT END UP WATCHING THE PREVIOUS WEEK! This format is best if you are watching on a television or large screen with lots of people gathered around. You can have it fill the whole screen and just watch it without any distractions. There is a way to chat on YouTube but it normally has a lot less people and is normally a lot less chatty than the our Facebook livestream. If you subscribe to our channel it will let you know when we go live in future weeks. Later in the day another shorter version of the service is posted but for this coming series I recommend taking in the entire worship experience.
You can go to our website here https://www.tomscreekumc.com/service-videos and by Monday morning there should be a version of our service. Sometimes the whole service is there instead of the shortened version depending on different factors.
You can also use a phone to listen to our service by calling 857-799-9465 from any phone starting at 10:20 am. This will only have sound coming through and you will not be able to see anything that is occurring. If you would like we can we make a DVD of the service for you to watch just let the church office or Pastor Heath know.
To give your financial offering you can sign up to give electronically here: https://www.eservicepayments.com/cgi-bin/Vanco_ver3.vps?appver3=oo37DPDB_IkRvUYRT4XYFR9HODrOVn_HRoRVzfIf6wIC8Jr39BzhtDTFkxI3DZSBugLUwNICM4mn_Vn6Yqj7ze3avdPht8ScFTxSmF__f6NGGfZi-D-1l6WdFZHC1c8U
OR
you can text 844-406-0358 with an amount as the text. It will set up to give over text and from then on you just put in the amount and your donation to the church will go right through
or
you can go to our website and hit the donate button on our webpage, https://www.tomscreekumc.com
OR
you can mail your offering to:
Tom's Creek United Methodist Church
10926 Simmons Road
Emmitsburg, MD 21727
This Sunday service begins our start into Holy Week. We are reminded that people have always wanted to be saved. Yet, we often want to be saved on our own terms. That is not the way it works with Jesus. We have to be willing to let go and bend to the will of Jesus. Often we find being "saved" requires us to put in effort and is more than just playing "lip service" to Jesus our Messiah. So let us come to worship truly willing to follow wherever Jesus is calling us to go and do whatever Jesus is leading us to do. Then we can truly experience the power of "Hosanna"!
Blessings,
PH
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