Weekly News – Nov. 11th, 2012
What’s Happening This Week
Join us next week, November 18th, as we continue our series Faith Without Works Is Dead – James, First Century Christianity. Our lead pastor Timothy Lloyd will continue exploring this ancient Christian text. If you’ve missed any of the series, you can catch up with our podcasts or sermon videos.
Showing of The Line movie, Nov. 16th, 7pm – As we seek to engage poverty in our city & country, we’re hosting a showing of this documentary that relays the stories of people across the country living at or below the poverty line. The viewing will be followed by discussion. Join us as we seek to better know & understand this complex issue.
Welcome to our new Children’s Minister, Whitney Pierce! – Lani Martz has faithfully served our growing church for over a year, but a few weeks ago, expressed a desire to transition out of her current role as Children’s Minister in order to spend more time with her family & to be able to participate more fully in the life of our congregation. In the coming weeks, Ms. Whitney Pierce will be assuming the responsibilities of Children’s Minister at Eastside Church. Be sure to thank Lani for her service & welcome Whitney to the team! Read more about this announcement here.
Justice Ministry Non-Perishable Food Drive – We’re collecting canned & non-perishable food items for our friends at Decatur Cooperative Ministries! Just bring your food items with you to church & we will be collecting them around the Communion Table. Flyers with suggestions are available at the info table or you can download a PDF here. Also, keep your ears open for our Advent initiative. We’ll be working with Prison Fellowship to provide gifts for children with an incarcerated parent.
Pre-service prayer – 10am every Sunday before church. Katie Sack leads these informal times of prayer for the church, its growth, and existence. Consider joining in this time of prayer for the church and centering before worship.
Ways to Connect & Grow Together
Growth groups (small groups) are the way we connect with each other at Oakhurst. If you are interested in learning more about or joining an Oakhurst Small Group please contact Elisabeth Lloyd at Elisabeth(at)eastsideatl.org. Currently we have 7 groups that meet at various times and locations during the week. You can jump in at any time! Groups gather to fellowship, encourage one another, study scripture and pray for one another.
Join our online community at Eastside Church Community Builder. Create an account by signing up at www.eastsideatl.org in the upper right corner. This account allows you to give online, request to join a small group, view service opportunities & more.
Eastside Church Holiday Bazaar and Fair Trade Market, December 15th from 10am-6pm! Coffee, quilts, chocolate and more! C’mon out and purchase your Holiday gifts from local artisans and fair trade vendors. Crafting for the kids to make their own presents, local musicians and a luncheon make for a great family day. Help create a more just economy and have a lot of fun doing it!
Are you an artist or work for a non-profit that engages social justice? Do you know someone who is? Consider being vendor at our Holiday Bazaar. Booths cost $30 for vendors, but are free to non-profits. You can apply here.
Serving Together
Plan on buying your coffee, chocolate, & tea at church! – We’re expanding our order beyond chocolate this time as we seek to take small steps toward justice by buying fair trade. We’ll start selling it in the lobby in the next couple weeks.
Meal Ministry – When people experience big life events, the church community provides meals for the families. We’ve successfully provided many meals in the past but would like to update our email list so we can continue to sustain this growing ministry. Contact Brit Eyster if you’d like to bless the community in this way or to notify her that you’re still interested in helping with this ministry – brit.eyster(at)gmail.com
We always need help on Thursday evenings from 6:30-7:30 to clean the church in preparation for worship. There is a sign up sheet at the information table for those able to contribute. This is an easy way to serve as well as to get connected with others in the church.
Eastside Church Arts Ministry is helping to start a public library in Ghana this year! We are seeking to collect as many books as possible by this October. The books can be any genre (and for any age), as an entire village will have access to this library.
Did the service prompt any thoughts or questions for you? We believe that transformation happens in community and we’d like to keep the conversation going whether it’s about the music, confession, the artwork, sermon, or anything else. You can engage in a conversation by commenting on the sermon blog post at ww.eastsideatl.org/sermons, by commenting on the sermon post on our Facebook page, via email – [email protected] (we’ll post for you as a blog post), or by replying @eastsideumc on Twitter.