Dear St. Lukers,
This week in worship, we’re going to be centering ourselves around what it means to Lead our Lives in love. After a tumultuous week of weather in our state, it’s the perfect time to look at what our discipleship means beyond the walls of the church.
While Hurricane Idalia only gave us a stormy day of rain and wind, we know that our neighbors to the north did not fare as well with a direct hit. But this is when we can look around and see our Methodist connection at work – these are the moments when Methodists step up to do the work of loving through acts of service and benevolence.
Our Missions team will be working with the Florida Conference and UMCOR, our United Methodist disaster relief agency, to help find ways to come alongside and support those who are putting pieces back together. As we get more information, we will keep you up to date on how we may be called to support that work directly or indirectly. Until then, if you would like to offer financial support to hurricane recovery, there is no better place to give than through UMCOR, as 100% of every donation goes directly to relief efforts. So, click here to visit our conference website and make your donation now.
In just a few weeks, we also have an opportunity to hear how others are Leading their Lives as we host Candler School of Theology’s TheoEd event here on campus. TheoEd is an opportunity for Candler’s Foundry to gather top theologians, artists, and change-makers in the style of the well-known TED Talks.
The latest installment of TheoEd will be hosted in-person and broadcast virtually from Founder’s Hall on September 24. This is an opportunity for you to Lead your Life by inviting friends, family, and neighbors who may have been turned off by the church, or been harmed in some way by the church, to come hear faith stories in a low-risk, low-pressure environment.
This TheoEd will include incredible speakers:
- Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis who will talk about “Fierce Love in Hot Mess Times”
- Brian McLaren who is the author of Do I Stay Christian?
- Orlando’s own Cliff and Clay Price, who have been a part of our arts ministries of theatre and concerts sharing their stories of growing up in Georgia and being shaped by church music
- Duke Divinity School Professor Rev. Dr. Luke Powery, who serves as the Dean of the Duke Chapel and Professor of Homiletics and African and African American Studies
- Rev. Dr. Lydia Munoz, who will talk about How We Make Jesus into Our Image and will also be serving as our guest preacher in worship on Sunday, September 24
You can click here to purchase individual tickets or to reserve a table for your small group.
That is all exciting as it shows us more of what we’ll look at in worship this Sunday, as we finish our series “St. Luke’s 101” and our study of Romans. We’ll look at Paul’s call to lead our life in love in chapter 13, and how we are called to wake up in these times and see the need around us.
As always, for a little preview of the topic, be sure to listen to “Your Week with St. Luke’s” as Rev. Dr. Ebby Arnold takes us through this week’s Scripture together.
We’ll see you Sunday in worship to LOVE God together as we look at LEADing our lives faithfully as disciples.
Shalom,
Jenn.