Tacky Christmas Party

Mark your calendars for the upcoming Christmas Party!  Please make your check payable to Heather Hurt for $20 per couple.  We will have the food catered from Costas.  See the invitation for other details below:

Girls Night Out

This past Tuesday, November 16th, we had a Girls Night Out at the Melting Pot.  It was lots of fun and had a crowd of 9 that attended.  For most of us it was the first time we had been to this restaurant and even the first time to have fondue.  It was fun getting to try the different courses.  It started off with an appetizer with different cheeses and you could dip bread, granny smith apples or vegetables.  The next course was the salad (no fondue for this course).  Next there was the main course… raw chicken, shrimp, steak and tortellini.  You actually had to cook your meat by dipping it into the vegetable stock for at least 2 minutes.  It was very interesting, but was very good.  The last course was everyone’s' favorite – dessert!  We had one pot that had snickers sauce, one with peanut butter and chocolate and a third with just plain milk chocolate.  There were rice crispy treats, cheesecake, marshmallows, brownies, strawberries, bananas, etc. to dip into the yummy goodness.  Everyone said that they would be up for just skipping the entree next time and getting all desserts, they were that good!  There was a great time had by all and we are already looking forward to our next one.  Thanks to Heather Hurt and Dawn Fizer for planning this for our group.  Keep checking back for more updates on our next event. 

Tablescapes Luncheon

The Believers Class hosted two tables at the Tablescapes Luncheon on Tuesday, October 5th.  One of the tables was decorated like Shabby Chic and the other was Candy Land.  Jenny Ballentine headed up the decorations for these two tables and they were so very cute and creative!  We had lots of class members help decorate as well.  Heather Hurt also decorated a table on her own.  All of the tables looked phenomenal as you can see from the pictures.  All of the class members (Heather Hurt, Melodie Mallette, Amy Parker, Margaret Powell, Margo Price, Jenny Ballentine, Dawn Fizer, Tracey Barker, and Mindy Reed) that attended the luncheon absolutely loved the speaker and had a blast.  I know everyone is already looking forward to next year.  Enjoy the pictures!

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Upcoming Outreach Opportunities

• Kairos Prison Ministry - Cookies needed!  The Kairos ministry team (led by Mike Harris, Tom Watson, Rocky Alling and Butch Williams) will be going to the Donaldson Correctional Facility the weekend of October 21st.  The program provides the structure and materials for inmates to form Prayer & Share groups while they are still in prison; thus equipping the men with a strong foundation for when they are released from prison.  Our class can make a difference by baking cookies for the participants.  The team typically takes between 400 - 500 dozen cookies.  If you are interested in helping, please drop the baked cookies off to the church office by noon on October 21st.

• Angel Tree Project - This program is to help children living in less than ideal situations feel loved and cared for at Christmas time.  If our class would like to participant, we just need to determine how many children we can help.  We then choose the Angels from the trees at church and buy them gifts.  Each Angel lists specific gift requests made by the child in need.  The trees should be up by November 14 and the gifts are due on December 12th.  **A great suggestion made in class is that a group of those interested could get together and buy the gifts one Sunday after church.  I think this would be a lot of fun and the group could all go to lunch together before shopping.  If you are also interested in packing and sorting the gifts on the 12th, please contact Margaret Flowers at mflowers@vhumc.org.

• Church of the Reconciler - Deliver and Serve Meals to the Birmingham downtown homeless population.  Our church provides this great ministry the first Sunday of every month.  Our class volunteered this past summer and those that participated thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  The ministry team is trying to fill their calendar for 2011, and it would be great if our class could help again!  We would be responsible for payment of the meal (approximately $350), picking up the prepared food from our church kitchen, and delivering/serving it at the Church of the Reconciler.

Please let Heather Creel know if you are interested in participating in any of the opportunities above or if you have any questions.  Thanks to Heather for organizing and providing us with the information for how we can help others inside our congregation and out in the community!

2 Tips to Living a Happy Life

Rocky Alling was so kind to share a lesson with our class this past Sunday, September 19th. His lesson focused on the different types of heros that we recognize in the following categories: historical, biblical and personal. There are many different types of heros amongst each category, such as reluctant and sacrificial to name a few. I think that everyone that was in class would agree that Rocky did an excellent job keeping the information interesting. Rocky wanted to share several of the resources/references that he made during the class yesterday.

• Endurance by Alfred Lansing - book about Earnest Shackleton
• Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose - book about Lewis and Clark
• "I need a Hero" by byronfgarcia - Rocky's You Tube favorite that explains the point about prison-peace and heros

The whole lesson was summed up by Rocky telling a story about his Uncle that is the happiest person he knows. When Rocky inquired as to why he was so happy - he responded with two life lessons that can make one happy:

• Give to others unselfishly
• Keep donations/goodwill deeds anonymous

Thank you to Rocky for taking the time to share with us this wonderful lesson, we truly appreciate it. We hope to see everyone next Sunday, September 26th as Sherry Harris will visit with us and share her testimony.

Upcoming Lesson Plans

We finished our last lesson of the study on Mark’s Gospel from Scratch last Sunday. The six week lesson was very good and I know that we all learned a lot. Thank you to all the leaders: Louise and Coker Barton, Charlotte and Butch Williams and Peggy and Rick Honeycutt for taking the time to share each lesson with us.

We have some very exciting things scheduled for the upcoming months leading us through the fall and through Christmas. The schedule consists of a mixture of speakers as well as lessons. We are so excited to have so many of our clergy and church members scheduled to come share with us over the next few months. Thank you so much to Louise Barton for getting everything organized! The schedule is as follows:

• Sept 19 - Rocky Alling
• Sept 26 - Sherry Harris will share her story and testimony
• Oct 3 - Mike Harris
• Oct 10 - Myrle Grate
• Oct 17 - Bill Bostick - John Wesley and Methodism
• October 24 - Ty Howell - Favorite Bible Verses
• October 31 through Dec - Christmas From The Backside by J. Ellsworth Kallas. We will take a break Sunday, Nov 21 and Butch Williams will give a program on Before The Nativity.

As you can see we have a very exciting schedule ahead of us and we hope that everyone can join us. This will give us a little change of pace and offer some variety to what we have been doing. It will also be an opportunity for us to get to know our clergy and church family better. Thank you again to Louise Barton for making this happen! We will see you on Sunday!

Uniforms for Jackson Elementary School

The Believers participated in an outreach opportunity at the beginning of the school year. Our class was able to donate $200 towards the purchase of school uniforms for Jackson Elementary School. VHUMC partners with Jackson Elementary School and provides support for them through many different avenues by providing tutors for children, "box top education" labels for the school, uniforms, etc. The uniforms we purchased will go to students that are not able to afford uniforms or will help stock a closet in the administration office for use as needed. The donation was made in August and they were very appreciative of our donation. Thank you for your interest and support!

Discovery Weekend Outreach

On Saturday, August 14, 2010 several Believers gathered early at 7:30 am to feed 150 hungry Junior High students.  This past weekend our church had the first ever Discovery Weekend.  The kids came to the church on Friday afternoon and stayed all weekend until Sunday at 2:00 pm.  The organizers asked other Sunday school classes to provide and help serve meals to show our support for this age group. The Believers were quick to volunteer and we signed up to do breakfast on Saturday.  The meal was to be scrambled eggs, grits, bacon, biscuits, etc.  We contemplated on how we would cook all of this and transport it to the church…  Thanks to Heather Hurt, she had the great idea of us making breakfast casseroles, which were a huge hit!  Margaret Powell, Heather Hurt, Heather Creel, Lisa Cheek, Melodie Mallette and Margaret Bridges all made 2-3 casseroles each based off the same recipe and brought them Saturday morning to be reheated.  We also served biscuits with butter and jelly and a variety of juices and milk.  All of us including James Creel, Kevin and Ashley Hicks and Clint Bridges helped get the Fellowship Hall ready and served the plates.  The kids were extremely appreciative and they appeared to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.  Our room (204) was also transformed into the Prayer Chapel for the entire weekend.  It was amazing what they did with our room.  The created a very peaceful sanctuary to be used for meditation, bible reading, self reflection, prayer and much more.  The room even included an alter area.  The lights were dimmed and candles surrounded the room.  They had soothing music, waterfall sounds and even images of a crackling fireplace on the TV screen.  It appeared that Discovery Weekend brought lots of young people closer to God.  I am sure that this will be a repeated event for years down the road and I guarantee the numbers will increase dramatically each year.  Our class was very glad to be able to help out through outreach within our church!         

Summertime Social

On June 18, 2010 the Believers gathered together for an adults only dinner.  The Barton’s were so gracious to share their beautiful home with us.  We had about 30 people attend this fun-filled event.  The dinner was catered by Tazikis which consisted of Greek chicken, rice, roasted red potatoes, Greek salad, pita chips and hummus and for dessert there were brownies by Ashley Mac.  The food was absolutely delicious and the company was even better.  Couples sat inside and enjoyed the beautiful decor and conversation while others sat outside and enjoyed the views of the golf greens.  Thanks so much to Heather Hurt, Dawn Fizer and Lisa Cheek for planning such a successful and fun event.  We are all already looking forward to our next one.  Enjoy the pictures!

Church of the Reconciler

On Sunday, June 6th we had 5 volunteers from our class serve lunch to the congregation at the Church of the Reconciler.  As mentioned previously, this is a Methodist church in downtown Birmingham that has a congregation primarily made up of homeless individuals and families.  Megan and Reese Kincaid, Joel and Mindy Reed, and Kevin Bridges took time out of their Sunday to go and lend a helping hand to serve the congregation.  There was a lot of coordination that was involved.  They picked up the prepared food from the church around 11:00am and then headed downtown.  They were not really sure what to expect going into this and were a little hesitant in having only 5 people to serve around 200 people.  They arrived and were greeted by a team of extremely friendly and gracious church staff members and   volunteers.  They devised their   plan of how to begin serving the plates and quickly got to work.  They served pasta, salad and a banana.  The people were very friendly and were mostly gracious for their efforts and the meal.  They said that it was eye opening to see children there and that it is hard to imagine their individual situations.  For a lot of them this would be their only meal for the next few days.  We just had enough food to serve everyone there so they had to be cautious not to serve people twice, even though they were hoping for this (as they would have saved some food for another meal).  The team of 5 Believers pulled together and served approximately 230 people last Sunday.  They all thoroughly enjoyed the experience and said they would do it again in a heartbeat.  The Holy Spirit was definitely at work through Megan, Reese, Joel, Mindy and Kevin last Sunday and we truly appreciate their selflessness.  Thank you from behalf of the Believers Class and VHUMC on taking your time to help those in need! 

Let’s Help the Church of the Reconciler!

Today Patti Eggers, VHUMC Outreach Coordinator, spoke to our class about outreach opportunities. We began discussing where the current biggest need was among all the opportunities available. Patti indicated that the biggest need is for lunch to be served to the Church of the Reconciler (http://www.churchofthereconciler.org/). This is a Methodist Church downtown that is primarily for homeless people. Our church is responsible for providing and serving meals for the congregation the first Sunday of each month. Our class discussed today that we would like to help out since this is where the need is. We would like to raise the $300 for the meal and some of the members of our class have already volunteered to go serve food on June 6th, but we need more help. We will need each couple to send Margaret Bridges $15 to cover the cost of the meal. You may now make a payment vial PayPal, please see directions under the announcements section on the right side of this page. Also, please contact Margaret to let her know if you would be available to help serve food this day.

Lighthouse 10k

The Lighthouse 10k was held on Saturday, May 22nd and our class helped sponsor a water station on the race route. Thank you so very much to those brave members who arrived around 7:00 am to provide water and powerade to the runners as they sped by. Thank you specifically to Heather Creel for coordinating this volunteer opportunity. Others that helped were James Creel, Amy Kirkpatrick, Mindy and Joel Reed, and Clint Bridges. There were several little crumb crunchers that were tagging along as well. This run was in celebration of the 10th birthday for the Lighthouse (our church's recreation center). There was a 10k (6.2 miles) at 7:00 am and a 1 mile fun run for kids at 8:00 am. The 10k had a little over 50 runners participating and we had several class members run in the races to help support the church as well. Lori Watkins, Assistant Director of Leisure Ministries, stated that this would be an annual event. They are thinking about adding a 5k next year. The church staff was very appreciative of our class volunteering our time. Check back later to see some pictures of this event...

New Announcements and Updates

Thanks so much to Susan Groseclose and Judy Meyers that led our class this past Sunday.  They did an incredible job talking about the story of Mary and Martha and much more.  We really appreciate them taking the time to share with us.  There are quite a few updates and announcements, please see the details below:

• Saturday, May 22nd is the Lighthouse 10k run.  Our class is hosting a water station on the course route.  If you are interested in helping, please contact Heather Creel.  You will need to arrive a little before 7:00 am.  Our station is on the corner of Vestavia Drive and Beaumont Drive. 
• Sunday, May 23rd – Patti Eggers (VHUMC Community Outreach Coordinator) will join our class to talk about outreach opportunities within the church and community.  This is excellent timing since we all need to be working on our Volunteer Commitment cards that are available online at www.vhumc.org.
• Sunday, May 30th we will not have class due to the Memorial Day holiday weekend.  There will be a church wide Sunday school class assembly in Fellowship Hall at 9:45 am.  You are more than welcome to come and bring your children.
• Sunday, June 6th we will start our new lesson on How Children Change a Marriage.  Natalie Word has ordered all of the books from Cokesbury and they will be available to pick up one week from today.  Please make sure you pick up and pay for your book directly from Cokesbury (one per couple). 
• Friday, June 18th @ 6:30 pm is our next social event.  We will have a dinner (adults only) at the Barton’s home.  We will have Taziki’s cater this dinner.  We will collect money for the food prior to this date.  More details to come in class.

Picnic in the Rain!

This past Sunday, May 16th was the Believers Class’ first social event, a Picnic at the Park.  Of course it was a gorgeous weekend until Sunday at 4:00 pm and the picnic was starting at 4:30 pm.  We had 60 people scheduled to attend.  There were a brave few that showed up to play and cookout in the rain.  It was still a great time and we did not let the rain keep us away.  We went to Little Shades Creek Park that is off of Rocky Ridge Road and grilled out hotdogs and hamburgers.  Thanks to Paul Cheek who was our grill master, I still don’t know how he got the charcoal lit in the rain.  The kids loved playing on the playground and others threw the football and played softball.  It was a messy, but fun time!  Thanks also to Heather Hurt, Lisa Cheek and Dawn Fizer who helped to organize this event!

Our next social is scheduled for Friday, June 18th at 6:30 pm at the Barton’s house.  Go ahead and mark your calendars and make babysitter arrangements.  We will have the dinner catered by Taziki’s.  More information to come!

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Upcoming Lessons

As it has been previously mentioned, Susan Groseclose will be joining us for our lesson this weekend (Sunday, May 16th). She will open the lesson about the story of Mary and Martha and how it follows the parable of the Good Samaritan. Susan will be joined by Judy Meyers who will lead the lesson. Some of you may remember Judy from our Meet and Greet that we had at Susan's house back in March. She was in the kitchen serving food and and was very helpful in making our evening such a huge success.

We had discussed starting a lesson the following week, however, since Memorial Day weekend is quickly approaching we have decided to start the next lesson on June 6th. Natalie Word is organizing another speaker for us on Sunday, May 23rd. This way we will not have a break in our lessons before the holiday weekend.

We will not have Sunday School on Sunday, May 30th due to the Memorial Day holiday. The church is, however, having a church wide Sunday School class in the Fellowship Hall at 9:45 a.m. All classes are welcome to come together for this time of fellowship and worship. We will resume our normal class on Sunday, June 6th. We will begin our next lesson topic on June 6th that will involve a 6 week lesson around a book on how children change a marriage.

Please join us this Sunday morning for an excellent lesson and then that evening for the cookout!

Get Ready for Some Fun!

Mark you calendars for our first Believers social event on Sunday, May 16th at 4:30 pm. The Social Event Committee would like to invite all the families to a picnic in the park! The location is Little Shades Creek Park that is located at the end of Rosemary Lane (which is connected to Rocky Ridge Road). Bring you riding toys, sports equipment, hiking shoes and any other fun outdoor activity you can think of. The park has a playground area of the kids, a field for kickball or softball, and a BBQ grill with pavilions. We thought this would be a great way to get all the families together and let the kids play while we spend more time getting to know each other.Please sign up for an item to bring. If you want something other than hamburgers and hot dogs feel free to bring it along too.If you have any questions please contact Lisa Cheek, Dawn Fizer or Heather Honeycutt Hurt.We hope to see you all there!

Also, mark your calendars for the Lighthouse 10k that will be held on Saturday, May 22nd. This event will be a lot of fun and a great way for us to get to know one another better while helping our church at the same time. The race is Saturday, May 22nd at 7am; followed by a Kids One Mile Fun Run at 8am. Our class would be in charge of one of the water stations and would basically be handing out water/powerade to the runners and cheering them along! Please let Heather Creel know if you are interested. We still need at least 4 more people to sign up to help out to make this event successful!

Prayer Requests

We will begin taking prayer requests each week by passing around a basket during our class lesson. This will provide an opportunity for you to submit a request so we can ensure that there aren't any requests overlooked. These individual requests will be read out loud during our closing prayer. Margo Price will email out the prayer request list each Sunday evening so that our members can use this list throughout the week to help pray for the specific requests. You can also email prayer requests to her.

It is important that our class members send information to Margo regarding any celebrations, hospitalizations, births, etc. As our Care Coordinator, she will ensure that we have the specific needs addressed for each situation. She will help organize dinners for those who have had births, sympathy cards, etc. She will keep our class informed of all pertinent information.

You can send Margo (or any officer) an email directly from this site by clicking on their name under the officer listing. See everyone on Sunday!

Our class has an identity!

We had our second class on this past Sunday, April 18th and had another great turnout - about 40 people. We were excited to have quite a few new couples this week as well! Butch Williams led our first lesson on Adam Hamilton's ENOUGH. This particular lesson was about the financial temptations of credit cards, advertisements, etc. and the need to feel like we have to "keep up with the Jones'". We were able to break out into smaller groups to have discussions which got everyone talking and sharing their ideas. This lesson will last for a total of 4 classes so we will have 3 other lessons that include DVD clips followed by discussions. We are all looking forward to next Sunday's lesson. We also voted on the class name and votes were tallied and tonight it will be announced that our new class name is... BELIEVERS!

First Class - April 11, 2010

How exciting, our first class was held on April 11th in our new Room 204! We had a total of 46 people at our first class which was unbelievable. We discussed name options for the class and determined that we would vote on the class name during the second class the following week. Butch led a very interesting and funny ice breaker that Margo and Scott Price participated in first and then Heather and James Creel were the second couple to showcase their communication skills. They had to sit back to back and one person was the architect and the other was the builder. The architect had to describe to the builder how to build their design out of wooden toy blocks. I think our two couples did an excellent job and were able to construct the same exact building that their spouse described. It was very entertaining and really challenged the teams to listen to their spouses and clarify information with each other in order to be successful. We were planning to have our first lesson the following week and a team of volunteers were to meet on Wednesday April 14th to determine our first lesson topic. They did an excellent job and chose an Adam Hamilton study titled ENOUGH. Thanks to Natalie, Misty, Clark and Louise who helped pick the lesson for our class!

Meet and Greet - March 26, 2010

The first get together for our new class was held on March 26th at Susan Groseclose's home. She was so gracious to open her home to us and it luckily coincided with Parents Night Out so we were able to utilize the nursery for childcare. We had an excellent turnout of 15 couples and also our leaders (Butch and Charlotte Williams, Coker and Louise Barton and Rick and Peggy Honeycutt (who were not able to attend)) made a total of almost 40 people! We were able to socialize and meet each other and learn a little bit about one another through an ice breaker. BBQ was served and Sherry and Mike Harris along with Judy Meyers were so kind to help us serve food and clean up. After dinner we held a short discussion about lesson plans that were of interest to the group. Susan had spent a lot of time collecting curriculum and books for us to look through. The event could not have gone better and you could feel the excitement in the air as everyone is anticipating the start of our new class.