Mark your calendar for Saturday, August 21 at noon! Our annual church picnic is always a time of great fun and wonderful fellowship.

This year the picnic will be part of our anniversary weekend celebration. The picnic will be held on the church grounds and will include loads of great activities: a bounce house for the kids, a tent to provide shade, exciting yard games, and of course some great hot dogs and hamburgers. And if that’s not enough, there will also be a dunk tank so that everyone can have a turn trying to dunk the church staff!

A few notes:

• The church will provide hot dogs and hamburgers, and we’ll each bring our favorite side dish or dessert to share.
• There will be some seating, but if you can, please bring lawn chairs.
• Lemonade and iced tea will be provided. If you’d like another beverage, please bring it with you.

Our next TGI Friday Night Praise Service will be July 30 at 7:00 pm! Our first “experiment” was a wonderful success, so we are going to continue this service each quarter.

If you like praise and worship and want more music, this service is for you! We’ll sing a wide range of old and new favorites.

Our worship theme for the evening is Faith Without Borders. We’ll be blessed with a homily from Michael Drain. You may remember him from the Black History Month service as “the Preacher.” He’ll share some insights about faith and how that impacts us as a church that draws from diverse traditions.

We will have some soloists from our church, and one from our local community, Anthony Rodriguez. Our prayer is that God will speak to you through the music and strengthen you on life’s journey!

When our Missions Team visited Sudan in January of 2009, the woman of the Toposa tribe asked for our help to construct a well for their tribe. The women have to walk miles daily through dangerous territory to retrieve water. Constructing a well in southern Sudan is very expensive — $13,000!

Donna Hays (who is on the Missions Board and helped to plan that trip) and her father (before he passed away) felt a special burden to respond to the request of the Toposa woman. Together, they raised $10,000. Our challenge, as a congregation, was to come up with the balance. We have now done so in the following ways:

• 20% of last Sunday’s offering was designated for the well, adding $1,986 to the total.
• Donations made by our children during Vacation Bible School added another $200.
• Tuesday the Board of Directors voted to take $814 from church reserves to complete the project.

Drilling will begin soon in the Toposa tribal area. Thank you for your wonderful generosity!

A group of folks from Jesus MCC attended our denomination’s triennial General Conference in Mexico the week of June 27–July 3. Our official delegation, sent by our church included Pastor Jeff and Lay Delegates Curt Pickard and Melissa Bruce. Three other folks funded their own trips: Carla Peck, and Julie and Brent Walsh.

Here’s a report on hightlights from the Conference.

• Restructuring. At the business meeting, delegates approved a reconfiguration of the governing structure of our denomination. The primary purpose was to consolidate various boards into a single Governing Board, to reduce expenses and create clarity in strategic decisionmaking.
• Progressive Evangelical Network. Pastor Jeff convened a meeting of 55 leaders from MCCs who share our church’s approach to ministry. The group decided to become an official network within MCC, and plans to meet and communicate regularly to share resources and to speak with a common voice on matters of denominational direction.
• Found Pearl Press. Our church’s publishing ministry, Found Pearl Press, was a featured sponsor of General Conference. From a booth in the Expo Hall, we offered a whole range of resources for other churches, including our newly-published Discipleship 101/102 workbooks. Our booth attracted strong interest and we sold about $1,600 of our resources to interested congregations. We want to express deepest thanks to those who volunteered countless hours at our booth: Curt, Melissa, Carla, Julie, and Brent. Pastor Jeff dialogued with renowned Christian singer and songwriter, Ray Boltz, about distributing his newest album via Found Pearl Press.
• Africa Meeting. Pastor Jeff convened a meeting of African leaders to discuss how to best share our church’s book on homosexuality and the Bible — The Children Are Free — in Africa, where the need for an affirming Gospel message is so critical. Leaders from Kenya and South Africa will be taking the lead in coordinating the printing and distribution of our book in Africa.
• Australia Meeting. Pastor Jeff met with the pastor of Crave MCC, Sydney, Australia, to discuss how we can support their growing ministry. Crave MCC is a congregation of about 60 young adults who minister in a style similar to our church and already use our Discipleship materials. Crave MCC is not only interested in broadening their use of our materials, but also contributing materials of their own to the work of Found Pearl Press.
• Partnership with The Fellowship. “The Fellowship” is a group of about 20 Christian churches that work together in coalition. Their congregations are predominantly African American and LGBT. MCC and The Fellowship are exploring forming an intentional partnership. Key leaders and many congregants from The Fellowship were present at Conference, so everyone could become better acquainted and explore what a partnership might look like. Discussions are going very well and will likely lead to some type of formal agreement in the near future.
• Award for our Church. Jesus MCC was given one of MCC’s two highest honors, the Excellence In Ministry Award, in recognition of our innovative work in creating Discipleship resources for MCC congregations.

MCC’s next General Conference will occur in Chicago in 2013.

You may recall the report from our last Sudan missions trip about the Toposa tribe and their defunct well. The women of the tribe walk several miles each way to retrieve their daily water supply, and are often attacked by wild animals. It has been our dream to fund a clean water supply in the heart of the tribe. With your help, on July 11, that goal can be met!

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