Show Us Your Life--Your Church

I am excited about this Show Us Your Life from Kelly's Korner. If you're anyone in the blog world you've visited Kelly's Korner. She just had her baby girl, Hollis, who is absolutely adorable. What a beautiful baby girl! Her big sister is gorgeous too! :) So if you haven't visited Kelly's Korner, go right now! Now, onto my church... We attend First United Methodist Church in West Plains, MO. I wasn't really raised going to church every Sunday. My Dad grew up Baptist and my Mom Methodist and we did attend the Baptist church for awhile. We started going to FUMC when I was in high school and didn't attend regularly until I was in college. I was Baptised and joined the church in 2008. We got married there in 2009 and I struggled with Kody not wanting to go with me, but he completely changed his mind and in the beginning of 2010 he started going. Our life, marriage, and future changed immediately. We have really gotten involved and I am in love with my church. Sundays are my favorite days of the week because we get to worship and see our friends! First United Methodist Church has everything we wanted in a church. My idea was to be involved in a church before kids so we could raise them there, done. FUMC offers an extensive youth program, children's sermon, children's church, children's Sunday School, a HUGE Vacation Bible School, after school programs, the best private pre-school in town (seriously), and a daycare. You name it, they've got it. We added on several years ago and built a Christian Life Center with classrooms, a huge gym, big kitchen, etc.

Christian Life Center, a side view from just after it was built. There's not a playground on the back side fenced in and a prayer garden up close to the original building.

We then added a connection to the CLC and the main church so you could go from one to the other. We also added an upstairs chapel that is used for Wednesday night services and other small worship events.

FUMC is BIG on evangelism and reaching out to those in the community. It's incredible how many missions are constantly going on at FUMC. Here are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head: Lunch Bunch (weekly lunch for Missouri State University-West Plains students)

Stephen's Ministry (ministry services for military families, etc.)

West Plains Christian Clinic (free medical clinic for underprivileged people)

Yearly Jamaican mission trips to Falmouth, Jamaica for medical missions.

Hispanic Reach-Out (ministering with those from the local Mexican restaurants in town)

Christ's Kitchen

Christ's Closet

VBS--last year it was 275 children worshiping Jesus!

and there are SEVERAL more....

Kody and I attend the first (early) service at 8:15. It's a contemporary, come as you are, service with a praise band that we love! We have 2 pastors, Senior Pastor Mark Mildren and Associate Pastor Todd Holman. Todd preaches the last Sunday of the month. Kody and I love both of them. They aren't the intimidating type of pastor, both are so easy to talk to. I can go up to either and start a conversation, ask a question, facebook/email, etc with them and always get a great, quick response. They know us by name and know about our lives. Both have visited me at work, that always makes me feel special! During our service the children have a special time with the pastor and get a quick sermon and then go away for Children's Church. After our service we all gather in the Christian Life Center for coffee and breakfast and then go to Sunday School at 9:30. There's a 10:45 traditional service with a choir and at our 2nd location there's a 11:00 service that is very relaxed with visitors in mind. There's a Wednesday night Praise & Prayer Worship service in the chapel at 6.

We love our Sunday School class! We've gotten to know several of the couples in there and are good friends with them. We've figured out even though they're a little older than us we have a lot in common and enjoy each other! We're an open class and I'm never afraid to make a comment or ask a question. We get together on some weekends and have different outings. There's a Sunday School class for everyone though and I believe that has only helped our relationship with our church grow and prosper.

I've gotten pretty involved with church and Kody is beginning to as well. I serve on the Pastor Parish Relations Committee and just started a committee, Christ's Communicators, to help with communication about FUMC and the community. We are constantly trying to reach the community and invite them to church!

From our website here are the things we believe... •God is bigger and better and closer than we can imagine. •The Bible is God’s perfect guidebook for living. •Jesus is God showing himself to us. •Through His Holy Spirit, God lives in and through us now. •Nothing in creation “just happened.” God made it all. •Grace is the only way to have a relationship with God. •God wants to have a relationship with you! •Faith is the only way to grow in our relationship with God. •God has allowed evil to provide us with a choice, God can bring good even out of evil events and God promises victory over evil to those who choose him. •Heaven and hell are real places. Death is a beginning, not the end. •The church is to serve people like Jesus served people. •Jesus is coming again. •We can become more like Jesus

(sorry the spacing is all weird, I've had trouble with Blogger lately...)

I have found and Kody too that you can have fun at church. You can hang out and be normal with people from church...it's just a really great fit for us.

If you live in the West Plains area and are interested in our church, please talk with me or visit the website at http://www.fumcwestplains.com/. You can contact the church office at 417-256-6167. Come visit and see what I'm talking about. If anything you will fall in love with how beautiful and serene the sanctuary is. I love it! Just like home!