SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 2012
SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
COLOR: GREEN
PASTOR BOB WILL BE OUT OF TOWN TODAY.
TOM CLINE WILL SPEAK AT BOTH CHURCHES.
THIS IS HUMAN RELATIONS DAY.
HUMAN RELATIONS DAY SUPPORTS:
Gifts to Human Relations Day provide avenues
to restored relationships through ministries.
Programs supported through Human Relations
Day offering include but are not limited to:
• • HIV/AIDS Programs
• • Affordable Housing Programs
• • Youth Empowerment/Initiatives
• • Mental & Physical Health Programs
• • Youth Leadership Programs
• • Senior Citizen Assistance Programs
• • Restorative Justice Programs
• • Prison Ministry Programs
• • After-School & Summer Programs
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SCRIPTURE READINGS —
1 SAMUEL 3:1-20
(The Message)
God's call was difficult for Samuel to identify,
and the message with the call (verses 11-20)
even harder to deliver to one who had been a
father and a mentor. At first, Samuel thought
the voice he was hearing was Eli's. Eli had been
Samuel's trusted mentor for several years. It
was Eli who most clearly represented God to
Samuel. Eli said Samuel was to offer himself and
all his attention, letting God do the talking. What
did God want? God wanted Samuel to listen.
God opened Samuel to hearing God calling again
many more times in his life and relaying what he
heard to others.
Samuel became known as a trustworthy prophet.
1 The boy Samuel was serving God under Eli's
direction. This was at a time when the revelation
of God was rarely heard or seen.
2 One night Eli was sound asleep (his eyesight
was very bad - he could hardly see).
3 It was well before dawn; the sanctuary lamp
was still burning. Samuel was still in bed in the
Temple of God, where the Chest of God rested.
4 Then God called out, "Samuel, Samuel!"
5 Then he ran to Eli saying, "I heard you call.
Here I am." Eli said, "I didn't call you. Go back to
bed." And so he did.
6 God called again, "Samuel, Samuel!" Samuel
got up and went to Eli, "I heard you call. Here I am."
7 (This all happened before Samuel knew God for
himself. It was before the revelation of God had
been given to him personally.)
8 God called again, "Samuel!" - the third time!
Yet again Samuel got up and went to Eli, "Yes? I
heard you call me. Here I am."
9 So Eli directed Samuel, "Go back and lie down.
If the voice calls again, say, 'Speak, God. I'm your
servant, ready to listen.'" Samuel returned to bed.
10 Then God came and stood before him exactly
as before, calling out, "Samuel! Samuel!" Samuel
answered,
"Speak. I'm your servant, ready to listen."
11 God said to Samuel, "Listen carefully. I'm getting
ready to do something in Israel that is going to
shake everyone up and get their attention.
12 The time has come for me to bring down on Eli's
family everything I warned him of, every word of it.
13 I'm letting him know that the time's up. I'm
bringing judgment on his family for good. He knew
what was going on, that his sons were desecrating
God's name and God's place, and he did nothing to
stop them.
14 This is my sentence on the family of Eli: The evil
of Eli's family can never be wiped out by sacrifice or
offering."
15 Samuel stayed in bed until morning, then rose
early and went about his duties, opening the doors
of the sanctuary, but he dreaded having to tell the
vision to Eli.
16 But then Eli summoned Samuel: "Samuel, my
son!" Samuel came running: "Yes? What can I do
for you?"
17 "What did he say? Tell it to me, all of it. Don't
suppress or soften one word, as God is your judge!
I want it all, word for word as he said it to you."
18 So Samuel told him, word for word. He held
back nothing. Eli said, "He is God. Let him do
whatever he thinks best."
19 Samuel grew up. God was with him, and
Samuel's prophetic record was flawless.
20 Everyone in Israel, from Dan in the north to
Beersheba in the south, recognized that Samuel
was the real thing - a true prophet of God.
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PSALM 139:1-6, 13-18 (UMH 854)
(The Message)
1 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
2 I'm an open book to you; even from a distance,
you know what I'm thinking.
3 You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm
never out of your sight.
4 You know everything I'm going to say before I
start the first sentence.
5 I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead
and you're there, too - your reassuring presence,
coming and going.
6 This is too much, too wonderful -
I can't take it all in!
PSALM 139:13-18
13 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
14 I thank you, High God - you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship
in adoration - what a creation!
15 You know me inside and out, you know every
bone in my body; You know exactly how I was
made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing
into something.
16 Like an open book, you watched me grow from
conception to birth; all the stages of my life were
spread out before you, The days of my life all
prepared before I'd even lived one day.
17 Your thoughts - how rare, how beautiful! God,
I'll never comprehend them!
18 I couldn't even begin to count them - any more
than I could count the sand of the sea. Oh, let me
rise in the morning and live always with you!
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1 CORINTHIANS 6:12-20
(The Message)
Paul confronts the ease with which some,
apparently even in the church in Corinth, could
justify using prostitutes (in our day, the ever
more prevalent use of pornography). This is no
mere economic arrangement, Paul reminds.
Just as in marriage we are made one with a
spouse, so in baptism we have been made one
with Christ. As spouses belong to each other,
so we belong to Christ.
12 Just because something is technically legal
doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I
went around doing whatever I thought I could get
by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.
13 You know the old saying, "First you eat to live,
and then you live to eat"? Well, it may be true that
the body is only a temporary thing, but that's no
excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging
it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a
body, honor him with your body!
14 God honored the Master's body by raising it from
the grave. He'll treat yours with the same
resurrection power.
15 Until that time, remember that your bodies are
created with the same dignity as the Master's body.
You wouldn't take the Master's body off to a
whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.
16 There's more to sex than mere skin on skin.
Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact.
As written in Scripture, "The two become one."
17 Since we want to become spiritually one with
the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex
that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us
more lonely than ever - the kind of sex that can
never "become one."
18 There is a sense in which sexual sins are
different from all others. In sexual sin we violate
the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies
that were made for God-given and God-modeled
love, for "becoming one" with another.
19 Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred
place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see
that you can't live however you please, squandering
what God paid such a high price for? The physical
part of you is not some piece of property belonging
to the spiritual part of you.
20 God owns the whole works. So let people see
God in and through your body.
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JOHN 1:43-51 (The Message)
John offers us stories about a calling to become
disciples. Jesus calls Philip to follow him, and
Philip announces to Nathanael that he has found
the one expected by Moses and the prophets.
Nathanael is skeptical until Jesus tells him he
was watching Nathanael as he was sitting under
a fig tree. We see the call to discipleship in its
simplest form in Jesus' call to Philip in
verse 43: "Follow me."
• A few professions that offer apprenticeships
before one enters into practice are Medicine,
plumbing, electrical, and iron working. Early
Christianity had a three-year "apprenticeship"
called the “catechumenate.”
A Catechumen (cat•e•chu•men) was a Christian
convert under instruction before baptism.
Catechism is a term still used today to
encompass a summary of principles in Christian
religious education. See “General Rules of the
Methodist Church” or “MethoPedia”.
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.
When he got there, he ran across Philip and said,
"Come, follow me."
44 (Philip's hometown was Bethsaida, the same
as Andrew's and Peter's.)
45 Philip went and found Nathanael and told him,
"We've found the One Moses wrote of in the Law,
the One preached by the prophets. It's Jesus,
Joseph's son, the one from Nazareth!"
46 Nathanael said, "Nazareth? You've got to be
kidding." But Philip said, "Come, see for yourself."
47 When Jesus saw him coming he said, "There's
a real Israelite, not a false bone in his body."
48 Nathanael said, "Where did you get that idea?
You don't know me." Jesus answered, "One day,
long before Philip called you here, I saw you under
the fig tree."
49 Nathanael exclaimed, "Rabbi! You are the Son
of God, the King of Israel!"
50 Jesus said, "You've become a believer simply
because I say I saw you one day sitting under the
fig tree? You haven't seen anything yet!
51 Before this is over you're going to see heaven
open and God's angels descending to the Son of
Man and ascending again."
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MONDAY, JANUARY 16TH —
This is Pastor Bob's and Naomi's day off.
The office is closed today.
This is Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.
Dr. King was an eloquent, masterful speaker.
It's easy to see why selfish, greedy men were
frightened of him.
OUR GOD IS MARCHING ON!
by Martin Luther King
We’ve come a long way since that travesty of justice
was perpetrated upon the American mind.
James Weldon Johnson said:
We have come over a way
That with tears hath been watered.
We have come treading our paths
Through the blood of the slaughtered.
Out of the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam
Of our bright star is cast.
• Today I want to tell the city of Selma, today I want
to say to the state of Alabama, today I want to say
to the people of America and the nations of the
world, that we are not about to turn around.
We are on the move now.
• Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism
can stop us. We are on the move now. The burning
of our churches will not deter us. The bombing of
our homes will not dissuade us. We are on the
move now.
The beating and killing of our clergymen and young
people will not divert us. We are on the move now.
The wanton release of their known murderers would
not discourage us. We are on the move now. Like
an idea whose time has come, not even the
marching of mighty armies can halt us. We are
moving to the land of freedom.
• Let us therefore continue our triumphant march to
the realization of the American dream. Let us march
on segregated housing until every ghetto or social
and economic depression dissolves, and Negroes
and whites live side by side in decent, safe, and
sanitary housing. Let us march on segregated
schools until every vestige of segregated and inferior
education becomes a thing of the past, and Negroes
and whites study side-by-side in the socially-healing
context of the classroom.
• Let us march on poverty until no American parent
has to skip a meal so that their children may eat.
March on poverty until no starved man walks the
streets of our cities and towns in search of jobs that
do not exist. Let us march on poverty until wrinkled
stomachs in Mississippi are filled, and the idle
industries of Appalachia are realized and revitalized,
and broken lives in sweltering ghettos are mended
and remolded.
• Let us march on ballot boxes until the salient
misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs will be transformed
into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens.
• Let us march on ballot boxes until we send to our
city councils, state legislatures, and the United
States Congress, men who will not fear to do
justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.
• Let us march on ballot boxes until brotherhood
becomes more than a meaningless word in an
opening prayer, but the order of the day on every
legislative agenda.
They ask, “When will Alabama return to normalcy?"
The only normalcy that we will settle for is the
normalcy that recognizes the dignity and worth of
all of God’s children. The only normalcy that we will
settle for is the normalcy of brotherhood,
the normalcy of true peace, and justice.
I know you are asking today,
"How long will it take?"
• How long? Not long, because "truth crushed
to earth will rise again."
• How long? Not long, because "no lie can live
forever."
• How long? Not long, because "you shall reap
what you sow."
• How long? Not long, because the arc of the
moral universe is long,
and it bends toward justice.
"How long will prejudice blind the visions of
men, darken their understanding, and drive
bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?"
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,
And the walls come tumbling down. 
—— A Truly Eloquent Speaker
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18TH —
MARTHA CIRCLE WILL MEET IN CASEY U.M.C.
AT 7 P.M.
ESTHER CIRCLE WILL MEET AT DONNA SHEEDER'S AT 7PM
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 19TH —
DEBORAH - MARY CIRCLE WILL MEET IN
CASEY U.M.C. AT 2 P.M.
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 20TH —
Parish Consultations with Rev. Kail will take place
in Adair U.M.C. beginning at 1:30 P.M. and he will
be available until 6:30 P.M.
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SATURDAY, JANUARY 21ST —
Rev. Kail's Parish Consultations begin at 9:30 A.M.
Sign up to take part now.
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Sunday, January 22nd Rev. Ed Kail will speak at
Adair United Methodist Church Service.
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I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold
these truths to be self-evident; that all men are
created equal".
“Let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New
Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains
of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies
of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of
Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of
California!
• When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from
every village and every hamlet, from every state and
every city, we will be able to speed up that day when
all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews
and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able
to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro
spiritual,
"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are
free at last"! —— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
God Bless and Keep You,
Pastor Bob
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