Weekly Update// Pastor Will
Hi Church!
Remember last week how I mentioned that it was a busy time? If you listened in or attended worship on Sunday, I divulged that life for Alicia and me is about to get increasingly busy come February. I think it was on Father’s Day when Alicia let me know the news, and I couldn’t have asked for a better gift that day. One more piece of information I did not disclose on Sunday was the gender of the baby. Alicia has been feeling a bit more nauseous this time around, so we thought for sure we were having a girl; however, after doing a blood test, we received confirmation on Tuesday that we are having another boy! We had heard how the gender could be confirmed through blood tests instead of ultra-sound these days, and we had that confirmed just this week. While we are excited to have another boy so Liam can have a little brother to play with, we ask for prayers as I’m sure our hands will be plenty full!
You may also remember last week how I spoke about the Youth Group kicking off. Well, you read about it, so it went great! We kicked off our Wednesday Night program and were blessed to have the United Methodist Men not only cook for us but hang out with us as well! I wasn’t part of every discussion, but it seemed the conversations surrounded the topic of school and starting back. The re-occurring theme was that all the youth bemoaned starting school again while all the adults would give anything to go back! With it being such a success, I hope we will be doing it again soon.
In other news, Asbury has had a few sorrowful weeks in the loss of some prominent figures of the church. The previous week Dallas Wolford passed, and last week saw the passing of Joe Estill. Our hearts break and go out to both the Wolford and the Estill families. We will be celebrating the life of both individuals in the coming weeks. This Saturday, August 27th, at 11:00 am, we will have a Celebration of Life service for Joe Estill in the Sanctuary. The following week, a Celebration of Life service for Dallas will be on Friday, September 2nd, at 2:00 PM in the Sanctuary as well. While our hearts are full of grief, we take hope in knowing that both Dallas and Joe are resting in the arms of our Heavenly Father.
In service this Sunday, Pastor Chris will be giving a stand-alone message titled, “Is Church Really Necessary?” The following Sunday, September 4th, I’ll be giving a stand-alone message as well, and then the following Sunday, September 11th, we will hear from Erwin Lopez, Pastor and Director of the Wesley Foundation of Central Florida. On that Sunday, we will have a special collection for the Wesley Foundation to whom we owe great thanks. We have had many wonderful interns that have served Asbury faithfully over the years and want to do everything we can to support them as best as possible. We hope you will join us for those services either at the 9:30am Celebration Service, or the 11:00am Traditional service, both of which are livestreamed if you can’t join in person. God Bless and have a wonderful weekend!
Pastor Will