Southport UMC Newsletter

Please join God’s Workers Youth Group and Boy Scout Troop 39 Saturday, August 9, at 9:30 a.m. to work on SUMC properties. We will be addressing outside maintenance and upkeep, bushes, trees, fence lines and general cleanup.   All skill levels are welcome. We will meet at the church at 9:30 a.m. and work until 12:00 p.m.   Please bring any hand tools and gloves you would like to use. Your support in maintaining our property is appreciated.   With your help we will contribute to an inviting and well-cared for church home in our neighborhood. If you have any questions, please call the church office 784-9508 or contact Bill Holzer.

Community Fall Festival is September 27 this year and planning is in full swing.   To help us “kick off” the festivities we will be having a Tailgate Party Thursday, September 4, from 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. as well as Sunday, September 7, from 8:15 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.   This is the first Colts game of the season and the perfect reason to celebrate.   We will have tailgating fun and food.  To help us ensure that the Community Fall Festival is a “Touchdown” in the community, we ask that you bring some of your favorite tailgating treats to donate for the festival.   We are in need of cases of soda (name brand please), cases of bottled water, boxes of Capri Suns, boxes of snack cakes and condiments (mustard, mayonnaise and relish).   We are also in need of new school supplies to give to the neighborhood children during the festival. Please feel free to bring these to the tailgating party as well. Don’t forget to wear your favorite Jersey and invite a foo...

Mark your calendar for the next drive:  Sunday, August 17, so you can contribute your special gift!  Appointments available and walk ins are always welcome!

From the volunteers who worked with the Kairos weekend at Indiana Women’s Prison   June 5-8, we would like to thank SUMC and its members who supported the weekend in many ways.  We thank you for your praying for everyone involved, baking cookies, contributing funds, attending closing, and for the children’s making pictures and posters for the women we served.  Your support helped make the weekend a time of love and support for the 39 women who participated as well as those who volunteered.  We certainly appreciate all you have done.

We are in the process of updating our annual Guide Book & Directory for the Church. This book will be the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of our Congregation.   The book is being provided at no cost to our Church, including the mailing to each family, and again is being subsidized by local businesses that advertise in it.   If you own or manage a business and would like to find out about advertising in our book, please call the Church office, 784-9508.

Does our Church database have your family membership record correct? Here is your chance to update your record for our annual Guide Book & Directory      (if you haven’t already done so). It is time for us to update our database with any changes, additions, or deletions that may have occurred in your family over the past year. Have you changed your phone number? Have you moved?   Are you preparing to move soon? Are all of your children still at home, and are they all included in your membership record? Do you want your record published? If you have not already informed the Church Office about changes to your record, please let us know now so that the information in the Guide Book & Directory is correct.

Dear Friends, I would like to share with each of you a new direction that we will soon be taking regarding offering a church library.   Traditional libraries have focused on collections of physical books.   That requires a considerable amount of effort to keep the books shelved, cataloged and organized.   Traditional libraries have served us well in the past, and the library at the church is a good example of giving people good options for their Christian reading choices. However, I think we would all agree that our world is changing rapidly, and that is true in the area of the “printed word” as well.   Many schools are moving away from physical textbooks to electronic textbooks loaded on e-readers or tablets.   Very soon future generations will envision books as something to be downloaded on an electronic device rather than a physical volume with paper pages.    Libraries are moving toward electronic versions of books and many librar...