First (Second) Friday in January

Dear Agape class:

Mark your calenders now!!!

WHAT? Agape First Friday in January

WHEN? January 9 at 7pm.

I know we don't like changing up the "first" in the First Friday, but since the first Friday in January is one day after New Year's, and we want as many people as possible to participate, we're changing to the Second Friday in January.

WHERE? The Busey house:: Heather's generously offered to host and prepare the main course if everyone else will sign up to bring sides, bread, salad, dessert and/or beverages.

WHY? We really really need a planning session and officer elections in January but with some of our class gone each week in the Great Adventure, it seems like a better idea is to combine this "housekeeping" with our First Friday gathering. We can have dinner at someone's house and mix in a bit of business and brainstorming for 2009. What better way to ring in the new year than to get everyone's input for Agape??

It's really important that we all sit down to discuss what we want out of Agape, in terms of each aspect- curriculum, socials, missions, etc. It will be a way for all of us to recommit to Agape and St. Lukes! Please plan on attending!!!

This will be both fun and productive- plenty of food and drink and dessert- and fantastic conversation and ideas for how to guide and improve our class! I can't wait to hear everyone's ideas and think this will be the perfect setting- relaxed fellowship- to discuss!

Let me know if you have any suggestions or want specific feedback for certain areas of the class. While we don't have to be overly structured in our discussion, we should touch on all areas of the class. We will also touch on the feedback we've already received from the surveys.

Please also let Heather know if you would like to nominate someone for a class office (including yourself).

Christmas Mission- Family in Need

Please sign up and bring items to the church by Monday at 5 pm. Please email Amy C with your contribution so we don't overlap!

You can put your gifts in Amy C's office. (Charlotte's old office).

(Mom)
size 12 or large pants and shirt. would like something to wear to church, too.
shoes 9

Girl age 12 1/2
size 12-14 (tall girl)
shoes -- 4
teenage toy idea

Girl age 9
size 12 (short)
shoes 2

coat 10-12---Jon and Katie Arps

toys -- anything

Girl age 6 will be 7 in January
size 8- McIntires- We can get a couple of shirts and pants
shoes 13 or 1
toys -- anything

all the girls like arts/crafts stuff- Rachel

food basket

Important Upcoming Dates

We will be having quarterly planning sessions to talk about the direction of our class and ideas for the future. Please plan to attend!

Planning Sessions: Mar 1, May 31, Aug 30, Nov 22

Do you love Agape? I know you do! Bring a friend or friends to share this wonderful group of people with others!

Bring a Guest Day: Jan 25, Feb 22, Mar 22, Apr 19, May 24, June 21, Jul 26, Aug 16, Sept 20, Oct 25, Nov 15, Dec 20

Update on Great Adventure sign up

Here is the list of people signed up to teach in January. If you can help fill in the blanks or have questions, contact Laetitia.

Jan. 4
Mountain movers: Mitchell and Laetitia
Paris Plaza: Marci and Christopher
Kings Court Paul and Christa

Jan. 11
MM: Marci and Christopher
PP: Lisa and Patrick
KC: Amy and Dillon

Jan. 18
MM: Jonathan and Mitchell
PP: Randa and Mike (Rachel)
KC Marci and Christopher

Jan. 25
MM: Glendon and Jayne
PP:
KC:

Christmas Mission- Gifts for the Homebound Delivery

Amy C has the gifts for the homebound ready to deliver.   You can pick them up in her office at the church.  Please contact her if you have any questions.

2009 Curriculum and Class Planning

From Heather:

Agape friends,Thank you so much for your positive and honest feedback on Sunday. We have much to look forward to in the coming year.Some of the changes (all good ones!) that will take place beginning December 7th are:
· Sign up sheet (back by popular demand!)
· Quarterly planning sessions in class.
· Email visitors’ email/contact info to entire class so those who want to can send a “welcome” email.
· Last and MOST important – we need to be on time. Class does begin at 9:40. We should be finishing up our lesson at 10:30, so everyone has time to socialize before church. Let us all make a resolution to be there on time during Advent.

I’d like to get several people together to talk about the results of the survey and how we can implement some and move forward. We also need to discuss curriculum and teachers in the coming year. I know it will be crazy with the holidays coming up. Let me know if you’d like to take part. We can start planning immediately after the New Year if that works best for everyone else.

Laetitia Clark will be starting our Advent series this coming Sunday from the book “Hurry Less Worry Less at Christmastime.” Let me know if you have questions or concerns. Thanks again for the feedback, and I’ll be looking forward to spending Advent with all of you, growing in our faith!

Curriculum Discussion 2009

Suggestions from Linda Truitt for 2009 Curriculum:
What you might think of doing is defining what your class wants to learn in 2009. Develop just simple statements such as I want to know what Methodist believe, I want to enrich my prayer life, ETC, then work around those, otherwise you end up with a bunch of hodge podge.
Love/Marriage- the 5 love languages, 5 lanuages of Apology,getting the love you want, Love life for every couple. And more Healthy families a study for 20-30 year olds, Rick Warrens- God's purpose for your life. I have lots of books on prayer or spiritual discernment, books on theology and what we believe. I have books on other faiths,One of the other classes did a whole year with James Moore, he a prolific writer, they enjoyed it-I have lots of James Moores books such as -"Is there life after stress" and many other titles.

From Heather: Any of these topics jump out at you? How about thinking about a “vision” statement for our class in 2009? We could put it on the website and blog and Facebook.I know many of these that Linda suggested are more “personal growth”, which might be good “in-betweeners” but I thought the idea of the “My Upmost for his Highest” or “The Imitation of Christ” might be good starting points? Thoughts?

One more thing…I had an idea that I’d love to have feedback on. What if, like our lessons, we divided our missions into quarters. For example:
· Q1 – “On Whose Shoulders We Stand”
o Mobile Mealso Blizzard Packs, Visiting the Homebound
· Q2 – “Within the Walls of the Church”
o Studio 222o Samuel’s Call
· Q3 – “The Future of Our Church”
o Children’s Ministrieso VBS volunteering
· Q4 – “Outside the Walls of the Church”
o Volunteer at Food Bank
o Volunteer at Infant Crisis Center
o Sponsoring a family for Christmas

Agape Mission Project: Great Adventure Teaching in January 2009

From Laetitia:

As most of you know the Agape class has volunteered to serve the church by teaching Sunday school in the Great Adventure. This is the children's Sunday school for grades K-5. We still need people to sign up to teach. We need two teachers (So you don't have to teach alone) for three of the classes. That is a total of six people every Sunday in January. If you are not teaching, we will still have class. If everyone would volunteer for one Sunday, we would not need to have people miss an entire month of class. Thank you so much for your willingness to serve the children of our church. This means so much to our church family!Please know the curriculum is written and easy to follow. You will get it ahead of time, so you can ask questions. If you teach in the same room for more than one week, the curriculum stays the same. The kids change.

January 4
Mountain Movers (Games): Mitchell and Laetitia Clark
Paris Plaza (Cooking/Crafts): Marci and Christopher
King's Court (acting/ costumes): ______________________

January 11Mountain Movers: Marci and Christopher
Paris Plaza: __________________
KIngs Court: Amy and Dillon Curran

January 18
Mountain Movers: Jonathan Arps and ______________
Paris Plaza : ___________________________
Kings Court: Marci and Christopher

January 25
Mountain Movers ___________________________
Paris Plaza ___________________________
Kings Court ____________________________

Marci needs your help...

Marci's classroom was destroyed by vandals while we were in Hawaii...if you watch the video you'll hear that most of her classroom items that were destroyed or stolen were bought with her own money. If you'd like to donate money or supplies, I will be collecting them for her. You may bring them to Sunday school if that is more convenient. Your prayers that they will find the vandals will also help!

Britton Elementary School vandalismVideo:View footage of the damage.http://www.newsok.tv/?titleID=1640166850

Here's a list of things she needs:
Markers
Colored Pencils
Regular Pencils
Tempera Paint
Pastels
Erasers
Paintbrushes
Tape - Masking & Scotch
Scissors
Glue: Elmer's and Glue Sticks
Yarn, Glitter, Cottonballs, Popscicle sticks, Pipe cleaners
General Cleaning Supplies
Plastic Storage Boxes with Lids

Thanks again for your help. I'm sure Marci will be overwhelmed by the outpouring of support...that's what makes St. Luke's so special.

Heather :)

Mission Committee

From Amy & Ryan McIntire:

Matthew 6:1-4

Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Hi fellow class members!
Here is what we have lined up for mission work for the rest of the year; of course this is just an outline and if anyone hears of an opportunity to help others please jump in! Since it is pretty much already July, we have lined up our first project to be at the end of August/beginning of September. This will be to take dinners to the Studio 222. Julie Robinson has decided that when the children are there she wants to feed them as much as possible as many of these kids don't eat at all unless at the studio. She also shared with us that the kids LOVE it when the people that donate come to visit, so we offered to help with both for one week (a week for them is Monday-Thursday.) And of course if anyone is ever available to drive the busses to pick up or drop off, they desperately need drivers. Ryan has driven one of the busses and says they are very nice and very easy to drive. In October/November we will begin to focus on helping folks for Christmas time. One thing we can do is help the homebound with ingredients for soup and gifts of yarn to the SLUMC knitting group. And of course we can always adopt a family again as well if we want to.
The Studio 222 golf tournament is August 18th and for those interested in playing and want to do a class team contact Ryan. $150/golfer and $600/team
Please give us feedback on what you would like and don't like about our plan.

Feedback/Thank You's

I wanted to mention a few things class-wide, because we've had such a successful two months:

Laetitia, Amy and Marci: Thank you for making The Screwtape Letters a big success for the Sunday school class. The series offered a great ending to our quarter on the devil. The curriculum was a fun marketing concept and brought in several visitors. I'm excited to see our class getting into some dynamic lessons and discussions!!! We couldn't have pulled it off without you!

Laetitia and Jayne: Philip and I were delighted to have received an anniversary card from the Agape class...Compassion Ministry is an important part of our class in keeping members and fostering relationships! Thanks for the attention to detail!

Marci, Amy and Rachel: I appreciate your coordination of Agape's recent outings...Everyone enjoyed the bowling outing and is looking forward to some fun things being planned for the summer.

Philip: Thanks for letting me boss you around on the website stuff...it's an important marketing detail for prospects and current members!

Amy: The blog is great! Hopefully it can become a sounding board for all our classmembers to utilize! Thanks for taking the initiative to set it up!

Last, I wanted to get feedback on how well you think things are moving. We have some great leaders and great support members, but I'd like to know where you see room for improvement. If you don't feel comfortable telling the whole group, feel free to email me privately and we'll discuss. It's important for the class to be candid with one another in order to fulfill our spiritual development and have fun at the same time. The only way to make positive changes is through communication...so let us know how we're doing in the following categories, and/or if you have ideas! Feel free to critique me as well...I really want to know how to best lead the class. Another note, some of these committees haven't quite gotten off the ground, so it is okay if you would like to refrain from discussing...once curriculum gets going strong, we'll start working on the other areas!

Thanks for your participation! :)

Mission Committee:
How are we doing?
Ideas?

Prospect Committee:
How are we doing?
Ideas?

Class Leader:
How are we doing?
Ideas?

Social Committee:
How are we doing?
Ideas?

Compassion Committee:
How are we doing?
Ideas?

Curriculum Planning:
How are we doing?
Ideas?

Other thoughts to share?






Thanks again for being part in the success of Agape!
Heather :)

Class Officers & Committees

We had a nice turnout yesterday to vote on the nominations for Sunday School officers.

The results are in:

Mission Committee: Amy & Ryan McIntire

Class Leader: Heather Busey

Compassion Reps: Laetitia Clark & Jayne Hudson

Social Coordinators: Amy Curran & Marci Stellman

Prospect Committee: Paul Long & Dillon Curran

If anyone else feels an interest in being involved in either the mission committee or prospect committee, let Heather Busey know.  We can still use one or two more people for each.  

We had a great lesson this Sunday by Laetitia Clark on C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters.  We've only gotten into the Preface and first letter, so there is still time to join in.  This is sure to be a dynamic series, so bring a friend...we'd love to have you!!

Have a blessed week!

Class Officers

If you missed Sunday school yesterday, you missed getting the list of class roles and duties for our class. You also missed getting the nomination form. The steering committee wanted everyone to be able to participate in the class at whatever capacity they choose, so following the list of duties is a nomination form for us to nominate people we feel would excel at these tasks. Feel free to nominate yourself for anything or to take your name off the list for whatever reason. We will be voting next Sunday to elect people to these duties, so you don't want to miss on Sunday. Below is it the nomination form. You can bring it to class Sunday or you can e-mail it to me if you are unable to attend class next week, and I will bring it in for you.

Class roles and duties

Mission Committee (2-3 people and Social Coordinator)
Coordinates class mission/service projects

Class Leader
Coordinates teachers wether inside or outside of class
sends out e-mails to notify class of church or class events
attends Sunday school planning sessions at the church

Compassion Representative (2-3 people)
Mails out birthday and sympathy cards from the class
coordinates meals for those who have been ill, had a death in the family, or had a baby
Notifies the class of life changes or events

Social Coordinator (2 People)
Coordinates class social events
Makes sure the class roster and email list is updated with new members/changes
Completes "In the life of the Church" Sunday school write up.

Prospect Committee (2-3 People)
Contacts prospective class members through e-mail or phone
Stays in contact with church staff to be notified of new members or prospects

Our New Blog

Here is a place for us to keep in touch during the week. We will post upcoming lessons and comments on previous lessons. We can also track social events and prayer concerns. If you would like to be an author, please let Amy know at amycurran@cox.net.

Blogs are only fun if there are comments. So feel free to comment whatever and whenever you want.