Spring Valley United Methodist Church

OFFICE HELP NEEDED: We are looking for a volunteer to fill Cheryl's shoes at the desk on Tuesday afternoons from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. This is an essential shift because Cheryl covers the front office during our weekly staff/worship planning meetings.

If you can't volunteer for the entire afternoon but have an hour to spare, the staff meeting is from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. every Tuesday. If you are interested and available on Tuesday afternoons, please contact Allison.

Bishop Saenz made all North Texas Methodists proud Monday night when he threw out the first pitch at the Ranger/White Sox game. It was a great game! The last pitch of the 9th inning resulted in a 3 - 3 tie, which sent the game into extra innings. The Rangers won in the bottom of the tenth with a two-run home run. Spring Valley UMC was well represented.

Spring Valley United Methodist Church members will distribute backpacks and school supplies to 375 students at Northwood Hills Elementary on Tuesday, August 6th, from 4 to 7 p.m.

We need all available hands to interact with all these students and their families. If you usually work on Tuesdays, this could be a good day to leave work early. Otherwise, we welcome you to join us in progress. Please let David Smith know if you can serve during all or part of the 4 to 7 period. All volunteers must register with the district. It just takes a moment. Click here --> Register RISD: https://risd.voly.org/

As you may have heard in worship or elsewhere, this is part of our church stepping up to the Campus Champion level of engagement with the Richardson ISD Foundation. An associated financial commitment came from a grant from the Texas Methodist Foundation, special donations from some of our members, and the Dimes-A-Day fund supported by the special offerings we all make each third Sunday.

Let's serve our smallest neighbors!

Volunteer - Richardson ISD - RISD We Are One Volunteer Overview Resources Mobile App Other Opportunities Overview RISD uses VOLY, a volunteer management system, to post volunteer opportunities and find volunteers. To volunteer on an RISD campus, you will need to create a VOLY account by visiting the VOLY website. Richardson ISD requires every....

Hi! My name is Maeson Bryant. I'm from a small town, Independence, Kansas. I recently graduated from Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, with a degree in Philosophy and Religion and minors in Criminal Justice and Christian Discipleship. For the past four summers, I’ve worked with a nonprofit in Dallas called Project Transformation, so I wanted to move down to Dallas. I’ve led worship for around eight years now, both in my home church and as a part of chapel/outreach teams at Southwestern College. I am excited to start working alongside the team at Spring Valley UMC.

WELCOME MAESON!

It’s almost here! August means Back to School time!

One of my favorite memories was several years ago when the boyos were little: Christy, who always loved the day when it was time to purchase school supplies for the new school year, was so excited to share that joy for the first time with our kiddos. We packed up everyone in the minivan, headed to Target, and… they could not have been any less interested. Fast forward to 2024: Linus’ senior year at Richardson High School; Miles’ second year at Hendrix College; James’ first year teaching and coaching football at Westwood Junior High: the Math, Science, Leadership Magnet at RISD. Big school year at the Drenner home!

This year, Spring Valley UMC, through the Missions Committee, supported the RISD community by becoming a CAMPUS CHAMPION. With a $7,500 donation to The Richardson ISD Foundation, Campus Champions partner with their chosen high-need elementary campus to provide backpacks and school supplies for 375 students. Our partner campus is Northwood Hills Elementary. We will gather there on the evening of Tuesday, August 6. Join us as we hand out backpacks and supplies while making vital community connections!

Campus Champion Benefits:
• Recognition on RISD and Foundation promotional materials (press releases, website and social media).
• Opportunity to engage our staff in an employee volunteer opportunity.
• Formal recognition at an RISD Board Meeting.
• One scoreboard advertisement during a fall 2024 RISD football game.
• Plaque to display for us to display.
• “Campus Champion” plaque with our name or logo placed at Northwood Hills Elementary for the 2024-2025 school year.
• Listing in The Richardson ISD Foundation 2024-2025 Year-in-Review annual report.

Julia Saverline has agreed to serve as Spring Valley’s Prayer Coordinator for the Conference’s Back to School Prayer Initiative. You’ll hear more soon!

Back to school is an important time to make connections in our neighborhood. To get us ready for the exciting adventure (I hear the rumbles of our students in the background), we’ll have a special Back to School worship series in August. Our theme verse for the series is “Imitate God like dearly loved children” - Ephesians 5:1.

Each Sunday will have a special emphasis. There are also mid-week opportunities:
August 4: Blessing for teachers, administrators, and support staff
August 6: Hand out backpacks and supplies at Northwood Hills
August 11: Blessing of the Backpacks, including prayers for students and families
August 13: First day of school for Richardson ISD
August 18: Invitation to mentor a fourth grader at RISD Academy through Academy 4. Norma Warner and I participated last school year; it was a real blessing. It’s a monthly commitment (Fridays, 1:00-2:30).
August 25: Blessing for Spring Valley Preschool students, families, teachers and staff
September 3: First day of school for Spring Valley Elementary. Who’s available to cheer on the littles that morning as they have their first day?

Throughout the scriptures, we see God calling people to serve their community and giving them the gifts to do it. As a new school year begins, we reflect together on how God has blessed each child, youth and adult with specific gifts with which to bless their community. “The ministry of all Christians in Christ’s name and spirit is both a gift and a task” (para. 129, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 2016). Through living out our own unique calling, we can transform our communities and be a light to the world. Each one of us is indeed blessed by God to be a blessing to others.

- Pastor Frank

Recently our Finance team agreed to begin accepting contributions through Zelle. This is a fast, easy, and safe way to share financial gifts with the church; in fact, I just sent my first-ever gift through Zelle to SVUMC this morning. It took two minutes using my bank’s app on my phone. Watch the video to learn more. Still have questions? Go to zellepay.com or email [email protected].

When sending money to the church with Zelle, use the same [email protected] email.

Thanks for supporting Spring Valley’s mission!
- Pastor Frank Drenner III

Zelle® | How it Works Zelle® is an easy way to send and receive money with friends and family – you know, those you know and trust – at different banks and credit unions, for all ...

Reminder - this Sunday following worship is the Farewell Reception for Shea Wilkins. Please join us as we wish her well on her new adventure!

August is a great month to engage with our community!

United Methodist back-to-school blessing As families and students and teachers begin another school year, take time for prayer, too.

Ways to Give To Spring Valley:

- Check or cash at Sunday worship or check only via PO mail.
- svumc.org - one-time gift or set up recurring gifts on your debit or credit card
- Zelle with no bank fees - use the email address [email protected]
- Qualified charitable distribution from your IRA

Spring Valley Family,

I am pleased to announce the hiring of Maeson Bryant as our Director of Community Engagement and Family Ministries. Maeson comes to Spring Valley as a recent college graduate. She has spent the last four summers in Dallas working at Project Transformation. Originally from Kansas, Maeson is making Dallas her new home. She will be instrumental in helping our church engage its community and neighborhood in new ways, which will create exciting paths for ministry and service in the name of Jesus Christ. She will also help foster leadership in our students and children as she ministers to them. Of course we are all grateful to Shea Wilkins, who has served our congregation well for the past five years. I look forward to celebrating her following worship July 21st.

Maeson’s ministry at Spring Valley will begin Sunday August 4th, the day after she finishes her summer with Project Transformation at Bridgeport Camp. She may be tired and sunburned! We will formally welcome her to the church and she will share a message for children. I am very grateful for students and parents, plus staff and members of our Staff/Parish team, who helped the church find the right candidate at the right time.


Peace and Joy,
Pastor Frank

We still need at least 6 people to help serve Sunday at Austin Street Center. If you volunteer to serve, please be at the church at 6am to load your car with food. We will leave for Austin Street by 6:20. Please email Deb Tucker if you can help. [email protected]

Good morning! Our next service opportunity is Sunday, July 21st. We need at least 20 people to provide:

- 24 sandwiches
- 24 pieces of soft fruit
- 24 hard boiled eggs

for the homeless and bring them to Wesley Hall Kitchen by noon on Saturday, July 20. We also need at least eight (8) people to deliver and serve the food on Sunday morning to Austin Street.

Please contact Deb Tucker if you can serve, provide or have questions! [email protected].

Youth Summer Schedule!

Good morning! Our next service opportunity is Sunday, July 21st. We need at least 20 people to provide:

- 24 sandwiches
- 24 pieces of soft fruit
- 24 hard boiled eggs

for the homeless and bring them to Wesley Hall Kitchen by noon on Saturday, July 20. We also need at least eight (8) people to deliver and serve the food on Sunday morning to Austin Street.

Please contact Deb Tucker if you can serve, provide or have questions! [email protected].

We will start back up with Youth Swim after the holiday weekend on Sunday, July 14th! We are moving it from Wednesdays to Sundays.

Please plan to join us on July 21st following worship for a Farewell Reception for our wonderful Shea Wilkins! We look forward to wishing Shea well on her new adventure. Light snacks will be served. Please feel free to bring individual notes and/or gifts of appreciation.

This week has been very busy. From interviewing potential staff hires to hauling tools and supplies to Austin and back for the youth mission trip, to being present at the moment of Jan Thomas’ death yesterday (Jan is the wife of Jerry and sister of Tony), it has been a week of emotional highs and lows. As I was reading my devotional this morning, this reading really spoke to me- seeing, and seeking, God in all things.

"When we begin to confine God to specifically religious areas of life, we are forced to turn away from the ordinary experiences of life in order to be touched by the gracious reality of God. Yet this is not the way it was for Jesus. The fundamental message of Jesus about God is that human life is the home of God. Do not look anywhere else. All the parables of Jesus are stories about experiencing God. These stories are filled with very human characters and very human experiences.

Yet none of them ever mention "God" directly.

What the theologians seem to be saying today, and what so many people searching for God force us to admit, is that if it makes sense to speak of God at all, then we must be able to experience God in the center of our lives where we spend most of our time and expend most of our energy. To realize that God is there in the center of our lives at the deepest dimension of every human moment means that God is never far from us.

To experience God in the depths is to be aware that we are related to a larger mystery within which we live. St.Paul understood this well when he expressed the following in his speech in the Areopagus of Athens: ‘Yet God is actually not far away from any one of us; as someone has said, "In him we live and move and have our being"’ (Acts 17:27-28).

For this reason, our relationship to God and response to God cannot be relegated to special activities or special moments. Our relationship and response to God are going on all the time, whether we want them to or not."

—From To Walk Together Again by Richard M. Gula

At the beginning of this year, several dozen Spring Valley members gathered to dream and discern God’s direction for our church for 2024 and 2025. We were asked to think about a metaphor, and this is what we settled on: To become a powerful recharging station, we must …

• Invite the Spirit to fill us
• Create a culture of invitation and hospitality (that draws people in)
• Demonstrate acceptance, care, and nurture
• Equip & inspire people to go out to meet the needs in our world
• … and embrace the changes (that will be necessary for this to happen)

Now you are seeing this image on social media, the website, the Behold, and the worship guide:

After this week, many of us are exhausted: youth and adults working in the Austin heat; recovering from Worship Arts Camp; dealing with grief and planning; and, as the writer of Ecclesiastes said, “everything else under the sun.” Even in the midst of the tiredness and pace of life, let us find that ever-present love of God within us and in others, that we may find the rest and peace we need.

Seeing, and seeking, God in all things,
Pastor Frank

A prayer for our Youth on their Summer Mission Trip in Austin:

Lord, we lift up the low-income, elderly, and disabled homeowners we will be serving. We ask for Your blessing upon them, that they may feel Your love and care through our actions. Grant us the strength, patience, and compassion to serve them well, and may our work be a testament to Your boundless love.

We pray for the safety and well-being of all the volunteers and participants. Protect us as we travel, work, and fellowship together. Help us to work harmoniously, supporting one another and building each other up in faith and love.

May this mission trip be a time of spiritual growth and transformation for all involved. Open our hearts and minds to the lessons You have for us, and help us to grow closer to You and to each other. Let our service be a shining example of Your grace and mercy, bringing hope and joy to those we encounter.

In Jesus' name, we pray.

Amen.

UM ARMY

This past Sunday commissioned youth, college interns, and adults to serve at UM ARMY in Austin next week. UM ARMY is an acronym:
United
Methodist
Action
Reach out
Mission by
Youth

This is a ministry that began in the Texas Conference in the late 70s and has grown to many different parts of the country. Groups from five or six churches come together- usually around 100 people total. They are formed into small groups with an adult leader and several students- all from different churches. You can imagine the first day or so or sort of awkward, but by the end of the week they have become good friends and great work partners.

I first attended a UM ARMY in 1993 when I was a recent college graduate helping out with my home church’s youth group. Even as someone with ZERO maintenance skills, over the years I have helped build wheelchair ramps, replace rotting floors, paint, paint and more paint, and lots and lots of caulking. The clients are always very appreciative. One of the highlights of the week is when clients are invited to the church for a meal together with the students.

This photo was taken at a Client Night nearly 30 years ago in Beaumont, TX- if memory serves. I didn’t remember his name, but he was so sweet, kind and generous with us. We would talk through his home and he would say, “This is your house, Rev.”

Next Sunday the 30th our UM ARMY crew will share some of their experiences in worship. As a church committed to championing children and youth, it’s important to support them in their Christian growth. As we commission them Sunday and hear from them the following week, may all of us celebrate the movement of the Holy Spirit- in the lives they will touch in Austin- and in the lives of the students and adults who will serve.

Blessed to be a blessing,
Pastor Frank

Date change! We have reschedule our night out at the Rangers game to July 22nd! The Game starts at 7:05 pm and we'll be watching Bishop Saenz throw out the ceremonial 1st pitch!

Link to purchase tix:
https://fevo-enterprise.com/event/Unitedmethodist5