Happy Friday, church!

It’s hard to believe that summer is almost over, isn’t it?  Our oldest daughter starts preschool in just over a week (how did that happen?!?), and we’re just about a month away from the season of harvest, apples, and pumpkin spice everything!

We’ve had a great summer here at Auburn First United Methodist Church: we’ve done some fabulous mission projects (we packed a few dozen hygiene kits for UMCOR, and we partnered with Auburn Presbyterian Church to fill 30 backpacks full of school supplies for low-income students at Auburn Middle School), we had a beautiful worship service/picnic in the park, and we even had a pool party!  And once September arrives, we’ll have lots of activities going on at the church, including Chancel Choir and Sunday School/Children’s Church and UMW!  There’s even talk of starting another lunch hour Bible study…stay tuned for more information on that!

We’re also starting up a new fall sermon series, based on the compelling and thought-provoking book “Short Stories By Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi”, written by Dr. Amy-Jill Levine.  In this book, Dr. Levine (a renowned New Testament scholar who is also a practicing Jew) takes a new look at the parables of Jesus, discusses the ways that they would have challenged and provoked their original listeners, and encourages us to allow ourselves to be challenged by them as well.  It should be an interesting worship series–I hope that it leaves all of us feeling inspired and perhaps a little bit uncomfortable! 😉

8/12: The Lost Son
8/19: The Good Samaritan
8/26: The Kingdom is Like Yeast
9/2: The Pearl of Great Price
9/9: The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
9/16: The Laborers in the Vineyard
9/23: The Widow and the Judge
9/30: The Rich Man and Lazarus
10/7: The Mustard Seed

See you in church!  (And as your summer vacations wrap up, remember: if you’re out of town, you can always join us in worship via our Facebook livestream.  Find us at https://www.facebook.com/auburnfumc )