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Glorifying God
Please join us for these special events of Holy Week and Easter!
Palm Sunday, March 20
9:00am -- Community Breakfast and Palm Sunday Procession, beginning at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church (935 Plowman Street).
11:00am – Palm Sunday Worship at MPC, the Rev. Wayne McLaughlin preaching.
Wednesday, March 23
12:00pm -- Community Lenten Lunch at Montevallo First United Methodist Church (861 Middle Street), with the Rev. Terry Sutton of First Baptist Church preaching.
Maundy Thursday, March 24
7:00pm -- Service of Holy Communion and the Office of Tenebrae, a joint service with University Baptist Church, at MPC (510 Shelby Street).
Easter Sunday, March 27
6:30am -- Community Easter Sunrise Service followed by continental breakfast at University Baptist Church (400 Overland Road).
9:30am – Easter breakfast and Egg Hunt at MPC. Come enjoy fellowship and fun as we celebrate Easter. Please bring a dish to share if you are able.
11:00am – 11:00am – Easter Sunday Worship at MPC, featuring special music by the MPC Sanctuary Choir and guest musician Jacob Gardenhour on trumpet, the Rev. Leanne Pearce Reed preaching.
Lenten Lunches
On Wednesday, March 16, MPC Pastor Leanne Pearce Reed will be the preacher for the Community Lenten Lunch series at FUMC. MPC will provide the salad, desserts and drinks for this day, and a few volunteers are needed to help with set up and clean up. Please sign up at the church if you can help provide food or volunteer to serve.
Ordination and Installation of Elders
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Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. - 1 Corinthians 12:4-7
On Sunday, January 30, MPC had the great joy of ordaining Carla Everett-Smith as an elder and installing Carla and Michele Pawlik to active service on the Session. We are grateful for their willingness to serve! We are also deeply grateful to Judy Rogers and Steve Sears who have concluded their service on the Session.
Best wishes to Tucker Ratliff
On February 28, MPC bid farewell to University of Montevallo student Tucker Ratliff, who has a been a dedicated member of our choir for three years now. He will be greatly missed! We wish him all the best as he begins in the music program at Independent Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.
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Growing as Disciples
Sunday School Series: Forty Days
Before there is light there is darkness. Before there is birth, there is pain. Before every meaningful moment there is a time of preparation, a time of longing. Lent is the forty days that we set aside to enter into the wilderness of our souls and find that place of quiet, openness and emptiness. Lent is more than about self-denial and giving up indulgences, it is about preparation and encounter. It was in the desert where Jesus encountered the demons of his deepest temptations, but it was also where he found God’s sustaining presence and love.
Join us each Sunday before Easter at 10 am for this film-based series. We hope this series will give you a place to begin the journey of your hearts, a journey that will lead you out of Lent and to Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and into the hope of Easter.
Women's Fellowship Dinner, March 9 at 7:00pm
Come enjoy good food and good conversation at our women's fellowship dinner! We'll gather at El Agave on Main Street in Montevallo at 7pm on Wednesday, March 9. Bring a friend!
Men's Fellowship Breakfast, March 12, 8:00am
Grab a cup of coffee and a bite to eat at the men's fellowship breakfast on Saturday, March 12 at 8 AM at the Eclipse on Main Street in Montevallo.
Book Discussion, March 20 at 4:00pm
How do you write a biography of someone known only through Scripture, especially when the four Gospels do not agree on important aspects of his life and death? Susan Gubar tells the stories of a wide variety of Judases depicted in art, music and literature over the centuries. Find out more here and join us for discussion on Sunday, March 20 at 4 PM at the Forbes House.
Gumbo & Soup Luncheon
Many thanks to all those who made our annual Gumbo & Soup Luncheon a success! We enjoyed fellowship and a delicious meal after worship on February 28. Special thanks to Casey Pilgrim, our lead gumbo chef and sous chefs Gene and Dorothy Grimes, Vicky Hager, Michele Pawlik, Leanne Pearce Reed and Judy Rogers. Many thanks also to Mike and Joan Pickett and Beth Anthony for providing the chicken and rice soup and coordinating set up and clean up.
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Caring for People and Creation
Open Table, Thursday, March 3
On Thursday, March 3, MPC will be serving up a hot lunch of soups and sides at Open Table. Every week the Forbes House is filled with UM students who are so grateful for a homecooked meal! Can you help serve? Please sign up at the church or contact Leanne at leanne.mpc@gmail.com.
Green Team
Living River Clean-Up: Peters Trail
Please make arrangements to help clean the Peters Trail at Living River on March 30, 2016 from 9:00 am - 1:00 pm. We will meet at the trail head at 9:00 am. You may wish to bring lunch and water. Wear comfortable, sturdy shoes and bring gloves, rakes, trash bags and bug spray.
If you can help, please notify Flo at (205) 620-4257 or florencepeters@bellsouth.net by March 28.
Montevallo Presbyterian Begins its Sixth Year as an Earth Care Congregation
 
This year marks the fifth year that our church has been a certified PCUSA Earth Care Congregation. As the Green Team prepared our application for recertification in January 2016, we reviewed the ways in which our church has lived out its mission to care for creation—the beautiful native plant arrangements that enhance our worship almost every Sunday, the completion and dedication of the Bill Peters Trail at Living River, the Pentecost/Youth Sunday worship service prepared and presented by Katie Wilson using her nature photography, the opportunities to work with other congregations as they worked toward ECC certification (Gardendale Presbyterian, Livingston Presbyterian, Presbyterian churches in the Presbytery of St. Andrew in Mississippi),and many other things that seemed impossible to quantify in a yearly audit.
Earth Care Certification focuses on congregational practices in four different areas: worship, education, facilities, and outreach. In 2016, we will continue to make care of creation an integral part of worship, education, and facilities management, but our efforts will also be focused on outreach. We look forward to partnering with the UM Environmental Club in monitoring water quality of local streams and providing Alabama Water Watch training in water chemistry and microbiology for UM students and others on an ongoing basis. In January 2016, members of our Green Team were invited to Independent Presbyterian to tell them about our experience in becoming an Earth Care congregation. We hope to collaborate with other churches in our Presbytery and other Presbyteries in the state in making earth care a central mission and in expanding the number of Earth Care Congregations.
One Great Hour of Sharing, March 27
The One Great Hour of Sharing Offering makes transformation possible! In places like Kitui, Kenya, Asheville, North Carolina, and Iona, Michigan, those most in need are finding hope and help through the work of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, the Presbyterian Hunger Program, the Self-Development of People program, and their partners in ministry. In this media-driven environment of “the next big story,” it is easy to become distracted from the reality faced by our brothers and sisters around the world where poverty, disaster, and war cause displacement and suffering.
This is why MPC continues to give to One Great Hour of Sharing. When we give this year, we give in faith—knowing that staff in the three One Great Hour of Sharing programs will be responding in Christ’s name to the cries of our sisters and brothers throughout the next year. We trust that they will respond as they did in West Africa in the wake of the devastating Ebola crisis: immediately, directly, and through our partners wherever the emergency occurs. But equally important, we know that they will remain in areas of devastation long after the news cameras have moved elsewhere as they continue rebuilding both lives and communities.
Feeding the hungry, helping people build up their own livelihoods, responding to disasters—these are all ways that your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing are changing lives, changing communities, and changing the world. We’ll learn more about this vital work in worship this month.
Visit the One Great Hour of Sharing website (www.presbyterianmission.org/oghs) to find out more information on how your support of OGHS helps people all over the world.
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