Beauty will save the world.

Volume 3, Issue 4

Under the Oak

March 2012

When considering Christian faith and practice, we are used to ask-ing, "Is it true?," but we also need to ask the question, "Is it beauti-

ful?"

The ancient Greek philosophers, and later the early church fathers, spoke of three prime virtues: truth, goodness, and beauty. As prime virtues, truth, goodness, and beauty need no further justifi-cation—they are their own justifi-cation, which is a way of saying that truth, goodness, and beauty don't need to be made practical—they don't have to do anything to be of value. The value of a virtue is inherent; we simply choose truth, goodness, and beauty be-cause they are true, good, and

beautiful.

Early Christian theologians lo-cated the source of these prime virtues as proceeding from God himself—truth, goodness, and beauty are virtues because God is true, good, and beautiful. Thus this trinity of virtues becomes a guide to Christian living as we

seek to believe what is true, be what is good, and behold what is

beautiful.

But it is this third virtue, the vir-tue of beauty, that has been most marginalized in the way we un-derstand and evaluate Christian-ity. As a result, Christianity has suffered a loss of beauty—a loss that needs to be recovered. With an emphasis on truth, we have tried to make Christianity persua-sive (as we should). But we also need a corresponding emphasis on beauty to make Christianity at-tractive. Christianity should not only persuade with truth, but it should also attract with beauty. Along with Christian apologetics, we need Christian aesthetics. Christianity needs… to be pre-sented as beautiful. Often where truth cannot convince, beauty can

entice.

The aesthetic aspect of Christian witness and doctrine needs to be developed, and we do this by fo-cusing on the unique form of Christian beauty. The unique form

of Christianity is the cruciform—Christ upon the cross, arms out-

stretched in offered embrace,

accomplished in his death-and it

is an astounding claim

forgiving the world its sins. This is the beauty that saves the world, and the symbol of this saving

grace is the cross.

That the Roman cross, an instru-ment of physical torture and psy-chological terror, could ever be-come an object of beauty repre-senting faith, hope, and love is an amazing miracle of transforma-tion. Every cross adorning a church is in itself a sermon—a sermon proclaiming that if Christ can transform the Roman instru-ment of execution into a thing of beauty, there is hope that in Christ all things can be made beautiful! This is precisely the claim that the Christian faith makes concerning what Jesus accomplished in his death—and it is an astounding

claim! Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. Used by

permission of Christianity Today, Carol Stream, IL 60188.

Oak Haven United Methodist Church Newsletter

Words from John 2

UMW 2

UMM 3

Prayers of the Church

3

Calendar 4

Scripture readings 6

Ushers/Counters 6

Inside this issue:

Special points of

interest:

• Acolyte Schedule

page 2

• Family Promise of

Irving page 3

• Great Days of Ser-

vice page 5

• Birthdays page 5

Under the Oak Page 2

In a few months, our family is going to celebrate an undertaking we’ve been working toward for some time. I already know what I am going to do when it hap-pens—it’s a Friday tradition. I am going to call into Dave Ramsey’s radio show and announce to the world that, “WE’RE DEBT FREEEEEE!” That may not sound significant to you, but it is some-thing wonderful because we haven’t al-ways been faithful stewards. People would ask what credit cards we had. Jok-

ingly, my response was, “The mall.” We both had decent jobs, but it always

seemed like we had no money.

When we went to one job that paid half of the others we really didn’t have any money. Through that, though, we learned to trust God. We had to. And the good news? We’ve never lacked for any-thing. Yes, we waited to buy what we thought we wanted and didn’t always get away like we deserved. But God has

been too good to us to be foolish and selfish. We learned we are called to be financially responsible, and we must con-tinue to give. There is freedom and a joy

in that, and I hope you’ll yell with me!

Blessed Beyond Belief,

Mya Garcia and Lissette

Garcia

ACOLYTE SCHEDULE: 03/04/12 Ashlei Fletcher & Jade Vela

03/11/12 Gabby Moreno & Kayani Gardner

03/18/12 Noah Moreno & Piper Sheffield

03/25/12 Ashlei Fletcher & Jade Vela

I Just Want to Celebrate!

help in our community for God’s world. Partnering in mission leads to growth. Paul said, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave me growth.” (1 Cor. 3:6)

We can grow with God.

Our next meeting will be held on March

12 at Oak Haven UMC at 7:00

p.m. Please join us! Thank you,

Karen Gebert, President

SAVE THE DATE:

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Hat Sales at Methodist Hospital from

9:30 am. To 5:00 pm.

Monday, March 12, 7:00 pm UMM at the

church

Saturday, May 5, Ladies Tea—May Day

Celebration—details TBA

On our February 13th meeting, Minnette Puckett presented a program entitled “Partnering with Others In Mission.” We first made small posters of all the mis-sions we currently participate in: Shoes for School, Christmas in July for Ashford Hall, the annual Ladies Tea, Christmas Angel Tree, and our World Wide Mis-sion, to name just a few. We found that we have several that keep us busy all year long! But we may need to partner with other UMW circles and even other organizations, such as Family Promise to accomplish more of God’s work. Paul addressed the issues of groups or cliques in the Corinthian church in 1 Corin-thians , Chapter 3. The people did not want to connect with one another be-cause they followed different leaders. We can go beyond that thinking in order to

Oak Haven United Methodist Women - Faith - Hope - Love in Action

Volume 3, Issue 4 Page 3

Family Promise of Irving has reached it’s goal of 65K, recruited 14 host churches—of which we are one and has established a board of trustees. In addition, we tentatively have a church that has graciously agreed to provide one of their buildings free of charge to Family Promise as their day facil-ity! Several volunteers will be needed to help while these families stay at our church once a quarter for a seven day period.

In addition, we need clean/new, twin sized sheets and blankets, as well as standard size pillow cases. Upcoming fund raisers: *Applebee’s Pancake breakfast from 8 am—10 am on March 3rd at Beltline & 183; *Aspen Creek Restau-rant all day March 14th at 4300 W. Airport

Frwy.; *Chili’s on April 11th from 10:45 am—10:30 pm at 3421 W. Airport Frwy.; *El Chico on May 12th from 5 pm—11pm; *CiCi’s Pizza on June 14th from 5 pm—8 pm at 3435 Beltline, Ste. 114.

Finally, please mark your calendars for Beat the Heat 10K/5K and 1 Mile Fun Run April 28th. Please contact Minnette Puckett or Pam Moynihan for more in-formation.

Jeanie Davis, Roger Dalton, Bea Baker, Brian Deskin, Mike Burns, Shanna Ac-ton, Denise & John Butler, Susanne & Dick Ramsey, Pat Buttery, Herschel Mixom, Louis Munoz, Norma Hernan-dez, Teri & Shane Higgs, Scott Quintana, Bobby Garza, our missionar-

ies & military.

If you need a name or names added or

taken off of the prayer list, please

contact John Fletcher.

Ann Kent, Micki Triggs, Patsy Alvarado, Remona Frelon, Adrian Lee, Joyce Wash-ington, Anette Hinton, Doris Sadler, G.W. Kennemer, Darrell Story, family of Riley Rawlins, Irving Promise, Lorene Ingham, Teresa Agler, Pauline Segura, Claude & Maria Reynolds, Jerry Woods, Ralph and Sherry Forster, Rhea Hopkins, Jerry & Sue Harris, Don LaRocca, King family, Mandy Kannenburg, Stacey Yarnell, Jenny Sower, June Jamison, Jani Rogers, Meredith Greenstreet, Charlotte Gleghorn, Gene & Pam Burkhaulter, Frances Huffman, Melvin Knight family, Debra Randle, Sue Nungesser, Laura Sirmon, Danny Siegel, Martha Davis, Mr. & Mrs. Dennie Foster, New church choir director(s), Mary Allen,

Prayers of the Church

Family Promise of Irving

At the beginning of this year, UMM

elected officers for 2012 which are as

follows: David Triggs—President; Don

Kent–Vice President, Steve Perrin—

Treasurer, and Ricky Campbell—

Secretary and Communications.

Although UMM didn’t have a meeting in

February and no devotional, there is a

passage in the book of James that refers

to all of us the wisdom we need to follow

His word. (paraphrased from James 1:5-

6)

Please don’t forget to bring a donation

of canned or dry food items or peanut

butter for Irving Cares. The box is over

by the nursery. Our next meeting will be

March 15, 2012 at 7:00 pm. We hope to

see you all then for good food and fel-

lowship.

Ricky Campbell, Secretary

The United Methodist Men did not hold

their regularly scheduled meeting in Feb-

ruary. Instead, they held and hosted the

4th annual Pancake Supper on February

21st. The event was a success and we

raised $269.00 in proceeds.

UMM also delivered food for Irving Ca-

res and collected 76 pounds of dry food

goods for the families in need. There are

no changes in our group’s financial fund

and we are still honoring our missions for

Boy Scouts of America and World Core.

Oak Haven United Methodist Men

Then your light shall break

forth like the dawn, and healing

shall spring up quickly.

Isaiah 58:8

Under the Oak Page 4

Caption describing pic-ture or graphic.

“To catch the reader's attention, place an interesting sentence or quote from the story here.”

Caption describing picture or graphic.

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

1

Bib

le Stu

dy10

am

2

3

4 C

om

munio

n

5

6

7

C

hoir 7

pm

8 B

ible

Stu

dy10 a

m

9

10

11 S

econd

Sunday L

unch

-

eon

12 U

MW

7:0

0

pm

13

14

Choir 7

pm

15 B

ible

Stu

dy10 a

m

UM

M 7

:00 p

m

16

17

18

19

20

21 C

hoir 7

pm

22 B

ible

Stu

dy10 a

m 23

24

25 N

ewsletter

dea

dlin

e

26

27

28 C

hoir P

rac-

tice 7:0

0 p

m

29

30

31

MA

RC

H 2

012

Volume 3, Issue 4 Page 5

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) — Every

60 seconds, malaria claims a life in Af-

rica. Does that sound a little different

from what you’ve heard before? It should

because it is different — the rate of death

has slowed from every 45 seconds to a

minute. But a little different to us is a

huge difference to families in Africa.

Imagine No Malaria announces the

change based on the recent 2011 World

Malaria Report, issued by the World

Health Organization, citing a declin-

ing death rate. Malaria’s toll has been

reduced to an estimated 655,000

deaths annually — down from 1 mil-

lion just three years ago

The Great Days of Service dates will be April 13—14 and April 20—21. At our church you can contact Minnette Puckett for more information. Great Days of Service can be directly con-tacted at (972) 510-5084. Or you can contact the Host church and Headquarters at First United Methodist Church at 211 West Third Street, Irving, (972) 253-3531 for more information. First UMC has a Prayer Breakfast scheduled on Saturday April 14th at 7:00 am to unify the pro-

Great Days of Service is a faith-based, interde-nominational association of Irving churches which are united in serving God and community by renewing neighborhoods and aiding home-owners in the restoration of their properties. There are many ways that you can help this wonderful local organization. Join a Leadership Team; tell us about a home in your neighbor-hood or congregation that needs repairs; help qualify homeowners who need help; help move materials to worksites; deliver lunches to work-sites; cash contributions and/or prayers.

Great Days of Service

Malaria’s death toll nearly cut in half

STEPHEN COOPER 3-12 STELLA JONES 3-26 RICKY CAMPBELL 3-28 ROB SCULLY 3-28

Happy Birthday! Join us Sunday evening for our new Lenten study. We are begin-ning a study entitled Final Words From the Cross. The study will begin at 6:30 each Sunday evening. We will sing, pray, listen and con-sider how Jesus’ final words on the cross impact our lives as Christians. Also, before our study, we are gathering to pray for each other. We all have prayer needs: health conditions; family situations; spiri-tual discernment; marital problems; financial concerns, etc. The church is supposed to be a praying com-munity. So, let’s pray together each Sunday evening at 6pm.

March Scripture Readings/Ushers/Counters

March 18: Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3; (Purple) 17-22 (UMH 830); Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21 Ushers: Stella Jones, Jonathan Perrin, Brittani Fletcher, David Triggs. Counters: Steve Perrin, Ann Kent March 25: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-12 (UMH 785) (Purple) Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33 Ushers: Don Kent, Brittani Fletcher, Mary Lou Campbell, Dave Triggs. Counters: Mary Lou Campbell, Betty Guenter

March 4: Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:23-31 (UMH (Purple) 752); Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38 Ushers: Stella Jones, Don Kent, Jonathan Perrin, Mary Lou Campbell. Counters: Steve Perrin, Pam Moynihan

March 11: Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19 (UMH 750) (Purple) 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22 Ushers: Stella Jones, Don Kent, Ronnie Crow, Mary Lou Campbell. Counters: Mary Owen, Bonnie Perrin

We are a church family prayerfully united by the Holy Spirit, boldly committed to sharing new life in Jesus Christ.

Phone: 972-438-1731

Fax: 972.554.1686

Email: online@oakhavenumc.org

Blog: www.another john.com

www.oakoakhavenumc.org

Twitter:www.twitter.com/oakhaven

1600 N. Irving Heights

Irving, TX 75061

Oak Haven United Methodist

Church Newsletter

You can download this

publication at:

www.oakhavenumc.org

Mailing Address Line 1 Mailing Address Line 2 Mailing Address Line 3 Mailing Address Line 4 Mailing Address Line 5