8002 U. S. Highway 301 South, Riverview, FL 33578 813-677-5995
Normal Weekly Recurring
Events at RUMC
(Call the church office at 677-5995 for more information about these or other events sponsored by the church.)
SUNDAY
8:00 AM Early Worship Service--Fellowship Hall
9:00 AM Sunday School for All Ages
9:00 AM Children's Choir
9:20 AM Children’s Sunday School
10:00 AM Refreshments & Relationships
10:30 AM Worship Service
11:45 AM Prayer Warriors--Rm 8
12:00 PM Hispanic Worship
5:00 PM Adult Praise Band
6:00 PM Youth Band Rehearsal
7:00 PM R.U.S.H. Youth Group—Youth Building
MONDAY
1:00-2:30 PM Women’s Small Group Bible Study—Rm 6
6:30 PM Cub Scouts—Classrooms
7:00-9:30 PM Southern Company Chorus Rehearsal, Fellowship Hall
TUESDAY
10:00 AM—Noon RESTORE Food Bank and Thrift Store Open*
10:00 AM—Noon Hispanic Prayer Vigil
10:30 AM-11:30 AM Metropolitan Ministries Free Luncheon
11:00 AM-1:00 PM Bible Study at Kingswood Community Center
6:30 PM Boy Scout Troop #83, Fellowship Hall
WEDNESDAY
6:30-7:30 AM AA Meeting—Rm 8
6:00 PM Fellowship Supper—Fellowship Hall
6:45 PM Children & Youth Activities
7:00 PM Pastor’s Bible Study —Library
7:00 PM Ladies Bible Study—Fran Carillo's Home
7:00-9:00 PM ESOL Classes, Spanish and English GED Classes—Rms 7 & 8
THURSDAY
6:30-7:30 AM AA Meeting—Rm 8
10:00 AM--Noon RESTORE Food Bank and Thrift Store Open*
10:00-11:00 AM Bible Study, Crossing of Riverview Assisted Living Facility
6:30 PM Chancel Choir Rehearsal
FRIDAY
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SATURDAY
9:00 AM RUMC Book Club, 9720 Lorrayne Avenue, Riverview
*RESTORE is an equal opportunity provider and is open to the public.
Meeting Our Apportionment Goal
Pastor Telcy recently received a letter of appreciation from our District Superintendent. Our church was thanked for giving 100% of our 2019 apportionments to the Conference, District, and Worldwide Methodist Church mission.
Apportionments are a key part of our connectional system. Our apportioned dollars are used for the purpose of doing ministry beyond the local church. Together, we support the Warren Willis Camping Ministries, the University of South Florida Wesley Foundation, and other campus ministries across Florida. We also support missions like Cornerstone Family Ministries, UMCM Suncoast, Young Adult Missional Movement, and international ministries like Zoe Ministries and Africa University.
Prayer and Connect Cards
If you or someone you know needs prayer, please fill out the yellow Prayer and Connect Card located on the back of each pew. These cards are passed along to the Prayer Warriors of RUMC. Our Prayer Warriors meet every Sunday in Room #8 immediately after the service for 15 minutes of prayer. It is their honor to pray for you and your concerns.
Also, Prayer and Connect Cards can be used if you want the church to know that you are interested in becoming a member, or if you would like to receive more information about our church
If you would like to be added to our church directory, included in our church email blasts, or have your birthday and anniversary included in our monthly newsletter, please complete a Prayer and Connect Card and include in the Sunday offering plate. You can also visit the church office on most business day mornings, or you can contact us by phone or email.
Stop by our Informative White Cabinet
The white cabinet in Crichton Fellowship Hall is “information central” for our church members and visitors. The cabinet contains RUMC news, information and community resources. It includes our calendar of events, church forms, bulletins, prayer trees, sign-up sheets, and more.
Safety Plans for Churches
A church is supposed to be a safe refuge, with doors open to all. But places of worship are no longer immune to mass shootings and gun violence. They, too, have become a target, from Pittsburgh to Charleston to Sutherland Springs, Texas.
“It’s the new reality,” says Norman Wetmore, a member at First United Methodist Church in Boca Raton. “In this day and age, you can’t ignore this. The best thing to do is be informed and be prepared.”
The Rev. Cesar Villafaña offers advice and tips to help church members deter and prepare for an active shooter at a training sponsored by Ebenezer United Methodist Church in Miami.
Villafaña was a police detective in his native Puerto Rico and an intelligence operations officer with the United States
Department of Justice. That’s why Wetmore, who serves on his church’s leadership committee and heads the board of trustees, joined about 60 other participants at a recent active shooter training sponsored by Ebenezer United Methodist Church in Miami.
There was one recurring theme throughout Villafaña’s presentation: be aware of your surroundings. If you know about a disgruntled employee, share that information. He may seem like a good guy around the church, but you have no idea what’s going on at home. He could be a ticking time bomb.
That advice also extends to strangers coming onto church property, especially if they appear nervous or sweaty or are wearing a backpack or heavy jacket. Be aware of certain smells as well, such as fertilizer or diesel fuel.
“It’s always better to be safe than sorry,” Villafaña says. “We don’t want to be vigilantes. People come to church looking for God and help, and we can never forget that. But that doesn’t mean we should completely let our guard down.”
Here are some more safety tips for churches:
We’re taught to be hospitable; we’re taught to welcome our neighbors. And that doesn’t have to change. But we must take precautions and be aware of our surroundings, whether it’s at church, in a mall or in a theater. For more information on active shooter situations link to this Conference article.
- Keep landscaping, like shrubbery and trees, trimmed so that they don’t provide a hiding place.
- Make sure all security lights inside and out are working.
- If the church is open after hours for a meeting, lock all doors once everyone has arrived.
- Print index cards with local emergency numbers on them (sheriff’s department, fire department, police, hospitals) and encase them in plastic. Make sure the congregation knows where these cards are and that they are easily accessible.
- Hire an off-duty officer if the budget allows. That is a good deterrence, but it should not be the only preventive measure.
- Offer congregation-wide training in CPR and other first-aid emergencies. Make sure kits and other equipment, like a defibrillator, are in locations that are visible.
- Make sure all members know where the exits are located. All exit signs should be lighted.
- Develop a relationship with the local police officers and firefighters assigned to your church’s district. Invite them in for a cup of coffee and give them a tour of the church and its layout.
- Have emergency alerts downloaded on your cell phone to stay informed.
Preparing for Mission Trips
On a trip last year to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Molly McEntire heard words that made her start to think differently about the effectiveness of international mission trips. The nudge came when a local resident told her, “It often feels like Westerners want to keep us poor to be able to continue to do stuff that makes them feel good.”
“That really struck me as, ‘Wow! What impact are we having?’” said McEntire, mission training and volunteer coordinator for the Florida United Methodist Conference. She started asking questions about best practices for this important ministry. Are we empowering others? What types of partnerships do we have with overseas organizations or the residents? Are the communities we serve becoming dependent on us? Will they thrive and be empowered after we leave?
McEntire said planning is vital to ensure the church’s work on a mission trip has a sustainable positive impact. “I think it is so important to talk about partnerships and making sure those partnerships are healthy,” she said.
“We’re also thinking about the mission experience for our teams and what we are teaching our teams. We want to have a healthy impact on the community we are serving. We connect them with nonprofits (overseas) that are healthy.”
McEntire, who has been employed by the Florida Conference for 2½ years, has many years of mission trip experience. She lived in Kenya when she was 18, working for the Methodist Church there, and has returned about a dozen times. She also has traveled to Haiti, Cuba, Costa Rica, Rwanda, and Tanzania.
Through training sessions she conducts with FLUMC teams before they travel overseas, McEntire hopes to help them get involved in what she called “healthy models of mission.”
Churches that are looking for resources for future domestic or international mission trips are encouraged to contact McEntire at the Conference office. She’ll conduct the training – anywhere from one to four hours – at your church. She suggested that teams include her on the agendas of regularly scheduled pre-trip team meetings.
McEntire helps churches through several steps of preparation to ensure successful mission trips. Her main points:
- Learn and understand your role as a team leader or member.
- Advice for recruiting a team and getting financial support from friends and relatives.
- Destinations – Interested, but not sure where to go? The Conference can provide information about ideal places for teams to work. Proper planning also improves safety precautions, she said.
- Impact – Making sure teams have a healthy impact on the community they serve. Are they empowering those regions?
The Conference keeps track of partnering organizations that hire locals to continue the work after mission teams leave. That’s a key aspect of the sustainability model. Empowering people is the goal.
To read more about empowering church members to produce positive results on international mission trips, follow this link on the Florida UMC Conference website.
Happy Birthday, Florida Conference
This year marks the 175th anniversary since the founding of the Methodist church’s Florida Conference. (Riverview First UMC will itself be 174 years old—the first Methodist Church in Hillsborough County.) Churches throughout the state will individually celebrate the occasion with cakes, song, and memories of all the good it has bestowed on the Sunshine State.
Judi New is the leader of the FLUMC Archives and History Department in the Florida United Methodist Heritage Center. “We had an extensive celebration for the 150th anniversary, and this year, they decided that with the General Conference coming up in May, let’s step back and commemorate this huge anniversary,” New said.
The Conference produced a video last year that will no doubt resurface this year at various churches commemorating 175 years of the Florida Conference. “It is beautiful knowing that across our Conference churches are celebrating in their own way. It is a way to have joy, looking at where we are as Conference,” New said.
While small, the celebrations can look back at all the positives Methodists bring to the state. For example, just last week, Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa was one of several churches in Florida that welcomed the homeless on a cold night to provide meals and a warm bed. Local TV news prominently featured Hyde Park’s outreach.
The United Methodist Children’s Home has served foster and orphaned children for decades. Churches have, in recent years, offered alternatives to traditional church through Fresh Expressions ministries to bring the word of Jesus Christ to those who might not attend traditional Sunday worship.
The denomination’s history faces significant challenges moving forward, he said, as it contemplates the possibility of a split. But for now, he said, it is a time of celebration. Go to this link to learn more.
