Rev. Wayne Johnson, who served as a FUMCWP pastor from 1981-1983, passed away on Aug. 14, 2020 at the age of 83. He was born to the late Billie James and Hazel Lenora (Albritton) Johnson in Wauchula, Florida on June 23, 1937. He had been a resident of Sebring, FL since 1985 coming from Winter Park, FL was a Methodist minister with the Florida United Methodist Conference. Wayne loved fishing, tennis, aviation, and boating. He is survived by his Wife – Clarice Johnson; Children – Daryl Johnson (Tim O’Conner); Kenny Johnson (Hollie); Karen Scarbrough (Robert); Brother – Dale Johnson (Sarah); Grandchildren – Kelsie; Kaylon; Joy; Jenna; Great-Grandchildren – Layla; Kaia; Bella; Dawson; Haley. Along with his parents, he was preceded in death by his Son – David Wayne Johnson. His family held a private memorial service on Wednesday, Aug. 19. The service can be viewed on the funeral home’s Facebook page.
Author: devadmin
Our Deepest Sympathies
Devotion from Pastor Rachel (Sept. 10)
Preschool Update and God’s Faithfulness
This week, I saw the face of God. Sometimes I see the face of God in an individual, or in a situation or in an answered prayer, but on this week, I saw the face of God in the parents, teachers, and especially the little students of our MSEE preschool. Many of you know by now that our church’s preschools, TCA and MSEE, are ministries of First United Methodist Church of Winter Park. Many of you have already told me stories about how your children or grandchildren attend these schools, but you probably don’t know how much has gone into reopening them over these last few months.
I am privileged to be the Clergy leader for the Vibrant Family Pillar and I have jumped in the deep end since arriving July 1st with all that is happening in this COVID world when it comes to educating and keeping safe these beautiful children. My husband Ryan and I were thankful that as we started work at our new appointments, that our two children Emmaline and Charlie could be taught and loved on at TCA (Trinity Christian Academy) from our first week here. We have loved dropping them off each day and watching them love on their teachers and show off their artwork and tell us all about the fun they have had in school. While we were apart of the first group of families to return back to TCA, our part-time families returned this week as well and we are thankful that this ministry is available to serve the community. It wasn’t until this week that MSEE reopened, although much planning and prayer have gone into this work. Shortly after I arrived, I began working with an incredible group of individuals to hire an Interim Director (Ashley Finfrock) and reopen MSEE by September 8th. Our Transition Team has worked hard to help support the MSEE Administration, teachers, and parents to begin again. On Tuesday morning, I saw the fruit of our labor.
I had the opportunity on Tuesday morning to watch parents walk their children up to our three drop-off locations to start their new school year, some for the first and some were returning. The parents took pictures, signed Health surveys, gave hugs and kisses, and ultimately watched as their children left their loving care, and entered our church’s loving care. I was humbled to meet the parents and watch this unfold. Now, anyone who is a parent knows that some children handle change well and some do not. But while there were some tears and lots of smiles and tentative waving goodbye, all the parents left with a sense of deep trust and love for this preschool. What a gift that is, Church! What a legacy that we get to live into once again!
I also watched later that morning during the pick-up time how the few children that cried through their first hour of school, had a big smile on their face at the end. There was a sense of accomplishment, both for the child and the parent because of the love that they had received and the care that they were given. And if seeing all of this wasn’t enough, I was reminded once again of the faithfulness of God through the morning rain and a beautiful rainbow that stretched across the sky over the Winter Park Golf Course. On my drive home, I almost started to cry because I was reminded that in all of the hard work and transition and unknowns; God had never left us. God will never leave us. And just as I witnessed this with the crying children at the beginning of the school day to the joy-filled faces at the end, God’s faithfulness seeks to turn our sorrow into joy and our mourning into dancing (Psalm 30:11-12).
Maybe it has been a long time since you had young kids, but oh how they teach us daily about God’s love for us. Maybe it is hard if you are not on campus witnessing the joy of both TCA and MSEE for yourself, but I can tell you, that God is there. And so, if you are like me and you need to be reminded of God’s faithfulness in the midst of this hard reality and you want to see the face of God, I invited to pray with me for the teachers, the staff, and the beautiful children of both of our preschools. I invite you to pray with me for their parents who trust us enough with their most precious thing in the whole wide world. And I invite you to pray for God’s faithfulness to remind you that in all seasons, in all situations, that God is WITH us and will see us through. And after you pray, I invite you to close out your time of meditation with the singing or humming of this most powerful hymn:
“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!”
AMEN.
Inua Partners in Hope – 2019 Annual Report
Inua Partners in Hope empowers vulnerable youth to thrive in total wellness and self-sufficiency through community-led mentoring, learning, and God’s love. View Inua’s 2019 Annual Report below.
Click the image above to download.
Avodah | Devotion from Dr. Jon (Sept. 9)
Devotion from Tonya Tolson, Diversity Committee Chair (Sept. 8)
Truth, Justice, Mercy, and The Christ Way
For the past three years, we’ve been so happy to have with us again our dear friend, Barbara Thompson, who is the associate director of UCF’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, to facilitate our discussions here FUMCWP. She has been educating, guiding, and challenging us to unearth our hidden biases, face our blindspotting of privilege and power, and analyze those embedded systems of racism, misogyny, and homophobias that keep us from being Christ disciples.
As Ibram Kendi, professor and director of American University’s Anti-racist Research & Policy Center states, “Sometimes to be anti-racists, we have to admit those times when we are being racists.”
Our study around the book, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson is particularly important now, because of the mass incarceration complex, which is set up to imprison one out of three black babies born. This conversation is also timely because of the recent killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, just to name a few; and particularly crucial during this pandemic where black and brown people, are disproportionately dying.
We must remember, the Jesus we worship, loved the stranger, the immigrant, the poor, children, the widow, and the persecuted. We also must remember that Jesus was arrested and tried as a condemned criminal; and crucified by the authorities of his day.
According to, author, entrepreneur, and venture capital investor Jacqueline Novogratz, there are four dimensions to becoming a whole person:
- Empathy is important, but there are limitations to empathy. It’s not enough just to listen to other people’s stories.
- Proximity, Bryan Stevenson’s vision of ‘getting proximate to suffering’ goes even further than being a savior. It is about the intrinsic value of these associations and relationships.
- Analysis is about understanding those systems promote division.
- Action: For a start, Bryan Stevenson recommends that we:
- Change the narratives that sustain hurt and harm;
- Stay hopeful about what we can do to end injustice; and
- Be willing to do things that are uncomfortable, like acknowledging our biases and complicities.
Bryan Stevenson, as a Christ disciple and crusader, models for us a life of integrity and purpose. It is our hope that through these types of studies and dialogues, together we are journeying towards becoming integrated human beings and disciples of Christ, who put love into action and who are willing to fight for justice, reconciliation and unity.
Devotion from Pastor Craig (Sept. 7)
Show Notes:
- As I mentioned in the devotional here is the link to the latest Inua annual report as a case study of process towards empowerment.
- “Poverty alleviation is a process in which people, both the materially poor and non-poor, move closer to living in right relationship with God, self, others, and the rest of creation.” – When Helping Hurts
Financial Update from Pastor David (Sept. 4)
Devotion from Pastor Rachel (Sept. 3)
We recently bought a water table for the kids. We had noticed that while Emmaline loves creating tea parties, Charlie really just likes pouring the water and making a mess. Maybe that is a boy and girl thing, or maybe it is a 4-year-old and 2-year-old thing, or maybe it is just us. But we live in a beautiful state and the late afternoons here are great times to be outside. One thing you need to know about me is that I LOVE surprises. In my family growing up, we did scavenger hunts to find our surprise gift at Christmas and on our birthdays, so I was excited to incorporate the build-up to a surprise for the next generation. The water table arrived Friday afternoon and Ryan put it together, and then we worked on creating a scavenger hunt. Our children can’t read yet, so we drew pictures of places in our home that they would recognize and placed the clues there. There was one on the piano, one in the play tent, one in Emmaline’s princess castle and the last one leading them outside. Of course, we took pictures of them “reading” the cues and figuring out where to go and Emmaline, who was totally invested in this entire process, would drag Charlie from room to room with growing excitement.
They finally finished the scavenger hunt and arrived outside to see their new Water Table and they were thrilled! It was a great surprise, but the build-up was better. In only the last five days, that little water table has gotten a lot of use, and I am thankful for the means of being able to buy gifts like this for my children that are both mentally stimulating and just plain fun. But how many good and wonderful gifts does our Heavenly Father lavish on us that we finally see revealed after a really long scavenger hunt? How does our walk of faith sometimes feel like guesswork as we move from clue to clue and finally see the big reveal? What do you remember receiving or seeing that felt like the prize at the end of a long journey?
As people of faith, we have a great prize at the end. If your first thought was heaven, let me remind you that life WITH God is the prize. We don’t follow the clues (walk this journey of faith) all of our life only enjoy the prize at the end, but to live into the journey and the build-up which is almost as much fun. While life WITH God is better than any amateur scavenger hunt, sometimes when we focus on the prize, we forget the journey. We forget how God is even a little more revealed with each clue along the way. Maybe God is revealed in the healing of cancer or diagnosis that has plagued you or someone you love and through the process of that illness, you learned to lean more on God’s strength than on your own. Maybe God was revealed in that hard conversation with a partner or friend or child that lead eventually to more health and wholeness deep down. Maybe God has been revealed to you in this new time of social distancing and isolation in such a way that you more fully appreciate the connections you do have and your priorities have shifted accordingly.
Does Scripture promise the prize of Heaven to those that love God through faith in Jesus Christ, yes, absolutely it does. But the Bible promises us a lot more than eternal communion with the Triune God. Scripture promises over and over again to teach us new and amazing things on this journey of faith and to let that journey teach and shape us while more and more of God is revealed.
I love this version of the well-known text in Romans, chapter 5 which talks about how we grow our endurance through our suffering, and as that grows so does out character and our hope. Said another way:
“We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide-open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.
There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!”
Romans 5:2-5 The Message
There is more to come friends! Not just when we die and take our final breath. But in every breath as we look for God and walk WITH God and take seriously the clues that reveal more of who God is along the way. May God increase your hope and open your eyes to all that God is doing and may God use you to be a clue to someone else so that you might reveal the love and grace of Jesus to them when they need to hope and when they need the assurance that there is in fact, much more to come!
New Member Class Testimonial from Jennifer Richardson
Are you interested in becoming a member? We would love to invite you to our next new member class this October via Zoom!
FUMCWP is our ‘home away from home’. That’s what comes to mind when I think about our decision to become church members. Neither my husband nor I grew up around here, and on top of that we came from different faith backgrounds, so we were a blank slate in search of a church that felt like the right fit for us.
For us, FUMCWP has become a center for learning, serving, and community. It’s a place where I can grow as a person and feel a sense of belonging. I learn through book studies, sermons, and classes. The kids learn at Sunday school and VBS, they also go to preschool at MSEE. They have so many role models to look up to here, and are creating friendships and laying spiritual groundwork that will hopefully help define their childhood and provide lifelong fruit.
I serve through Hannah’s Closet, Family Promise, and sometimes teaching the kids on Sundays. Being able to serve others as a group through our church ministries feels effective and meaningful. There are ministries to fit almost any cause you’re passionate about. And the best part, we are surrounded with community all along the way by learning & serving with really wonderful and interesting people. This community has provided me mentorship, deep conversations, and friendship.
We may not be able to be together on campus right now, but there is still much to be gained in the meantime as we look forward to seeing each other on the playground or in the courtyard again. Joining our church has been a blessing and has added so much to my life; I invite you to join too.
Jennifer Richardson, Member