Our Shared Rhythms

As followers of Jesus, we want to grow and deepen as disciples by knowing, loving, and serving God with our head, our heart, and our hands. We invite you to engage in regular shared rhythms and practices, so that our lives can be patterned to be more and more like Christ’s life. Faith doesn’t just “happen” to us. Faith is a gift of God, and, at the same time we are being sanctified by God’s grace to grow in holiness, or as John Wesley said, to “be perfected in love.” The name “Methodists” comes from the way the early Christians called Methodists went about their lives with intentionality—they engaged in regular practices, or methods, with the intention of being shaped as Christian disciples. We are doing the same thing in our communion at ESUMC. Here are the regular practices we are inviting you into as you grow in grace:

Daily Prayer

We now have an ESUMC phone app that leads you in daily prayer. We invite you to engage in daily prayer by downloading the app here.

Weekly Discipleship

Holy friendship is a gift and a beautiful way that God is transforming us, our communion, and our city with grace and with love. Small groups are a particularly Wesleyan way of discipleship. In a Wesleyan small group, groups of 10-15 people come together weekly to share a meal, read Scripture, pray together, and “watch over one another in love.” You are invited to form or join a Wesleyan Small Group. Contact Rev. Ashley Griffith, Pastor of Community Life to learn more.

Each week in small group, we will read together the Gospel for the upcoming Sunday. To access the weekly lectionary, click here!

Weekly Worship

We worship God daily in our individual lives, and we come together weekly to worship as a communion. When we worship together, we can lean on one another in faith and be strengthened by the prayers and practices of the church In addition, God feeds and sustains us through the acts of our communal worship: Gathering in God’s name, Proclaiming God’s word, Responding to God’s word, and being Sent into the world to live lives of love and witness.

We worship each Sunday with the following schedule:

8:00 AM - Early Sanctuary

9:00 AM - The Gathering (Contemporary in Kerr Hall)

10:00 AM - Discipleship Hour

11:00 AM - Sanctuary (Traditional)

Monthly Serving

Christian faith is not just something we know with our heads or experience in our hearts, we are also called by God DO something about it! God invites and empowers us to put our faith into action by serving others in Jesus’ name. We pray and pay attention. We ask God to help us notice where people are suffering and where healing is needed, and we ask God to help us to be God’s hands and feet in the world. Using Matthew 25 as a guide, we have missional communities of 30 to 40+ people who serve together monthly so that we might partner with God’s good work of healing and blessing in our city and in the world.

For more information on Monthly Mission, contact Renae Newmiller or visit our Local & Global Engagement page.

Give

Giving is a part of who we are called to be as followers of Jesus Christ. We are committed to cultivating a spirit of generosity with all our individual and collective resources: time, talents, gifts, and money. Financial giving is both a spiritual discipline and a true source of joy. When a person joins our fellowship, they make a commitment to “faithfully participate in the ministries of the church by our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness.” Giving ourselves to a life of prayer means striving to pray daily for the world, our community, the church, and our families. Giving of our time and presence means being faithful with attendance at both worship and participation in a small group or Sunday School class where a person can develop spiritual friendships. A commitment to faithfully participate by our “gifts” also includes financial gifts. For us, that includes a commitment to move toward the biblical tithe in one’s giving.