ONLY ONE SERVICE THIS SUNDAY 10:00am

                                           Darla McFadden,
 a Top 10 Nashville Recording artist this Sunday, 10:00am service!

Please mark your calendars. This Sunday, January 3rd, there will be one service only at 10:00am!

This service will be led by Nashville recording artist, Darla McFadden. Darla is a singer song writer whose calling has led her all over the United States. Darla's soothing innocent vocal approach wins hearts of fans across the country as she sings songs both old and new that will bless and encourage your heart. Her testimony reminds us all that God will bring us through the toughest of life experiences to be a living example of His peace and Love.

The church office will be closed this week both pastor Jackie and Anita will be taking vacation days.

Praise Community Fellowship, a family of people learning to share Gods love with one another. We meet at 800 North Main Edwardsville at the Immanuel United Methodist Church.

Psalm 95:1Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

Happy New Year!

See you soon. Love, pastor kent

Last Week of 2015

Jesus came to fulfill the Law because we couldn't. 
As we close the door on 2015 let's open 2016 with the Good News of keeping Jesus' message simple:

Romans 13:8-10

Love Fulfills the Law

8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Praise Community Fellowship and Immanuel Methodist, two churches coming together to magnify God's love in one another. 

Come join us sometime; 9:00 am Sunday mornings located at 800 North Main St. Edwardsville. 

Pastor Kent and Pastor Jackie. We don't have it all figured out but we know that the path of love is definitely heading in the right direction.

Special prayer requests:

Terry Coy has been diagnosed with cancer please lift Terry and Rick and their family in prayer.

Tom Wetzel continued healing from his fall.

Phil Mckinney, healing from cancer.

Stan Rutkowski, healing.

Connor McAleenan, thanking God for the healing and continued progress!

Jolynn Gregor healing of her brain cancer.

Alexis Thorp God's guidance.

Church is a place where we come to learn how to love others in as many ways as possible which allows us to experience God's Peace and Joy!

See you soon! Love, pastor kent and pastor jackie

Christmas Eve "Unplugged" Candle Light Service

Praise Community Fellowship will be having a Christmas Eve Service this year at 6:30 pm at 800 North Main Street Edwardsville, Immanuel Methodist Church.We are a multi-denominational church. Come experience the wonder of God's love.

Christmas, the birth of Jesus, is God saying, "I want to be in a relationship with YOU!" I believe God is still asking you and I the same thing he asked Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden after they had sinned, "Where Are You!"

God takes the broken, the ordinary, the fallen, and says, "There is a better a way! Come and see!"

Praise Community Fellowship and Immanuel Methodist. Two congregations gathered as one to become more like Jesus. Come learn to love with us. We don't have all the answers, but we worship someone who will show us a better way to love and live!

Church is a place where we come to learn how to love others in as many ways as possible which allows us to experience God's Peace and Joy!

See You Soon Love, pastor kent & pastor jackie

Praise Community Fellowship Christmas

Come and Worship! Come and Worship Christ the New Born King!

This Sunday come and experience the Joy of Christmas with Praise Community Fellowship and Immanuel United Methodist Church. Two churches meeting together to celebrate Jesus' birth. The PCF singers and band will be opening our hearts to the power of God through song and pastor Kent will be giving the message, "All Is Well."

Service will begin at 9:00am. Come and be part of our family, God's family, and open your heart to hear from God's Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Peace, Love and Joy! Come and Worship!

Announcements:

• There will be 3 Christmas Eve Services available on December 24th. 4:00pm, 6:30pm, and 11:00pm.  PCF will be leading the 6:30 pm service.
• Men's Fellowship Breakfast this Saturday at 8:00am sponsored by Floyd Fisher. Everyone is invited including spouses!
• Beverly Farm Gifts due this Sunday. If you took a name from the tree for Beverly Farm bring it Sunday.
• PCF will be hosting the coffee and snacks on the Sundays we lead worship. This Sunday Nadeen Schuette and Linda Klingel will be serving. We are looking for volunteers to help with this ministry. It involves making coffee at the church before the service and bringing cookies, donuts, etc. Please notify me if you would like to serve on this rotating committee.
• The Children's Weekend Lunchbox ministry has launched. We pack the lunches Thursdays at 6:30pm in the church basement and deliver on Saturday mornings from 9:00am-10:00am. If you could volunteer a time or two for this great ministry that would be awesome! See Faye Heuchert or Brad Joiner.

Love is happening at PCF and IUMC.  Need some love? Come see us this Sunday at 9:00am. 

Church is a place where we come to learn how to love others in as many ways as possible which allows us to experience God's Peace and Joy!

See you Sunday at 9:00AM We are meeting at 800 north Main Street Edwardsville, Immanuel Methodist Church! 

See you there. Love, pastor kent

Believing, when things are Un-Believable

A birth prediction made hundreds of years before the birth takes place and it all comes true? A baby born of a virgin? The baby grows into a person who claims to be God? This person does miraculous things like giving sight to the blind. He walks on top of water.  He raises the dead, and He comes back from the dead himself?

And we live our lives today and wonder, "How could this be?  Can it be? Is it somehow possible? Oh if it could only be true!"

Find out for yourself this coming Sunday and Christmas eve. Let God open your eyes and fill your heart with His love and Hope and Peace.  Find a church that God will lead you to if you don't already have one. And ask God with all the sincerity you can muster to make Himself real to you this Christmas. He will. Just open your heart to the same possibility you had when you were a child waiting for Santa. It IS real! I know! Many people know and none of us are any more special than anyone else who comes to God with an open heart and childlike faith. Believe!
Matthew 11:25-26  At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

REMINDER: Praise Community Fellowship Unplugged Christmas Eve Service at 6:30pm December 24th!

Special prayer requests:

Terry Coy has been diagnosed with cancer please lift Terry and Rick and their family in prayer.

Tom Wetzel continued healing from his fall.

Phil Mckinney, healing from cancer.

Stan Rutkowski, healing.

Connor McAleenan, thanking God for the healing and continued progress!

Jolynn Gregor healing of her brain cancer.

Alexis Thorp God's guidance.

Church is a place where we come to learn how to love others in as many ways as possible which allows us to experience God's Peace and Joy!

See you Sunday at 9:00AM We are meeting at 800 north Main Street Edwardsville, Immanuel Methodist Church! 

See you there. Love, pastor kent

  

Don't Let Religion Spoil Your Christmas!

Too often religion can focus on our unworthiness, and our struggle to be perfect and Holy. The church too often can take a legalistic approach to our struggles with sin.
How much should I sacrifice?
How many candles should I light?
How many prayers should I pray?
How much should I deny my basic instincts?
How much should I deny my self pleasures?
How much bible study is enough?
How much must I give financially?
But one of the most haunting questions is, "Is God going to give up on me because of my inability to stop sinning?"

Do any of these questions ring a bell? If we load ourselves down with enough guilt, will that be pleasing to God? My answer is absolutely not! God knows we are all messed up! You want to enjoy the Peace and Joy of Christmas? Then celebrate this season with passion knowing that Jesus came into this world for you and me and all the stuff that we screw up! He wants to take the load of sin off of us! That is why Jesus was so aggravated with the Pharisees. They had loaded people down with the stuff of religion and therefore missed what Jesus was offering; Grace and the freedom and Peace that comes with it!

John 3:16-1716 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Read John 3:17 over several times and let it sink in. God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. 

Want to please God and have your life changed? Then accept the gift of grace provided by Jesus! 

It's free! You can't do anything to earn it!  With the exception of God and Jesus, every character in the bible was a sinner!  Abraham, Moses, King David, Peter, Paul...all of them. 

Ephesians 2:88 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

I don't know about the church you go to but the church I go to is full of messed up sinners "saved" by God's grace.  Come one come all! It's Christmas! 

This Sunday pastor Jackie has invited Lea Shebangi, who has been called to be a missionary in Kenya.  She is a young mother who lost her husband and will be sharing her life changing story with our congregation. 

Praise Community Fellowship and Immanuel Methodist, two congregations meeting under one roof to worship and enjoy God's saving Grace! 9:00am Sunday mornings at 800 north main Street Edwardsville.

See you soon. Love, pastor kent

Is Joy Eluding You?

Peace and Joy! Sounds good doesn't it? But where can I find it?
The Peace and Joy that God gives comes from within! You cannot find it. It does not exist outside of you. It can only be given and received from within your heart. It is given by God when you seek and maintain a relationship with Him and receive the Holy Spirit within your heart.  Your outer circumstances are not where you will find the Peace or the Joy of God.

Galatians 5:22-23But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Romans 15:13May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

It is God's Holy Spirit within you that will allow you to experience God's Peace and Joy. Circumstances will vary day to day but your Peace and Joy can remain. The following is a true story about a famous Golfer that knew how to to look beyond circumstances. Robert de Vincenzo from Argentina was most famously known as the only golfer to loose a PGA Tournament because a score was added wrong. He actually tied for first place but because he signed off on the erroneous score card he lost the tournament. Roberto's response when he found out what had happened, "What a stupid I am!" But the next story shows all of us how to look for the good and keep ones peace in all circumstances.

Roberto had just won a seniors tournament in the 1960's and was awarded a check for several thousand dollars. On the way to his car a woman approached him who appeared to be in great distress pleading with him for help because her daughter had cancer and she and her husband could not afford the treatment. She said they had no insurance and her daughter needed a surgery that may save her life. Without hesitation, Roberto took his winning check and signed it over to the woman. Some friends of Roberto's witnessed the transaction and were concerned. A couple days later some of these friends approached Roberto and said that they had checked up on the woman who he had given his winnings to and they found out that she did not have a daughter with cancer, she was a phony!
 "No daughter with cancer?" Roberto repeated.  "No daughter with cancer? Why, that is the best news I have heard in a long time!"

Joy Projects

• The Shoeman project. We are collecting old shoes for the showman. This organization sells the shoes and drills wells for water in 3rd world countries.
• Kids Weekend Lunchbox Program We will begin packing lunches this Thursday evening at 6:30pm at the church for delivery this coming Saturday from 9:00am to 10:00am at two locations. Please contact pastor kent if you would like to help out and get involved in this Joy Ministry. Kids can also help. 

Special prayer requests:

Terry Coy has been diagnosed with cancer please lift Terry and Rick and their family in prayer.

Tom Wetzel continued healing from his fall.

Phil Mckinney, healing from cancer.

Stan Rutkowski, healing and also would appreciate visitors.

Connor McAleenan, thanking God for the healing and continued progress!

Brad Heuchert, continued healing of his foot and ankle. 

Mike Rodgers, Back pain.

Krista Kell, Back and leg pain, starting to improve!

Jolynn Gregor healing of her brain cancer.

Church is a place where we come to learn how to love others in as many ways as possible which allows us to experience God's Peace and Joy!

See you Sunday at 9:00AM We are meeting at 800 north Main Street Edwardsville, Immanuel Methodist Church! 

See you there. Love, pastor kent

Christmas Eve Service......YES!

Praise Community Fellowship will be having a Christmas Eve Service this year at 6:30 pm. We are a multi-denominational church.

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 

Invite your family and friends to come to our special candle light acoustic worship service this Christmas Eve at  6:30 pm at 800 North Main Street Edwardsville, Immanuel Methodist Church.

Come celebrate "God is With Us!"

Earlier this year I said that I was praying that God would supply us 50 new families to join us in worship and that it was my prayer that by Christmas the sanctuary would be full including the balcony. I'm not sure how many new families are joining us each Sunday but if you were at the service this past Sunday you could see that that prayer is almost fulfilled!

Why does it matter? Because people who can find a church where the Holy Spirit begins speaking to their heart, will be transformed! Jesus' spirit will transform hurting, broken people into a new person. A person filled with Hope, Love, Compassion, and Forgiveness will yield the fruit of Joy and Peace. What more could one want for Christmas, than Joy and Peace?

It is my hope that as we move closer to our Saviors birth that you will hear the Holy Spirit speaking to you. Listen closely. Maybe you need a Silent night, a Holy night to transform your life.

Praise Community Fellowship and Immanuel Methodist. Two congregations gathered as one to become more like Jesus. Come learn to love with us. We don't have all the answers, but we worship someone who will show us a better way to love and live!

Church is a place where we come to learn how to love others in as many ways as possible which allows us to experience God's Peace and Joy!

See You Soon Love, pastor kent & pastor jackie

In a Mad World..There is Hope

I took this picture this morning on my prayer walk in Glik Park.  I asked God to help me make sense of the terrorism that took place this past week in San Bernardino California. We are in the Christmas season. A season of preparation to receive the God Child. Yet to many this season now looks barren with an unknown path ahead.  There is fear, and anger, and sorrow. But amongst all this is "Good News!"

Psalm 46:1-3 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

This is the season of Love and Hope and a time to plant that Love and Hope into this hurting world. Come be lifted up. Come and be encouraged! Come and join us this Sunday as we open our hearts to the goodness and love and mercy of the living Jesus.

Joy Projects

• The Shoeman project. We are collecting old shoes for the showman. This organization sells the shoes and drills wells for water in 3rd world countries.
• Beverly Farm Christmas Gifts  We have only 8 names left on this giving tree of Hope and Love.  The 8 names are Christmas wishes for Beverly Farm residents that have no family. Last year we sponsored 50 residents and we are trying to meet that goal again. We are very close!
• Kids Weekend Lunchbox Program As I have mentioned this project is on go! Brad and Faye have met with Sam's to get a deal on the food items so we plan on packing lunches starting this next Thursday, December the 10th for the first delivery to begin next Saturday December the 12th  from 9:00am to 10:00am at two locations. If you can help out, see me, Faye Heuchert or Brad Joiner this coming Sunday. 

Special prayer requests:

Tom Wetzel We were just notified that Tom has been flown to a St. Louis Hospital due to a fall need immediate prayers.

Phil Mckinney, healing from cancer.

Stan Rutkowski, healing and also would appreciate visitors.

Connor McAleenan, thanking God for the healing and continued progress!

Brad Heuchert, continued healing of his foot and ankle. 

Mike Rodgers, Back pain.

Krista Kell, Back and leg pain, starting to improve!

Jolynn Gregor healing of her brain cancer.

The Victims and Families of the San Bernardino shooting

Church is a place where we come to learn how to love others in as many ways as possible which allows us to experience God's Peace and Joy!

See you Sunday at 9:00AM We are meeting at 800 north Main Street Edwardsville, Immanuel Methodist Church! 

See you there. Love, pastor kent