Intro to Woodmont luncheon this Sunday

If you’re new to Woodmont, then we want to see you at our next Intro to Woodmont luncheon on Sunday, April 21, at noon in the boardroom! This is a chance to meet with Clay and some of our leaders to learn more about Woodmont and if God is calling you to make this your church home. Lunch is served and you are warmly invited! Childcare is available with an RSVP to tammy@woodmontcc.org

Houses of Hope Build this Saturday

Woodmont is a missional church! We will be working with Hopeforce International to build two more houses in April! So far, Hopeforce has partnered to build four of these homes to date.

These houses will go to an economically depressed area in Oklahoma. They were struck by a tornado two years ago and really need our help!

As we get information on the families involved, we will relay that data to the church membership. We are doing two houses this time to spread the transportation cost across those homes. We will only be providing the walls for the homes this time versus the roof, windows, and doors as we have done before. This will reduce our financial responsibility quite a bit. An organization in Oklahoma will be picking up the cost for the second home with us, Woodmont, providing the labor to build the walls.

Use our Signup Genius to select the shift(s) that you would like. If you have questions, contact Beth Sowell at (615) 512-2242.

Outreach Ministry Fair this Sunday

This Sunday, in conjunction with our stewardship campaign, we are highlighting 12-15 outreach ministries that Woodmont actively supports due to your continued generosity. Please make the time to visit the tables in the Gathering Hall and Chapel Atrium before or after services to learn more about these ministries and how you and your family can get involved in one or more of them!

Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has just published a fascinating new book titled The Anxious Generation. He has conducted extensive research on the correlation between our young people gaining access to smartphones and social media and the devastating effects it is having on their mental health. Depression, anxiety, exclusion, and suicidal ideations have all risen drastically in recent years. The data is clear. We are all aware of this, but we don’t seem to know what to do about it. It is also affecting adults. 

Social media has exacerbated envy, social comparison, and superficiality. Everybody seems to always put their best life out there, but we all know this isn’t how life really is. Our culture is suffering from a shortage of authenticity. People are always putting on fronts and acting like everything is OK. One of the great challenges of life is to be the same person no matter who we are around. To be consistent and reliable. To act the same way. To treat others well. To not put on a front just because we are going to be around new people, important people, rich people, or church people.

We do live in a superficial world where many have mastered putting up fronts. Everything is judged on the surface. We have personas – what the world expects us to be. What others expect us to be. There is a serious lack of depth. People who are hurting put a smile on their face and pretend that everything is alright. People who are scared to death act like they are courageous and pretend that they are being brave. People who have lost their job and their savings try to continue living their same lifestyles so that others won’t catch on to the fact that their bank accounts have dwindled and they are not doing well at all. People whose marriages are struggling act happy and pretend like everything is fine when they are lonely and cry themselves to sleep at night. 

It’s also a world of people-pleasing. Many aren’t true to themselves because they’re too busy living out somebody else’s expectations. They want to please their spouse, their parents, their in-laws, their children, or their friends. And so they spend all of their time doing things that they think will please other people rather than being honest and true to who they really are. 

Why do we do these things? We do these things because we feel like society expects us to be somebody that we’re not. And we’re scared of being discovered. We’re scared that others might discover who we really are, and then decide that they want nothing to do with us. We’re scared that if we let down our guard, then others may not let down theirs and we’ll look like the only person that has problems. But we all have problems. We all have shortcomings and character flaws. We are well aware of the things that we do that we wish we didn’t do – worry, jealousy, lust, anger, bitterness, envy, resentment, fear. We overreact to certain situations. We say things about people that we shouldn’t and if it comes back to us, we deny it. We put up fronts, smiles, and pretend to live a problem-free life, but nobody has a problem-free life.

We all have one thing in common as humans – we are broken to some degree. The Bible refers to this as sin. But the good news is that God’s grace is available to each of us in the midst of our brokenness – all we have to do is accept it through faith. We don’t have to wear masks. We don’t have to pretend to be somebody we’re not. We don’t have to pretend. We can be our true selves every day. Authenticity is liberating.

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Welcome, new members!

Worship Night April 23

Join us for our next monthly Worship Night in the chapel on Tuesday, April 23! A short, 30 minute, full-band, casual service. Come as you are for a mid-week uplift and encouragement with music and the word - a perfect way to fill your spirit! Questions? Contact moriah@woodmontcc.org.

Spring Fling April 28

Coming up on Sunday, April 28, from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM, is the Woodmont Spring Fling hosted by our Woodmont Kids and Youth Ministries at Campbell West.

We will have dinner prepared by our fantastic group, Burnt Offerings, games, inflatables, and fun! Please click the button below to RSVP so we know how much food to prepare.

VBS registration is open

It's finally time! Vacation Bible School 2024 registration is officially open.

VBS is June 25-28 from 9:00 AM to noon and it is for children and students from Rising Pre-k4 through Rising 5th Grade. Friends outside of Woodmont are certainly welcome! We can't wait to have another fantastic summer!

Woodmont re-established the Worship Committee in 2019, just prior to the Covid pandemic. With a focus on assisting our staff as the voice of the congregation, we would like to reacquaint the congregation with this group of serving members committed to guiding our services. The committee's objective is to help guide worship to be faith-nurturing and personally healing.

The Worship Committee hopes to understand perspectives and ideas from you, our church community. If you have thoughts or would like to learn more about the committee, feel free to contact any one of them!

-Jan Anderson, Alison Bueschen, Michael Graham, Pam Groom, Andra Moran, Tammy Morgan, Rich Sanderson (Chair - 615-997-6391), Bryan Sargent, & Christi Williams

Youth Spring Retreat, April 5-7

What does hospitality mean to you? Is it a visiting extended family member or friend? Is it an act of fluffing up the pillows, stocking the bottled water in the guest room, and throwing a potpourri on the stovetop to make your kitchen smell just a bit better? Maybe you have followed the rabbit trail and come across varying theories of hospitality, even encountering the ever-popular “Wabi-Sabi” theory. In reading up on “Wabi-Sabi”, you maybe have accepted that perfectly “neat” spaces aren’t as hospitable as the natural, transient, imperfect space. Or maybe hospitality hasn’t meant much to you at all. Hotels have felt comfortable, but hosting people or visiting others has felt like a task too cumbersome to intentionally approach. 

A few weeks ago, I tasked some of our youth in the Youth Cabinet to answer the question of what hospitality meant to Jesus. The youth and I are currently forming our “Welcoming Committee” to open up our home to current and future youth, especially our incoming 5th graders. In doing so, I want to make sure we reach the right conclusions together. After all, hospitality is actually a Christian spiritual practice. And, it is one embedded into the Christian life, whether we know it or not. The way of Jesus dances marvelously to a rhythm of hospitality, but it isn’t quite like our own myopic theories. Our ideas of hospitality are similar to Jesus’; yet, I also believe he wants to undo some of these theories. While the way of Jesus can similarly call us into a peaceful habitat of communion with the Father, it dissimilarly is a hospitable movement of meeting the orphan and widow in their distress. It means going out into our cities and streets and reminding an afflicted Nashville that the Kingdom of God is already with them and for them. 

Lucky for me, our youth seem to already get the memo. We have already seen them organize the "Souper Bowl for Caring" and passionately join in on service opportunities like Room In The Inn, Fall-Hamilton, and soon, Light Up Music City. Every week I get the privilege of listening to them share a passion for care and missions, whether they know it’s truly radical hospitality or not. I could not be more thrilled to see how this Jesus-modeled hospitality transforms our future youth leaders here at Woodmont. We have an awesome group of 5th graders getting ready to join our group in just a few short months, and these youth want to lead the way. Whether it's joining me for this summer’s “Wednesday Waffle Houses” or them sharing about our ministry during this April’s 5th grade retreat, our students are paving the way. As they continue to grow in passion for hospitable service in our city and for fellow youth, I trust they will live out Jesus’s words here in Luke’s Gospel:

“But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’”

CHILD DEDICATION - Marvin Tate Moorer & Jane Clay Moorer, children of Noland & Lucy Moorer

The Green Chalice team will be some educational events in celebration of Earth Day on Sunday, April 21. One of these activities will be having three electric vehicles parked outside the south entrance of Carpenter Chapel so that interested members of the church can learn more about the pros and cons of this new automobile technology. The times when you can meet the owners and talk with them will be 9:00 AM to 9:30 AM, 10:30 AM to 11:00 AM, and noon to 12:15 PM. We look forward to seeing you then!

This Sunday, April 21: "Loving God, Loving Nashville" series

“Loving God, Loving Nashville, Impacting Others”

Clay Stauffer

Matthew 6:19-21, 22:34-40

Our schedule this Sunday is:

• 8:30 AM – Continental breakfast in the gym
• 9:30 AM – Traditional service in the sanctuary with livestream
• 9:40 AM – The Bridge service in the chapel with livestream
• 11:00 AM – Traditional service in the sanctuary with livestream
• 4:00 PM – Youth Group in the youth lounge
• 4:00 PM – Youth Moms' Group at Campbell West

Fall-Hamilton parking lot fundraiser April 27

We're seeking a few more volunteers to help with our final Fall-Hamilton flea market parking lot fundraiser of the school year on Saturday, April 27! No experience needed - just directing cars to open parking spaces. It's a great way to meet fellow Woodmont members in a beautiful outdoor setting and raise funds for this inner-city school. Signup for a 3-hour shift here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A084CA5A62D6-fall1#/ or contact Sarah Drury at (615) 812-6096.

Woodmont is also starting a pickleball program at Fall-Hamilton! Volunteers are invited to help teach pickleball rules, hand-eye coordination, and sportsmanship. Questions? Contact Jim Thomas at fullhousejtllc@gmail.com

At the memorial service for the Covenant School tragedy, we unveiled a new candle stand in the prayer garden in honor of Evelyn Dieckhaus and the Covenant community. We chose the scripture from John 1:5, "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness shall not overcome it."

I am a believer in the power of prayer. My hope is that you will visit the prayer garden, light a candle, and whisper a prayer. Each one of us carries burdens on our hearts. God is hoping we will release them and take some of that peace that only God can give in their place.

I invite you to make a "soul stop" in the prayer garden. Maybe it's on your way home from work, or after church, or during a lunch break. You will enjoy the beauty of the garden, listening to the water of the fountain, and the ritual of lighting a candle and inviting God in.

Part of Woodmont's group at the Voices for Safer TN "Linking Arms for Change" event on March 27

You may have noticed a number of new trees recently popping up around the Woodmont campus. A local non-profit, Root Nashville, has a plan of planting 500,000 new trees in Davidson County by 2050 and approached Woodmont about participating. We agreed to plant 23 new trees. 

An enterprising Boy Scout, Avery Savona, from Troop 92 which has been sponsored by Woodmont since the late 1950s, heard about the tree project. He was looking for a civic project for his Eagle Scout Award and approached George Keith. 

Over several weekends, Avery managed a number of other scouts and parents from Troop 92 and coordinated and completed the planting of 21 new trees. The most visible are 8 Robinson Crabapple trees along Hillsboro Pike near the stone wall. There is a Tulip Poplar tree near the preschool playground and a couple Autumn Serviceberry trees in the plant beds near Campbell West. Over the next 10 years they will grow to 15 to 25 feet tall. They each provide showy flowers in the spring and brilliantly colored leaves in the fall. 

Thank you, Avery and friends at Troop 92, for helping beautify our campus for many years to come!

A total of 90 bags of special gifts were carried to Guatemala in 4 large duffle bags on the recent trip to Guatemala! We received the beautiful backpacks which were sewn by a group of fathers, whose children are sponsored through Unbound. Everyone decorated notes that were put in the backpacks, along with your gift, explaining that you sent a gift via the travelers from Woodmont. All of the backpacks are at the Unbound Center in San Lucas. Your sponsored friend's Unbound social worker will pick them up and hand deliver them!

What a wonderful surprise it will be to receive such a meaningful gift from you, especially when the only way possible to send something tangible is through a trip such as this. 

Thank you all for the outpouring of love. We loved passing it on for you!

G.E.M.S. April 23

Hope Hines, former News Channel 5 anchor and sports director, will be speaking at G.E.M.S. on Tuesday, April 23, at 11:30 AM in Room 200.

Hope enjoyed a legendary 40-year career in broadcasting and is a member of the Sports Hall of Fame. He'll be speaking on the past, present, and future of sports, especially regarding significant changes.

Hope joined News Channel 5 after graduating from the University of Georgia. In 1975 he expanded his career becoming a play-by-play radio announcer for the Chargers, television play-by-play announcer for the New Orleans Saints, TV sports announcer, and play announcer for the Colts. He returned to Channel 5 in 1983 until his retirement.

Book Club new date - April 30

The April meeting of our book club has been moved to Tuesday, April 30, as the group discusses The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict and at 10:30 AM in Room 100. Questions? Contact Betty Williams at byotwilliams@comcast.net.

Members of Woodmont's staff at Top Golf on April 3

Watch "Being Wealthy & Christian Too"

Watch "Leveraging Our Love"

Church calendar

Sunday, April 21

8:30 AM Continental Breakfast, Drowota Hall

9:30 AM 21st Century Class, Boardroom

9:30 AM Disciples Class, Room 105

10:45 AM Pathways Class, Boardroom

10:45 AM Reflections Class, Room 200

10:45 AM Connection Class, Room 100

11:00 AM Points of View Class, Room 105

12:00 PM Intro to Woodmont Luncheon, Boardroom

3:00 PM Pickleball, Drowota Hall

4:00 PM Youth Group, Youth Lounge

4:00 PM Youth Moms' Group, Campbell West

5:30 PM Jubilation Rehearsal, Choir Room

Monday, April 22

3:00 PM "Geezers," Boardroom

Tuesday, April 23

12:00 PM GEMS Luncheon, Room 200

6:00 PM Worship Night, Carpenter Chapel

6:30 PM Alateen (ages 12-19), South Hall

6:30 PM Parents Al-Anon Group, Room 105

8:00 PM AA Meeting, South Hall 

Wednesday, April 24

6:00 AM Roy Stauffer’s Men’s Group, Room 105

7:00 AM Clay Stauffer’s Men’s Group, Boardroom

8:00 AM Men’s Bible Study, Room 105

5:45 PM Disciples Women's Bible Study, Room 200

6:30 PM Choir Rehearsal, Sanctuary

Thursday, April 25

10:00 AM Sit & Stitch, Gathering Hall

1:00 PM Mahjong Group, Gathering Hall

5:30 PM Handbells Rehearsal, Choir Room

6:30 PM Andra Moran Virtual Vespers, Zoom

6:30 PM Nar-Anon, Room 105

8:00 PM AA Meeting, South Hall 

Friday, April 26

3:00 PM Pickleball, Drowota Hall

Saturday, April 27

10:00 AM Al-Anon, Drowota Hall