Welcome to Midway Christian Church

On September 11, 2011, Midway held its first annual Special Community Worship Service of Peace and Hope in the Walter Bradley Memorial Park.

Dick Yarmy, author and photographer, wrote a nice article on this event for the UK School of Journalism and Telecommunications. Read it here (pdf).

2012 Heifer Ark Project

In 2011, we reached our goal of $5,000 for another gift ark (livestock to poor villages) through Heifer International, with over $1,000 left towards a 2012 ark! We will be collecting money throughout our church year for our ark. This way, if you want to give the ark as part of birthday presents, anniversary presents, or simply just because (special gift cards are available), you can do so by making your checks out to Midway Christian Church with "Heifer Ark" in the memo. Special gift cards are available.

Green Chalice

The Midway Green Chalice group meets the third Tuesday of each month at Midway Christian Church.

Topics discussed at the Green Chalice gathering on January 17 included:
-EcoPalms for Palm Sunday which support fair trade and sustainability;
-Farm to School program to encourage healthier eating choices in schools, using locally-grown foods
-Rain Garden for the southwest corner of the Church building to address water runoff
-Reusable bags for Midway Merchants
-Farmers Market
-Senior Meals with fresher, healthier options
Please feel free to ask any member of the Green Chalice group for more information and to give your ideas for "Green" projects around the church and community.

"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to God. For God laid the earth's foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths.
Psalm 24:1-2

Green Chalice Dates to Remember:
February 14 " I Love the Mountains Day" at the Capitol in Frankfort
February 28 "Clean Energy Lobby Day" at the Capitol in Frankfort

Read the Bible in One Year

Beginning January 1, 2012, everyone is encouraged to read their Bibles daily. We will be using The Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan as our guide. It features an Old Testament, a Gospel, an Epistle reading and a Psalm for each of the daily readings.

At our 2011 Board Retreat, the elders and deacons talked about how they wanted to know the Bible better. So we have covenanted together to join in reading God's word daily. And to help us with our readings, we will meet weekly to reflect on our daily readings. There will be a day-time gathering on Monday mornings at 10 a.m. and an after-work time gathering on Mondays at 6:30 p.m. for this opportunity. This will not be a typical Bible Study, but a chance to share with each other where the text intersects with our lives, and a chance to share what words or phrase surprised us or got us to thinking. It will be an opportunity for all of us to dwell in the Word of God.

The Discipleship Bible Reading Plans are available in the narthex or download it here.

The Disciples Women will meet on Sunday, February 19th at 12:30 p.m. in the Fellowship
Hall. Our guest speaker will be Heather Moffett, the coordinator of the "Girls on the Run" program at Northside Elementary. We will follow with a discussion about "human trafficking" in the U.S. and other countries.

Please bring soup or sandwiches to share.

Disciples Women is for all women of Midway Christian Church.

The Keenagers will travel to Holly Hill Inn on Thursday, February 16th for lunch. Please call the
church office by Monday, February 13th to RSVP.

Keenagers is for anyone who is retired, or practicing retirement!

Monthly Free Community Dinner

Midway Christian Church hosts a free Community Dinner in Fellowship Hall at 6:30 pm on the last Monday each month.

Our February dinner will be Burgoo Night! MCC member Rick Caudle has offered to make us his
world famous burgoo this month. So come join us!

We will gather in the kitchen at 5 p.m. that day to set up tables, make drinks, and put together the to-go containers for our local take outs.

If you would like to support this ministry, checks can be made out to Midway Christian Church with "Community Dinner" in the memo line.

The Biggest Loser: Midway Edition

January 7 - April 6, 2012

At the start of every new year, many people make resolutions to be healthier and start eating right. This year, we would like to help with those resolutions and help keep those changes permanent. In the spirit of the Biggest Loser, we are proposing a friendly competition to help motivate those people who would like to participate.

Our Goal: To have the citizens in Midway make healthier decisions in what they eat and how they exercise. Starvation diets and fad diets will only help people lose weight while they eat that diet. The only way to lose.

There will be weekly weigh-ins, at a place to be determined, with guest speakers to help with motivation, education, and hopefully, entertainment. We are also working on opportunities for those participating to exercise at local facilities.

Category 1: The individual with the largest percentage loss would be the winner. There would be a men's and women's category. Individual winners receive a gift certificate to the Kentucky State Parks.

Category 2: Teams of 5 members will total the individuals' losses to get the average loss for their team.

The winning team can choose a mission for the money collected from the participants, or donate the winnings to the Midway Ministerial Association.

Time frame: The competition will be between January 7, 2012 and April 6, 2012 (Good Friday).

There will be an entrance fee for this event to pay for the prizes. We are still looking for great ideas for this project and welcome any feedback that you have.

Download the Rules and Registration Form.

Download the Flyer.

Please contact John Batts at Johnbatts@aol.com with your ideas!

Blanket Project

January and February, 2012

We will be collecting blankets during the months of January and February. Please bring NEW or GENTLY USED, CLEAN blankets to Fellowship Hall. A box for the blankets will be on the stage. We will see that one of the shelters in Lexington receives them. Let's help keep someone warm during these cold winter days and nights!

Fat Tuesday Celebration

February 21, 2012
6:30 pm

Please join us for pancakes on Tuesday, February 21st at 6:30 p.m. for our annual Fat
Tuesday celebration. Fat Tuesday is also knows as Mardi Gras. Mardi is the French
word for fat while Gras is the French word for Tuesday.Fat Tuesday marks the
beginning of the 40-day Lenten fasting period when the faithful were forbidden to
consume meat, butter, eggs or milk.

Why pancakes? Tradition has it that if a family had a store of these foods that would certainly spoil by the time the fast ended on Easter Sunday. So what to do? Use up the milk, butter and eggs no later than Fat Tuesday. And so, with the addition of a little flour, the solution quickly presented itself: pancakes!

Ash Wednesday Service

February 22, 2012
7:00 pm

The community Ash Wednesday Service will be held on Wednesday, February 22nd at 7
p.m. at Midway Christian Church. Rev. Mary Wees of Midway Presbyterian will be our preacher that night. An offering will be collected to benefit the Midway Ministerial Association. This fund goes to help people in our community with rent and utility bills.

Lenten Study Begins February 28th

Beginning on Tuesday, February 28th at 6:30 p.m., everyone is invited to participate in our
Lenten Study. We will be reading the book, "Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule
of St. Benedict Today."

Why St. Benedict? Benedict lived during a time when the world was fragmented: pagan armies were on the march, the Church was torn apart by schisms, and people were suffering from war and loss. And he was fascinated by the monastic life. He left Rome to become a hermit, pulling away from everything and everyone, but something seemed missing. He realized that religious life is social, where the community of God lives together, works together, prays together, and yes, eats together!

The gift that St. Benedict gave to the church all those years ago is his book "The Rule" and it still has relevance today. "The Rule called the class-centered Roman world to community and calls us to the same on a globe that is fragmented. The Rule called for hospitality in times of barbarian invasions and calls us to care in a world of neighborhood strangers. It called for equality in a society full of classes and castes and calls us to equality in a world that proclaims everyone equal but judges everyone differently. The Rule shows clearly that the living of the gospel life is not an individual enterprise of private whim and flights of personal fancy, but a conscious gathering of the wisdom of others who can encourage us and help us scrutinize our own choices for their value and their valor."

Books are $11 and can be picked up in the church office. Checks can be made out to Midway Christian Church with "Lenten study" in the memo line.

Kingdom Living: Centering Our Lives on God and Serving One Another

"[Kingdom Living] is more than churchgoing. It is possible to go to church and
never develop an understanding of the Kingdom of God. [Kingdom Living] is the
way in which we express a living faith in a real world. [Kingdom Living] is the sum
total of the attitudes and actions that define our life of faith."
- Joan Chittister

As people of faith, we are called to recognize that the Spirit of God is among the
people of God, and that the Spirit of God is still working, still creating, still transforming our community and our world. And the wonderful part about it all is that we, as beloved children of God, are called to be partners in this amazing transformation.

Kingdom Living encourages all of us to open our eyes to see where God is already working in our communities. Kingdom Living inspires us to become the people that God created us to be by creating opportunities for God's grace to connect daily with our seemingly ordinary lives, by reminding us that we are responsible to and for each other, and by actively and continually growing in our relationship with God.

We will be using our Surfing the Edge text, Luke 10: 1-12, as one of our guides as we take a look at how the principles of the Kingdom of God (community, relationships, listening, praying, awareness, and stability) move us out of the darkness and into a transformed life filled with joy, which is the whole purpose of the season of Lent!