The Franklinville United Methodist Church’s welcome for\u00a0 Pastor Larry and Carol two weeks ago included a large sign outside of their church.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The following pictures of the Franklinville UMC are posted on their website<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span>..<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The church’s website was recently updated to include an introduction of their new pastor, Pastor Larry.\u00a0 Click Here<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span> to check it out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On July 6, Pastor Kee preached his first sermon in Bayhead… on the beach!\u00a0 In bare feet!!!\u00a0 His message discussed Acts 9:1-16, and was entitled “The Plan of God.”\u00a0 The entire text of his message is shown below:<\/p>\n Good morning everyone! I am a new pastor appointed at St. Paul\u2019s UMC from July 1st. I am honored to serve the Lord with you all together at this church and in this community. I am so thrilled to preach this morning because Jesus preached on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. What a beautiful church it is! No wall, no door, no roof; but sky as roof, wind as wall and everywhere is a door to everyone. This is a great church. I would like to say \u201cThank you\u201d all for your warm welcoming to us, your amazing work done at the parsonage, and your loving care for the pastor\u2019s family providing meals, gift cards, brownies, crumb cakes, gardening, cards filled with love, beach chairs, information about this area, prayers, and everything you have done for us. Thank you!<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard about your incredible ministry while the hurricane Sandy hit the Jersey shore in 2012, opening the church door to feed about 500 people every single day, breakfast, lunch and dinner for almost a year. Some of you didn\u2019t go to work for a while to help and support the urgent situation and to care for your neighbors. Some of you generously volunteered your gifts of time, money and prayers. As your new pastor, I would like to say, \u201cThank You, Thank you, Thank You.\u201d<\/p>\n I also know that many of you are victims of Sandy. Brothers and sisters, we, as one body of Christ, will continue to pray and support you and your family. May God continue to be with you, strengthen you and provide you what you need in this journey so that you can find hope in Christ!<\/p>\n Let me briefly introduce myself. I am an ordained pastor at the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference and I do have a Korean background. I have parents, four sisters, and one brother in South Korea. They are my prayer partners who live in South Korea. I came to the States in 1998 to study theology. I studied the Master of Divinity at New York Theological Seminary in Manhattan. About 15 years ago before I came to the States, I couldn\u2019t even imagine that I would be a pastor at this beautiful church preaching on beach with bare feet.<\/p>\n So I would like to ask you today to see a bigger picture that God has for you. Today\u2019s scripture reading is about Saul\u2019s conversion. Saul has encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus on a mission to arrest and kill people who believed in Jesus. What a dramatic story he had- just like we have our own stories as we go through together the hurricane Sandy at Bay Head! If I would say more about it with a bigger picture, it was not a simple matter of his salvation, or his transformation but his commitment to missionary tasks to bring the gospel to the Gentiles because the gospel of Jesus Christ was limited to the Jewish community in his time. God called him to be a missionary to all people and all nations.<\/p>\n Jesus said in Matthew 28:18-20, \u201cAll authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.\u201d Jesus asks us to make disciples of all nations. Jesus didn\u2019t want the gospel to stay in the limited community. God wants everyone to know the good news of Jesus Christ. God had an incredible plan for Paul through his conversion from Judaism to Christianity. Maybe Saul didn\u2019t like the moment to encounter the risen Christ. Maybe he was scared or he was not comfortable. Maybe he didn\u2019t want to change his lifestyle that used to persecute people who believed in Jesus Christ. Maybe he didn\u2019t want to change his tradition from his family. But God had a special plan for him for God\u2019s own sake. He became a great man of God and his writings, his written documents, 14 books are in the New Testament. Furthermore, there are so many churches in the world with his name, St. Paul\u2019s. Though we have the same name, we believe that God has a special plan for our church as well.<\/p>\n My loving sisters and brothers, God loves you and God has a special plan for you and for your future. God told the people of Israel who were in exile in Babylon, \u201cI know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.\u201d It is a blessing to know that God has some plans for you. It does not matter if you are young or old; God has some plans for you. It does not matter if you are a male or female; God has some plans for you. It does not matter if you are rich or poor; God has some plans for you. It does not matter if you are educated or not; God has some plans for you. It does not matter if you are single, married, widowed or divorced; God has some plans for you. It does not matter if you are employed or unemployed; God has some plans for you. God has plans to prosper you.<\/p>\n Again, Jeremiah 29:11 says, \u201cFor I know the plans I have for you,\u201d declares the Lord, \u201cplans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.\u201d The word \u201cProsper\u201d means to be successful. It means to grow. It means to flourish. It means to excel. It means to develop into something good or positive. It means to accomplish something good. It means to improve on something that needed improvement. It means to go the next level in life. It means to be victorious. It means to live and do well.<\/p>\n Now most people, when they think of being prosperous, think it just means living in a big house, having lots of money in the bank, and driving fancy cars. But you can have all of that, and yet still not be prosperous because if you don\u2019t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, then you are not prosperous. Prosperity does not depend upon your bank account, but on your relationship with Christ. Prosperity is not dependent upon what you have but it is dependent upon God who controls all things.<\/p>\n Now, it must be understood that there is nothing wrong with prospering financially, but God wants you to prosper in other things as well. God wants to prosper you in wisdom, understanding, and knowledge in God\u2019s word. God wants to proper you with the joy of the Lord. God wants to prosper you with peace with God. God wants to prosper you in your marriage or relationship with your children, with the people at work, in your community. God wants to proper you to do well in school. God wants to prosper you in your business, on your job. God wants to prosper you with good health and in your mind. God wants to prosper you in your ministry and in your gift for the Lord.<\/p>\n Once again, we learn prosperity from Paul\u2019s statement, \u201cI can do all things through Christ who strengthens me\u201d that reminds us that our power to live the Christian life comes from God, not ourselves.<\/p>\n My sisters and brothers, God has a special plan for you. In our faith adventure, would you join us to enjoy finding God\u2019s plan for us?<\/p>\n Amen.<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n Other messages<\/span><\/a> <\/span>from Pastor Kee are posted on the St. Paul’s UMC,\u00a0 Bayhead website.<\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n \u00a0+\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0 +<\/p>\n We celebrate with our brothers and sisters in Franklinville and Bayhead on the arrival of their new pastors.\u00a0 Even amidst our own joy and anticipation, as we pray for our own church and for our pastor, Rev. Jim Bolton, we also join in prayer for Pastor Larry and Pastor Kee and for our friends in Franklinville and Bayhead.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There’s a lot of excitement around our church with the arrival of our new pastor, Rev. Jim Bolton. But our previous pastors have moved on and their new churches are welcoming them also.\u00a0 Rev. Dr. Larry Potts (formerly our Senior Pastor) is now serving at the Franklinville UMC, and Rev. Kee Young Yang (formerly our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,102],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-2598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evann","category-staff","tag-clergy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2598"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5453,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions\/5453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Franklinville-](\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Franklinville-Signboard-_0605.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"Franklinville-Welcome](\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Franklinville-Welcome-Pastor-Larry-_0603.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\nPastor Kee…<\/span><\/h3>\n
Pastor Kees Sermon<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
The Body of Christ…<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n