Ocala First Connection

Below is Pastor David's sermon from this past Sunday (12-17-2017) including the slides he used during the 9:00 am Contemporary Service. You can view the video from the 11:00 am service on our website: http://fumcocala.org/sermons/ +++++ Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 We are down to the last week.  Christmas is just around the corner.  We have our trees up, our house decorated, our presents purchased online and out for delivery, our cookies baked, our parties attended, our Christmas parade watched, our travel plans made, and our annual reminder that we think eggnog is really just okay as long as we don’t have to drink too much of it. So here is my question: Are you happy?     We are in the season where the greatest virtues of the Christian life are celebrated: faith, hope, love, joy, and peace. But this is also a time of the year that is not quite so jolly for many people.  December with its short days, long nights, colder weather, busy-ne...

Below is Pastor Rwth's sermon from this past Sunday (12-10-2017) including the slides she used during the 9:00 am Contemporary Service.  You can view the video from the 11:00 am service on our website:  http://fumcocala.org/sermons/ +++++ There’s a story that my Mom tells a lot.  She and my Dad had brought me home from the hospital after my birth.  That first night, I cried and cried and cried—unable to be comforted—despite their around the clock efforts to soothe me. Finally, as morning arrived, I fell peacefully asleep.  My parents were bleary-eyed and hunched over cups of coffee.  My Mom looked at my Dad and said, “Bob, we’ve been had.” The next night, I cried and cried and cried.  And Mom and Dad didn’t stay up with me during the night.  Though we would likely disagree with that parenting approach today, apparently I slept more and more on my own during the night, until a night would pass without my crying at all. ...

Below is Pastor Rwth's sermon from this past Sunday (11-19-2017) including the slides she used during the 9:00 am Contemporary Service. You can view the video from the 11:00 am service on our website:  http://fumcocala.org/sermons/ +++++ After surgery and a couple of days in the hospital, my Mom went home and I helped care for her there.  In the mornings, I drank my coffee and read the local newspaper. I was struck by the obituaries.  Many of them were beautiful, moving tributes, often several paragraphs long and full of details that really expressed who the person was in life.  There was one detail that always stood out: what the person was devoted to.  For each person, their noted devotion was different.  But in every case, what they were devoted to made them real and gave them life—even in death.  Reading about their devotion to one thing or another made me feel like I knew them.   Devotion is a rather old-fashioned word. B...

Have you taken the time to give thanks to God today?  How have you expressed your gratitude for the forgiveness, grace and love of Jesus Christ?  How have you given thanks for the many gifts and blessings that we can count each and every day? We talked about gratitude this past Sunday and importance of finding concrete ways of expressing our thanks to God: through words of gratitude spoken to God in prayer each day through spending quality time focused on God in worship each week through giving of gifts through our tithes and offering and contributing to those in need through acts of service sharing the compassion and mercy of Jesus. Below is summary of Pastor David's sermon from Sunday.  You can see the sermon video on our website:  http://fumcocala.org/sermons/ +++++ Sermon Summary: November 12, 2017 Thy Kingdom Come: Gratitude Rev. David Fuquay Jesus was traveling towards Jerusalem. As he entered a village ten men...

We had a wonderful experience of worship this past week on Mother's Day.  Below is Rwth's sermon for the 11 am traditional service!

Below is our worship bulletin for this coming Sunday.  We are recognizing our graduating Seniors in worship and sharing leadership in both the 9 am and 11 am services with them.  And if you missed our wonderful Confirmation Sunday last week, Rwth's sermon at 11 am is posted below.  You can also find our bulletins and sermons on our website, as well as, the archive of our sermons on our Ocala First YouTube channel!

What a wonderful Holy Week and Easter Sunday!   We hope you were blessed through our Holy Thursday Communion Service, the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, and our marvelous Easter Services this past Sunday.   Below is the sermon video and transcript from Sunday.  You can find all our sermon videos from Lent on our website -  http://fumcocala.org/first-united-methodist-church-sermons/ I love Easter Sunday.  I love it as a pastor, but I loved it even more as a kid.  I grew up at a time when you had to get a new outfit to wear to church on Easter: The Easter suit. I don’t miss that so much as it inevitably involved wearing a tie. I loved the Easter basket, even if the ears where always mysteriously eaten off my chocolate rabbit. I remember being a bit homesick when I was in college and working at a church so I could not come home for Easter. In mail arrived a chocolate Easter rabbit from my mother, and yes – the ears where still eaten off. Child...