Ministries
Some of our Ministries include Beads of Hope - Children's Ministries - Men's Ministry - Music Ministry - Stephen Ministry - Women's Ministry - Youth Ministry - Outreach - Missions
Sunday School
Sunday School is very important at Disciples. We have a variety of options from conversation style to more study based.
We have our Senior Adult Sunday School on Sunday mornings at 9:00am, and Sunday School for all Ages is Sunday at 11:15am.
Children's Ministries
There is both a nursery and toddler room at Disciples. Children's Church is offered for K3 - 2nd grade. Children's Classes are offered K5 through 5th Grade in the education wing. Children's Ministries have monthly events and also Vacation Bible School and our Easter Egg Hunt.
Youth Ministries
6th grade - 12th grade meet for Youth Sunday School. The Disciples Youth do monthly events and service projects. We participate in conference-wide events like Revolution and Salkehatchie Summer Service. 7th graders go through Confirmation in the spring and will go on a retreat to the Hinton Center.
Men's Ministry
The Men's Ministry at Disciples UMC is going strong. They meet on the second Tuesday of the month at 6:30 pm.
Women's Ministries
First Tuesday Circle is a group of ladies which meets monthly on the first Tuesday of the month at 6pm at various outside locations. They enjoy a meal, fellowship, discussions and sometimes even some laughs!
Beads of Hope
Beads of Hope is a mission of Disciples and raises money for the World Service Fund. Here is the story of this mission:
The Holy Spirit & The Beads of Hope Story
By Cheryl Turner of Disciples United Methodist, Greenville, SC
Beads of Hope are jewelry made from recycled church bulletins and packaged with a message about hope and prayer. Funds raised from their sales benefit the mission work of The United Methodist Church. Beads of Hope came out of a Bible Study called “Attentiveness”. The study taught a prayer and meditation technique called “Lectio Divina” through a small book & DVD. This Bible Study was like none I’ve ever taken before. It had very little reading. You might smile and say that sounds like my kind of study – quick & easy. Not so. The simplicity of it was what made it hard but also rewarding.
Each day we would take a short scripture and go through 5 steps.
1. Silence – turn all your thoughts to God – let go of everything else.
2. Read the short passage – reread it and be alert to any word that jumps out at you or thought that intrigues you, puzzles you. Don’t rush, wait for it.
3. Meditate on the word or phrase – allow it to engage your thoughts, your memories, your desires.
4. Pray that God will transform you through this word or image from the scripture. Consider how this image connects with your life and how God is made known to you in it.
5. Rest silently in the presence of God. Move beyond words just “be” for a few minutes and close with amen. In our fast-paced world it is very hard to clear and quiet your mind and just “be” so you can listen to God.
One of the reasons I took this study was to help me know when God or the Holy Spirit is speaking to me, and when it’s just me speaking to me. I’ve talked about this with my minister and many of my Christian friends, and I believe we all struggle with this. In scripture we see that people in the Bible also struggled with these same questions. I feel I understand better having taken this study, but by no means am I sure when the voice is just my spirit speaking or the Holy Spirit speaking to me. For me, I would describe God speaks to me as a nudge. A thought or feeling that won’t leave me alone. It doesn’t go away. I push it away and go on with my stuff, but every time my mind is quiet it comes back.
The study also talked about Faithful Friends – true friends who can help us hear the voice of God. Friends who are part of our Christian community who we respect and with whom we can share our thoughts and concerns.
Near the end of this study, we were to spend time meditating and listening to what God through the Holy Spirit might lead us to do to share His love with others. During this meditative time the nudging I kept feeling was about these bulletin beads. I had resurrected the pattern from a previous church a few months prior when I needed some yellow beads to tie an outfit together for a special event. Our Easter Bulletin was yellow and made beads of the perfect color. Shortly after this I made a pair of beads for a friend from the memorial bulletin of her sister. She was so appreciative of this simple gift. She said when she wore them, it reminded her of the sister she so loved. During the last couple weeks of the study, when I went through the 5 steps of “Lectio Divina”, everything kept pointing to a ministry of some sort with these beads. I pushed it away at first as silly, but these thoughts just wouldn’t leave me alone. Finally, I prayed, surely God this isn’t what you want me to do. What kind of ministry could come out of bulletin beads? When the thoughts still wouldn’t go away, I said OK God if this is what you’re telling me, then I’ll go with it, but you’ll have to tell me How to do something with it. You’ll have to make it crystal clear in my thoughts. After that everything just flowed into place. I went back to my Bible Study group with the plan that had come to me through the Holy Spirit speaking to my spirit. The Bible Study group listened and encouraged me to write out the plan and take it to the Ministry Resource Team – a group in our church that helps a new ministry get started.
So, in September 2008, the Beads of Hope Ministry was born. This shows how God can take the simplest of things and use it for Good to share His Love.
In addition to the funds raised for missions through jewelry sales, the message of hope and prayer packaged with the beads is every bit as important. It is our way of evangelism. We have given Beads of Hope as gifts to those in need, and we’ve been told our beads have traveled far beyond the Upstate, even beyond The United States. We will never know how far this message has gone or how the funds raised from our jewelry have touched others. Beads of Hope are like seeds spreading the Good News that Jesus gave us about God’s Love. One of our former minister’s told us, “It’s not our job to police Christianity or try to force people to convert. Our job is to plant the seeds – God will take care of the rest. As in the Bible, some will fall on rocky ground, some will be choked out by weeds, but some will land on fertile ground and grow, and these seeds will multiply.”
Missions
We work with not-for-profit organizations in the local area (local homeless shelter) to help provide the needs of those who are homeless.