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10328 Jefferson Highway
Baton Rouge, LA, 70809
United States
225-293-4440
Welcome to Jefferson UMC. We worship, pray, fellowship, love God, and serve His people. Join us on Sundays...and many other days.
So, a few people were missed but now they are in! Click the link for the latest directory! We respect our congregation's privacy: Please call the office for the password (it's the same as before)...For Personal Use Only! Email staff@jeffersononline.org to make updates or send a photo.
We are proud to announce that JUMC offers two separate scholarships during the fall of each year. Applications are now available from the office.
The Rev. Beverly E. Bond Memorial Scholarship is an endowed scholarship in memory of Rev. Beverly E. Bond, the father of Beverly Summers. Open to any member of the UMC in LA, who is planning to study or is currently studying to become a minister, Christian educator, missionary, or other Christian service professional. Applicants must be accepted and registered at an accredited school supported by the UMC. Applications due 5/31.
The Ruth B. and Embree K. Easterly Memorial Scholarship will be awarded to a member of JUMC who is attending, or will attend, an accredited college or university in the state of Louisiana. The scholarship committee shall consider the applicant’s grades, needs, goals, and character. Applications due 6/15.
If you are interested in obtaining an application for either of these scholarships, contact the Church Office at 293-4440 or staff@jeffersononline.org.
2015 Tour to Greece: Our own, Jim and Lynette DeLaune, will lead a tour group on Paul's 4th Journeys on board the ship Celebrity Reflection. We will visit such cities as Miletus and Ephesus, Turkey, Rhodes, Mykonos, Santorini, Athens and Corinth, Greece and Messina, Taormina, Sicily, Naples, Pompeii and of course, Rome. Our trip leaves on Thurs, 9/10, and returns on Mon, 9/21 for eleven wonderful days of travel. You can also book a two-day Rome Pre-Tour that includes a visit to the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Coliseum and many other sites in Rome. Click for details.
2016 Tour to the Holy Land: Bishop Harvey is once again taking a trip to the Holy Land from Jan 19-28, 2016. We will visit Galilee and sail across the Sea of Galilee, visit the Mount of the Beatitudes, the Jordan River, Nazareth, Megiddo, Jericho, the Mount of Olives, Bethlehem, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper Room The Western Wall, the Pool of Bethesda, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Masada, the Dead Sea, the Garden Tomb and many other sites. Please contact Jim Delaune if you would like a brochure/questions.
Registration (click for form) is open for the 2015 JUMC Master's Open Golf Scramble at Copper Mill GC in Zachary on Sun, 4/12 starting at 1pm. Cost is $75/player or $300/4-person team. Fee covers golf, practice balls, door prizes, and dinner at conclusion of play. Contact Mike Sunseri or DeEtte Abshire for more information.
VacationBible School: week of June 15-19.
We’ll offer two times for this amazing week:
Daytime VBS is from 9am to noon
Nighttime VBS is from 5:30-7:30pm with dinner
Murder Mystery Dinner Theater on Sun, 3/8 from 5:30-7:30pm
Wear your cruise whites and board the Whitestar Line's R.M.S. Titanic for an evening of elegant dining and interactive theater entertainment! The Youth will be serving you a four-course meal complete with a murder mystery that needs your help getting solved! Throughout the dinner, clues will be unveiled to each table as you work together to solve the mystery! Theme is black & white: dinner is chilled tomato soup, grilled chicken with sweet potatoes & greens, plus cheesecake. Childcare (with pizza) available for $5/child. Tickets are $25 per person.
WOW Dinner on 2/25: Spaghetti/ Meatballs, Green Beans, Garlic Bread & Cake. To-Go orders available for pick up with RSVP to the church office
One Wednesday every year we go to church remembering who we are, and hopeful of who we can be.
On Wednesday, 2/18 at 6:30pm, we will join together for the start of Lent. One Wednesday a year, you notice someone at work, school, or elsewhere with a smudge on her forehead. It looks as if she missed a spot when washing. Then you see another who looks as though he needs to glance in the mirror. By the time you see the third, you realize it is Ash Wednesday and these passersby must have received the imposition of ashes.
This practice we use to mark the first day of Lent may seem odd. People go to church mid-week to have a cleric place dirt on their foreheads.
In the early days of the church, it was even more dramatic. Pastors did not dip their thumbs into the ashes to draw the shape of a cross on your forehead. Instead, they poured or sprinkled ashes over your head.
Under any other circumstances, most would run from ashes. We avoid cleaning fireplaces for fear of the filth from them, yet we participate in this practice that is growing in popularity. In fact, the receiving of ashes seems to connect with all sorts of people.
Why ashes?
In “A Service for Worship for Ash Wednesday” in the United Methodist Book of Worship, two suggestions of what worship leaders may say as they make the sign of the cross on another’s forehead are offered: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” and “Repent, and believe the gospel.” Each points to an aspect of what the ashes represent.
Remember that you are dust…
Ashes were an ancient symbol of our humanity. In Genesis, we read that God formed human beings out of the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7). The Hebrew word translated dust, is occasionally translatedashes elsewhere.
When Abraham felt the need to acknowledge the difference between him, a human being, and the infinite God, he referred to himself as dust and ashes. “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord,” he said, “I who am but dust and ashes” (Genesis 18:27).
…and to dust you shall return
Our humanity also calls to mind our mortality. After expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the first human beings are told by God, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19 NRSV). We know the day is coming for each of us when we will return to dust.
We wear black as a sign of mourning. Ancient people wore ashes. For example, a priest named Modecai puts on sackcloth and ashes to grieve the many deaths he sees coming from an order King Ahasuerus gives to kill all Jewish people (Esther 4:1-3). The prophet Jeremiah later calls the people of God to “roll in ashes” as a way of mourning the coming devastation from an opposing army (Jeremiah 6:26).
Receiving the imposition of ashes is a powerful way to confront our humanity and mortality. They remind us that we are not God, but God’s good creation. In them we recognize that our bodies will not last forever, and come face-to-face with the reality of our eventual death.
Repent…
Ashes also signify our sorrow for the mistakes we have made. People in ancient times wore sackcloth and ashes as a way of expressing their repentance of their sins.
When Jonah reluctantly preached to the people of Nineveh after the giant fish spit him up on the beach, the King and his people put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. God saw this act of repentance and spared the people (Jonah 3:1-10).
In the New Testament Jesus mentions this practice. Warning the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida Jesus said, “if the miracles done among you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have changed their hearts and lives and put on funeral clothes and ashes a long time ago.” (Matthew 11:21 CEB).
When we participate in the service of ashes, we confront our sin. We recognize our inability to live up to all God has created us to be, and our need to be forgiven. No matter how often we go to church, how far we have come in our spiritual journeys, how accomplished we may feel, each of us has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
The palms waved the previous Palm Sunday to welcome Jesus as our King, have been burned to form the ashes. In some sense, they serve as a reminder of how far we fall short of living up to the glory of Christ.
On the first day of Lent, we come before God recognizing our humanity and repenting of our sin.
…and believe the gospel
While this may sound fatalistic, it is not the end of the story. Lent leads to Easter, the day we celebrate that though our bodies are temporary and our lives are flawed, a day of resurrection will come when we will live in the presence of God forever.
The Secret Sister group, a ministry for women, is starting their Spring/Summer session. You will pick a name of another woman and over the next six months, you will support her through your prayers, thoughts, notes, and small gifts. If interested please contact Sue Cary at 933-1559. This is a wonderful ministry of support.
For guys, girls, and youth parents. Youth, do you measure yourself against an unreachable standard? This feeling haunts both guys and girls, showing itself in the masks we wear, poor body image, eating disorders, and feeling like we're never enough. Come join Tiffany Dawn on Wed, 2/11 at 6:30pm for "coffee date" style honesty! RSVP to Angie Roberson (angie.roberson28@gmail.com) (flyer)