Category Archives: Boone FUMC

Boone FUMC, Holidays

Free Thanksgiving Dinner

Do you need a place to get a good Thanksgiving meal? I know a place. Check out the picture below:


You can come to my church between 11-1 and we’ll hook you up.

If you don’t know where we’re located, it is easy to find. The Boone First United Methodist Church is located at:

703 Arden Street
Boone, IA 50036

It is a big red brick church located directly east of the Ericson Public Library. On the corner of 7th and Arden. Arden is 1 block east of Greene Street.

We do serve people in shifts because we are expecting to break our record of over 400 people this year. So calling and making a reservation at 432-4660 is appreciated, but not necessary.

If you are wondering if I’ll be there, the answer is “Yes”. At least for part of the day. I’m going to be there to photograph part of the day because I was told all of our old photos include some of our church’s saints that have passed on. So I’ll be there to photograph it until at least the Iowa State basketball game starts… or longer if I can figure out how to watch the game there.

You should know, I’m pretty good about figuring out how to watch Iowa State sports wherever I’m at. I just need a really long ethernet cable.

I also think I’m going to bring my inflatable turkey to add to the merriment. That’s how I roll.

Hope to see some of you there!

Art, Boone FUMC, Logan, Mom, Teresa

Chance with Necessity, Randomness with Determinism

3 Comments

On Sunday, after church, I grabbed my camera to walk around the church to grab some STILL LIFE moments for the THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. It seemed like a beautiful day, so I thought I would walk around downtown Boone a little bit before meeting the family at the Chinese buffet for lunch. When I came around the corner of 7th Street onto Greene Street, I came across a gentleman doing sidewalk chalk art on the sidewalk in front of the Ericson Public Library.

Fascinated by his work I struck up a conversation with him. During the course of our conversation I learned many of his religious views and some of his art background. He was a Boone expatriate that had recently decided to come back home. He indicated that he wanted to do an Easter art project and he had contacted the local Baptist church and they told him, “No.” Then he contacted the church he was raised in and they also told him, “No.”

I offered him use of our church’s sidewalk because we’d love to have this kind of artwork at our church in Easter. We struck up a deal and hopefully everything falls into place and the Boone First United Methodist Church will have some sweet sidewalk art come Easter Sunday.

Here are some pictures of his Christmas artwork he was doing at the library:


Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

Sidewalk Art

After I joined my family for lunch and I relayed the story, Teresa actually knew the artist. His name is Don Hughes and apparently back in the day, they used to run in the same circles. He had even been to our house in my youth. So after our lunch Mom, Logan, and Teresa went up to talk to Don. Which resulted in a selfie that was sent to one of Teresa’s oldest and dearest friends.

Andy, Boone FUMC, Candid Portrait, Self-Portrait

Old Salvation Army Building Wall Phase #1

2 Comments

Last Wednesday before Youth Group, a hearty clan of painters painted the south wall of the old Salvation Army Building. This phase is just to make it less of an eyesore. Phase 2 will involve painting murals where the boarded up windows are. Well, it is one of the phases.

This group consisted of a lot of Sharps, Pastor Doug, Pete Nelson, and I helped do some of the finishing up work at the end. Here are a couple of photos:


The last 2 pictures are from setting up for the Youth Group. I wish I would’ve gotten some pictures of that, but I didn’t. I was in charge of the lesson for the Sr. High Students. The idea of the lesson was to talk about what they liked and didn’t like about previous Mission Trips. This was going to be bookended by the old preacher’s story “The Lonely Ember”. We got the first part of “The Lonely Ember” done and lots of Mission Trip talk done, but we never got quite to the closure part as we ran out of time.

Oh well. At least everybody got to eat s’mores!

Boone FUMC, Grandma, Kio, Mom, Teresa

Methodist Men NOT a Steak Fry – 2016

The 16th was The Event Formerly Known as the Methodist Men Steak Fry. I think it was an overall success. We served 51 smoked pork chops and 2 hot dogs. Our speaker was Jack Owens, the founder (more-or-less) of The Salt Company.

It was good food and good company and a good speaker. We didn’t even go broke doing it! Here are a few pictures I was able to snap (when I wasn’t working like a dog) of the event.


Hopefully, under the leadership of our poor schmuck president, we hand increase our attendance by like 25%.

Animals, Boone FUMC, Formal Portrait, Naima, Teresa

Critter Sunday

2 Comments

One of the new things that our new pastor (Doug) brought to our church in an animal blessing ceremony. On Sunday, you could bring your pet to church or email a picture of your pet and the church blessed your pet.

I took Naima to the service and she handled as well as she does. Kio wanted pictures for the Boone News Republican taken of the service. So while I did that, Summer (from our Youth Group) handled Naima. They even went on a walk.

While Naima was getting blessed, Teresa took the photos.

Here are some photos from Critter Sunday:


It was an interesting experience for Naima. When she has been in the church in the past, she hasn’t had to be on a leash and has been able to slam into people as hard as she wants. She obviously couldn’t slam into people on Sunday.

This is a great new tradition. I hope a lot more people come to it next year.

Alisa, Boone FUMC, Fisheye, Pastor Sarah

Can I Get Confirmation?

2 Comments

Last Sunday was Confirmation Sunday at the church. I wasn’t directly involved in the confirmation process, but my morning was filled with church activities.

As a member of the Methodist Men, I was there to help prepare the Confirmation Breakfast for the confirmands, their families, and their mentors. During a break in the action I ran up and fixed the network problems of our financial computer. During the church service I ran the PowerPoint portion of the worship. After the service, once again as a member of the Methodist Men, I helped serve treats and beverages as part of Fellowship.

However, what matters to this post is the PowerPoint part of my day. Since I was running PowerPoint, I was up in the balcony. I don’t normally take photographs during worship service, because the people around me consider it to be a distraction.

However, since I was in the balcony and since Alisa is in Haiti doing God’s work (similar to the time I went to fake Haiti, but with less time laying on the beach and bartering over hat prices I’m sure) I decided to snap a few photos, so she could see them on her return.



Anna’s Faith Statement


Mackenzie’s Faith Statement

I’d just like to say that the two confirmands that read their Personal Faith Statements to the congregation were VERY impressive! If I had a transcript of their words, I would’ve published both of them.

Alisa, Boone FUMC, Holidays, Pastor Sarah, Teresa

Jesus Eggs!

3 Comments

On the Saturday before Easter I was sitting in a darkened in theater in Ankeny experiencing the “tortures of the damned” that is watching BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN, my phone buzzed. Since the movie picture had lost my interest moments into it, I felt no guilt in checking my text message. After all, I was probably already checking the score of the Oklahoma-Oregon game any ways.

The text message was from my church’s (the church I attend) Youth Minister Alisa wanting me to simultaneously run a photo booth and take pictures of our Sunday School Easter Egg Hunt.

You all know how I feel about multi-tasking.

So here are a few of the pictures almost exclusively from the Easter Egg Hunt.


But on the positive, If Easter was today, I could actually multi-task and run a photo booth and take pictures at the same time.