Bellamy United Methodist Church

Bellamy United Methodist Church Bellamy United Methodist Church
4870 Chestnut Fork Road
Gloucester, VA
Sunday Services at 8:30 & 10:30 AM Services are at 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

Our church is growing and we would love for you to be a part of it. If you live nearby and are looking for a spiritual home, we invite you to stop by and worship with us Sunday morning. If you are far away, we welcome you as an internet pilgrim. Weekly livestreams of worship are available on our Bellamy Youtube channel.

Four weeks ago we hung a sign that just said BELIEVE.Since then we've talked about hope as a posture you take up before ...
09/04/2026

Four weeks ago we hung a sign that just said BELIEVE.

Since then we've talked about hope as a posture you take up before the evidence is in. Forgiveness as a verdict already rendered — the loop you're allowed to stop replaying. Curiosity as a discipline that actually sees people instead of deciding about them.

And this week: doing the right thing, even when it costs something, even before you know how it ends.

These aren't four unrelated ideas. They're four muscles. And this week's is the hardest one — because it doesn't stay inside. It has to walk out the door and do something.

So before Sunday, sit with this one question: Who am I walking past?

Not out of cruelty. Not out of hate. Just out of busyness, or fatigue, or a very reasonable calculation that it wasn't your turn to stop. The priest and the Levite had reasons too. Good ones, probably.

Proverbs doesn't ask you to fix the world. Just: don't withhold good when it's in your power to give it.

Join us Sunday at Bellamy UMC as we close out BELIEVE: Locker-Room Wisdom for Real Life — four weeks of wisdom that was always meant to walk out the door with you.

📖 Proverbs 3:27–35

Whew, it’s a scorcher out there today! Almost makes you want to set up a slip and slide in the front yard…just like our ...
09/04/2026

Whew, it’s a scorcher out there today! Almost makes you want to set up a slip and slide in the front yard…just like our youth did for their annual Water Extravaganza! What a fun way to spend a summer evening. ❤️

There's a reason the series benediction says "love is not a feeling you carry, but the mercy you choose to act on." Beca...
09/04/2026

There's a reason the series benediction says "love is not a feeling you carry, but the mercy you choose to act on." Because most of us already feel the right things — we feel compassion, we feel concern, we feel like someone should do something.

The doing is where it gets harder.

1 John 3:18 is almost blunt about it: "Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." And Proverbs 3:29 flips the same coin: the instruction isn't just to avoid harming your neighbor, it's to actively withhold no good that is within your power to give.

Ted didn't back his players by feeling supportive of their cause. He backed them by saying yes when it would have been much easier to say nothing. Sanctifying grace — the kind that's been building across all four weeks — was always meant to walk out the door and do something. It was never designed to stay a private feeling.

Think of one person who could use your presence — not your prayers for them, your actual presence. Reach out today.

📖 Proverbs 3:29 | 1 John 3:16–18

No Cost-Benefit Analysis Required What makes Ted's line land is what he doesn't say. He doesn't say the protest will wor...
09/03/2026

No Cost-Benefit Analysis Required

What makes Ted's line land is what he doesn't say. He doesn't say the protest will work out. He doesn't promise nobody gets hurt or that the sponsor backs down gracefully. He doesn't know any of that.

He just refuses to let uncertainty about the outcome be the reason not to act. That's a quieter, more mature cousin of the belief this whole series opened with. Doing the right thing doesn't wait for guaranteed results any more than believing waits for guaranteed evidence. Both are decisions made before the story resolves — not after.

Proverbs names this instinct directly. "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due." Not "withhold it until you're certain." Not "withhold it unless the odds are favorable." The condition is simply: is it good? Is it in your power? Then do it.
The outcome was never yours to control anyway. The decision is.

Where have you been waiting on a guaranteed outcome before you were willing to do what you already knew was right?

📖 Proverbs 3:27–29

Proverbs 3:27 has a phrase worth underlining: "when it is in your power to act."That's not a call to fix every problem i...
09/02/2026

Proverbs 3:27 has a phrase worth underlining: "when it is in your power to act."

That's not a call to fix every problem in the world. It's a call to stop talking yourself out of the specific, doable things already within your reach.

The priest and the Levite in Jesus's Good Samaritan parable weren't cartoon villains. They were professionals with entirely reasonable-sounding excuses — obligations, schedules, a dozen good arguments for why someone else should handle it. Their reasons were plausible. That's exactly what makes the story uncomfortable. It wasn't malice that kept them walking. It was busyness dressed up as responsibility.

The Samaritan wasn't more capable than they were. He just didn't let a plausible reason override what was in his power to do.

Most of us have a list of plausible reasons ready to go. Today, notice one thing genuinely in your power — just one — and don't let a good excuse win.

What’s one thing in your power to do this week for someone else. Don't overthink it. The right thing rarely requires a committee.

📖 Proverbs 3:27 | Luke 10:30–37

In Season 2, a Richmond player wants to protest the team's kit sponsor — an airline tied to real harm in the home countr...
09/01/2026

In Season 2, a Richmond player wants to protest the team's kit sponsor — an airline tied to real harm in the home countries of some of the players. It would cost the club money. It would put Ted in a tough spot with ownership. And Ted's response is one of the simplest things he ever says: "Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing."

No cost-benefit analysis. No waiting to see how it would play out. Just a flat refusal to let the price tag be the deciding factor.

Proverbs makes almost the same move in one line: "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act." Not when it's convenient. Not when it's guaranteed to work out. When it's in your power. That's the whole condition.

This week at Bellamy UMC, we're asking the question Ted asked his players: what's the right thing — and are we willing to do it before we know how it turns out?

Is there something you already know is the right thing to do, but you've been waiting until it feels less costly?

📖 Proverbs 3:27–35

The Dartboard Moment By the time Ted throws that final dart, nobody in the room is laughing anymore — because they reali...
08/30/2026

The Dartboard Moment

By the time Ted throws that final dart, nobody in the room is laughing anymore — because they realize he'd been paying attention the entire time they weren't paying attention to him. That's the quiet power of curiosity: it does its best work when nobody's watching, long before the moment it finally shows up in public.

This week we've talked about wisdom as hidden treasure, about guarding instead of judging, about training curiosity like a habit instead of waiting for it to be a personality trait. All of that groundwork tends to happen in ordinary, unremarkable days — the ones that don't feel like they're building toward anything. But they are. Every quiet moment of asking one more question, staying one more beat before deciding, is treasure being buried for later. You may not know yet what your own dartboard moment looks like. Keep digging anyway.

Join us tomorrow at Bellamy UMC as we continue BELIEVE: Locker-Room Wisdom for Real Life — come with your questions, not just your answers. 🎯

What quiet, unremarkable habit of curiosity might you be building right now without realizing it?

📖 Proverbs 2:1-11

Habit, Not Just a Personality Some people seem naturally curious — the ones who ask a dozen questions at dinner and reme...
08/29/2026

Habit, Not Just a Personality

Some people seem naturally curious — the ones who ask a dozen questions at dinner and remember your kid's name and your dog's name and what you said about your job six months ago. It's easy to assume that's just their wiring, a personality thing you either have or don't.

Proverbs 2 disagrees. It frames the pursuit of wisdom and understanding as something you do — "if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures" — active verbs, repeated effort, a discipline rather than a disposition. That's good news for the rest of us who don't naturally lean curious.

Sanctifying grace — this week's Wesleyan theme — teaches that God isn't finished shaping us the moment we start believing. Character keeps forming, habit by habit, choice by choice, over years. Curiosity can be trained the same way a muscle gets trained: reps, not luck. You don't have to be born naturally curious. You just have to choose it again tomorrow, and the day after that.

What's one small, repeatable habit that could help you build curiosity, even if it doesn't come naturally to you?

📖 Proverbs 2:4-5

Wisdom Will Guard You Proverbs 2:11 says something we don't usually associate with curiosity: "discretion will watch ove...
08/29/2026

Wisdom Will Guard You

Proverbs 2:11 says something we don't usually associate with curiosity: "discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you." Guard — like a protector, standing post. That's not the language we use for something soft or passive. We tend to think judgment is the protective one — quick assessments, fast conclusions, keeping ourselves safe by deciding early who's trustworthy and who isn't.

But Proverbs flips that. It's understanding, the slower and more patient practice, that actually guards you. Judgment protects your ego by letting you feel right quickly. Understanding protects your actual life by helping you see what's really there, which is a far better defense long-term.

Think about how many bad decisions, broken relationships, or unnecessary fights started with a fast judgment that skipped the guarding work of real understanding. Curiosity isn't the risky, naive option. It's the one Scripture calls a guard. Being curious about someone before deciding what you think of them isn't weakness — Proverbs says it's your protection.

Where might slowing down to understand actually protect you more than a quick judgment would?

📖 Proverbs 2:9-11

Quick to Listen, Slow to Speak James 1:19 might be the most quoted verse nobody actually practices: "Let every person be...
08/28/2026

Quick to Listen, Slow to Speak

James 1:19 might be the most quoted verse nobody actually practices: "Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger." We tend to run that backwards — quick to speak, slow to listen, and somewhere in between, quick to anger too.

Proverbs 2 pairs beautifully with this because it treats understanding as something that requires actual time investment: "incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding." Notice the order — ear first, heart second, opinion nowhere in that sentence. Judgment skips straight to the opinion. It doesn't need your ear or your heart; it just needs a first impression and a few seconds. Curiosity insists on the ear and the heart showing up before the mouth gets a turn.

This isn't about being a pushover or agreeing with everything you hear — it's about actually hearing it first, fully, before you decide what you think. Most conflicts in our homes, our workplaces, even our church, would look different if we simply did the ear part before the mouth part.

In your last disagreement, did your ear or your mouth show up first?

📖 James 1:19

Address

4870 Chestnut Fork Road
Gloucester, VA
23061

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 12pm
Tuesday 9am - 12pm
Wednesday 9am - 12pm
Thursday 9am - 12pm
Friday 9am - 12pm
Sunday 9am - 12pm

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