MARSHVILLE
UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

On Thursday, April 21, we will gather for a service of Tenebrae at 7:00 p.m.  The word tenebrae means “service of shadows.”  On Thursday, our Adult choir will present a work by Benjamin Harlan entitled Behold the Darkness.  As part of the evening we will celebrate Holy Communion together.  As we gather we will be reminded of God’s great love for us, and God’s ability to bring life into and out of darkness.  Hope you’ll join us for this special evening!

Pastor Sherri

Each year as we approach the season of Lent, I try to find a new devotional resource.  This year, I am have chosen The Awkward Season by Pamela C. Hawkins.

As I shared with the congregation during our Ash Wednesday service, Lent is a rather awkward season.  There is no Lenten aisle at Wal-mart.  The date for Easter and therefore the preceding season of Lent change every year, based upon the moon’s relationship to the beginning of Spring.  To complicate matters further, we start the season in the middle of the week and we start it by getting our faces dirty.  Yes, awkward seems an apt description for the season.

Yet this year I am truly blessed by the awkwardness of the season.  You see I found that life rarely follows the plans that we’ve made.  Surprises, exceptions and changes await us at every corner.  And one of the promises of Lent and Easter is that the God who made us, Jesus who redeems us, and the Spirit who sustains us are more than capable of being present with us in our awkward times.  When life doesn’t go like we’ve planned it.  When illness, separation, challenges, brokenness overtake us, that they actually can use those places to grow some amazing things.
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Hey Everyone,

Hope this finds you blessed and well at the start of this new year.  Like me, I am sure that you receive a lot of emails throughout the week.  My sister-in-law Carol recently sent this to me, and I thought it was definitely worth repeating.  Hope you enjoy it!

Dancing With God

When I meditated on the word Guidance,

I kept seeing “dance” at the end of the word.

I remember reading that doing God’s will is a lot like dancing.

When two people try to lead, nothing feels right.

The movement doesn’t flow with the music,

and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky.

When one person realizes that, and lets the other lead,

both bodies begin to flow with the music.

One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back

or by pressing lightly in one direction or another.

It’s as if two become one body, moving beautifully.

The dance takes surrender, willingness,

and attentiveness from one person

and gentle guidance and skill from the other.

My eyes drew back to the word Guidance.

When I saw “G”: I thought of God, followed by “u” and “i”.

“God, “u” and “i” dance.”

God, you, and I dance.

As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust

that I would get guidance about my life..

Once again, I became willing to let God lead…

My prayer for you today is that God’s blessings

and mercies are upon you on this day and every day.

May you abide in God, as God abides in you.

Dance together with God, trusting God to lead

and to guide you through each season of your life.

This prayer is powerful and there is nothing attached.

If God has done anything for you in your life,

please share this message with someone else.

There is no cost but a lot of rewards;

so let’s continue to pray for one another.

And I Hope You Dance!

Each week I receive emails from The Divinity School at Duke University that lift up places where life and faith intersect.  The following is an article found on Sojourner’s magazine blog site.  Check out sojo.net for other good reads.

Advent blessings,

Pastor Sherri

We Americans hate to wait. Whatever we want, we want it now. Pay-per-view. One-click shopping. Smart phones. Drive-through restaurants. If there’s a line, or an outage, or a delay, you can bet there will be backlash. Quite literally, waiting has become un-American. Which makes Advent such a peculiar season.

During Advent, we wait.

Christmas is, of course, a joyous celebration of the arrival of hope, of restoration, of salvation — of Jesus. But liturgical traditions identify the season leading up to Christmas, Advent, as a time for waiting. In the Christian tradition, the world without Christ is divided, self-indulgent, vengeful, violent, and slanderous. Human relationships function incorrectly. Humans abuse the natural environment. Governments oppress. Wars rage. Children go hungry. Diseases infect.

Jesus, we believe, changes everything.

But while the incarnation sets into motion the final redemption of the cosmos, the curse still rages on. While God’s people welcome the kingdom in all its manifestations, it has not yet come in all its fullness.

And so we wait.

I have enjoyed reading various tweets along these lines, many of which are tagged #waiting2010. They are prayers rising digitally to God on behalf of our world, ourselves, our environment, and our communities. They are all reflecting one resounding longing: Come, Emmanuel.

katiez

12/7 Pearl Harbor: waiting for day we make memorials not for those who gave their lives and but for those who benefited others

beth_may

I’m waiting for it to be 100% natural for shoppers to ask who made this stuff, how they were treated, what they were paid

mwhj28

Waiting for the morning to bring joy for everyone in the same way it does for my daughter.

expatminister

Waiting for wisdom & discernment this morning…and in the future.

djenn37

Waiting for the end of fear.

bordoni

Waiting for the end of “necessary evils”.

pdwise

is waiting for the day when women (and men too) are no longer abused by those who are supposed to love and cherish them…

beth_may

I’m waiting for everyone to behold God’s beauty

jbonewald

Finally, brother after while, the battle will be over; for that day when we shall lay down our burdens and study war no more.

pastormelissa

Waiting for it to not be so revolutionary to “pay it forward”

pdwise

is waiting for the day when I will have this patience thing figured out, and I can embrace waiting as a way of life…

expatminister

Waiting for Americans to spend as much out of our own pockets on global human need as we do on Christmas gifts (~$450 billion).

djenn37

Waiting to meet my sisters and brothers.

PurrdueMama

Waiting for anyone who is lost to be found.

pdwise

is waiting for the day when our church bldgs are as full of life all 7 days a week as they are a couple of hours Sun. morning!

Gondomusic

Waiting for someone in this world to have some empathy.

tknightk

Waiting for the day when distance can no longer separate us.

djenn37

Waiting until we can face death without fear or sense of failure.

I’ll add mine: Waiting for the day when we will wait no more. Lord, come quickly.
What are you waiting for?

Steve Holt seeks joy and justice in East Boston, Massachusetts. Steve enjoys gardening, being a husband, community life, and writing. He blogs about spirituality and his garden at harvestboston.wordpress.com.

Each month, on the first Sunday of the month, we collect our Two-cents a meal offering.  When it was started, the offering was an invitation for families as they gathered for daily meals to place 2 cents a person into an offering.  The offering would serve to remind those gathered at the table of those less fortunate, and would be a way to help others as the monthly collection went towards ministries seeking to do away with hunger.

Each month we have faithfully made that collection, and thousands of dollars have been sent to the United Methodist Committee on Relief to help with disaster and hunger issues around the globe.

This Sunday we will collect our offering, but instead of UMCOR, the money will be used to help ship the dehydrated food packets to Nicaragua.  The packets are ready and waiting in Mississippi to be sent for distribution to Nicaragua’s many hungry people by the Methodist Churches in Nicaragua.

Ironically, it takes only 2 cents to ship one meal.  The MississippiUnited Methodist Conference has 286,000 meals ready to ship to be used this year and all of 2011.  You can put cash in the basket as it is passed around on Sunday, or checks made to our church and marked for Nicaragua meals. Our building team this summer saw the desperate needsin that country, and this is a great way for us to respond.

Thanks to everyone for their help.  In this season of giving thanks and celebrating that God has come into our midst, let us continue to share that which we have been given!

Pastor Sherri

I recently picked up Garrison’s Keillor’s book, Life Among the Lutherans.  To be honest, I’ve not yet gotten far, but I was struck by his description of church.  Here’s an excerpt from his book.  I trust it to your reading, and would love to know what you think about.  I especially resonated with the quote from Frost that says, “Church is the place where, when you need to gothere, they have to take you in.”  Know that you are always welcome here with us!

The people who occupy the pews of Lake Wobegon Lutheran on Sunday are ordinary people, doing their best to be good and walk straight in a world that seems to reward the crook and mock the righteous.  They gather together and give alms to the poor; they sing, “Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring,” so that tears come to your eyes; and they pray to God, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.  Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation  . . . .” And then they go home and put on their work clothes and tend their flower beds and groom their lawns.  While they do their best to love each other, they also watch each other very closely.  There is gossip, on occasion.  There are cold-shoulder treatments and grudges and ferocious rivalries.  Despite one’s best efforts, envy of the achievements of someone else’s children is a tough thing to deny.

So back to church they go, seeking forgiveness and grace.  Church is the place where, like Robert Frost said, when you need to go there, they have to take you in.  You can come back every Sunday promptly, or come on Easter and Christmas if that’s what you can manage.  If you wander in and find a potluck supper going on and you forgot to bring a hotdish, it’s okay — Lutherans always have extra.  And there is always coffee.  It may not be the best coffee, but it’s good enough.

Garrison Keillor, Life Among the Lutherans, Augsburg Books, 2010, p. 3.

On Sunday, October 31st we will celebrate All Saints’/All Soul’s Day.  During the service we will remember those who have passed on to the church triumphant during the past year and celebrate how they remain in our midst with their stories.  Each and every day we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses,” who continue to encourage, challenge and bless.  Join us at 10:30 for this wonderful service!

In early June we participated in a Conference wide day of IMPACT.  We took 30 plus folks from our congregation and traveled to Mineral Springs UMC to help with a meal packing event to aid the ministry Feed My Starving Children.  The meals were a mixture of soy protein, rice, vegetables, chicken flavoring and vitamins.  What an incredible blessing it was to find the food being used by the church we were helping in Nicaragua.  From packing it here, to cooking it there, we saw full circle what God is able to accomplish when God’s people put their hearts, hands and resources together.  Here’s some recent news on how the effects of IMPACT continue.

President  recognizes Kernersville churches for Impact Community Day volunteer efforts
Sept. 29, 2010 – Five United Methodist Churches from Kernersville received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for painting 400 fire hydrants during Impact Community Day on June. 5. Allan Asbell, chairperson of
the Kernersville Community Appearance Commission, recognized Sedge Garden, Main Street, Pine Grove, Crews and Bunker Hill United Methodist Churches for their involvement on “Paint Your Heart Out Kernersville” at a banquet on Sept. 22. The churches received the award along with a congratulatory letter of thanks from President Barak Obama. “Paint Your Heart Out Kernersville” is an endeavor to paint more than 1,400 fire hydrants in Kernersville, most of which desperately need painting.

One of my favorite writers is Barbara Crafton.  Barbara publishes an almost (or at least occassional) email with wonderful insights on life and faith.  Here’s her most recent entry.

TRY AGAIN

With the end of summer, a sorry list of not-enoughs: not enough writing, not enough exercise, not enough attention to diet. And a silly, furtive feeling about all this: You can’t start back now, not after having missed so much.

Because why? Because, having fallen down, you don’t deserve to get back up? Because somebody might see that you backslid? And who might that be — do you really have a bloodthirsty army of paparrazzi out there, eagerly waiting to chronicle your missteps? I didn’t think you did. The only person who sees them is you. And God. And God has better things to do than give you demerits.

When a new season begins, it is as if the very weather were giving us another chance, as if the world itself were helping us turn a page we can’t seem to turn on our own. The hottest summer must yield to autumn. The coldest winter contains a tiny green germ of spring. The sorriest assembly of failures holds the chance to do things differently today, a day that belongs to you, as yesterday no longer does. Yesterday has already taken its place in the past.

Oh, but I’ve lost so much time! Well, okay. So the answer to that is to lose some more? Never mind what you’ve lost — what can you find in the time that remains to you? How’s this for an epitaph: She was off to a good start and then made a few errors. Concluding that this made all her past efforts was worthless, she resolved never to try again, and she never did. Some time later, she died.

No? I didn’t like it, either. Here’s a better one:

She did the best she could, and it was often more than sufficient. When it fell short, she rested awhile and tried again. Sometimes she succeeded. In any case, she got further than any of us thought she would.

The Almost-Daily eMo from the Geranium Farm Copyright © 2001-2010 Barbara Crafton – all rights reserved