Reclaim. Revive. Renew. The future of The United Methodist Church

Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton, president of the Council of Bishops, is inviting each United Methodist to find their role in the next expression of United Methodism.

Together, let’s:

• Reclaim our identity – who we are as United Methodists
• Revive our energy and passion for making disciples of Jesus Christ
• Renew our commitment to missional work and ministry

The United Methodist Church can make the world a place where everyone can thrive! Watch and share this message of encouragement, empowerment and hope.

Watch Bishop Bickerton's video at this link.

This video is a production of United Methodist Communications. 

Wednesday with the Wesleys

The Spirit or breath of God is immediately inspired, breathed into the new-born soul; and the same breath which comes from, returns to, God: As it is continually received by faith, so it is continually rendered back by love, by prayer, and praise, and thanksgiving; love and praise, and prayer being the breath of every soul which is truly born of God.

And by this new kind of spiritual respiration, spiritual life is not only sustained, but increased day by day, together with spiritual strength, and motion, and sensation; all the senses of the soul being now awake, and capable of discerning spiritual good and evil.

~ John Wesley (The Great Privilege of Those that are Born of God)

News from United Women in Faith

Have you heard the news? United Women in Faith has named a new General Secretary and CEO, Sally Vonner.

Join "Faith Talks" on June 1st for an inaugural interview with Ms. Vonner. They'll talk about the future of women’s faith-based organizing and more. Sally is an inspiration, a visionary and a wonderful Christian woman. Register here.

A prayer following Pentecost

"Pentecost"sculpture by Pastor Charles

From the Methodist Church in Britain:

The Day of Pentecost has ended. The tongues are quiet. The fire has faded. The prophet is silent. The crowd has dispersed. The first converts have gone. But. But the believers live on. The believers believe on. Yet sometimes we feel empty. In need of Your indwelling. Trouble us again with Your noisy presence.

Challenge our contentment. Stir us by Your Spirit.

We pray for a new Pentecost.

For welcoming worship rich with Your presence.

We pray for a new Pentecost.

For a learning, growing church.

We pray for a new Pentecost.

For compassion fired by passion.

We pray for a new Pentecost.

For more disciples of Jesus Christ.

Send Your Spirit. That She may restore, refresh, and renew. Amen.

This week @ St. Paul's UMC

Monday: Memorial Day

9:00 AM, Office Hours

Tuesday:

9:00 AM, Office Hours

Wednesday:  

9:00 AM, Office Hours

9:30 AM, Wednesday Weeders

10:00 AM, Zoom Fellowship 

Thursday:  

9:00 AM, Office Hours

11:45 AM, Ladies Lunch Bunch @ Murphy's - Louisville

Trinity Sunday:

8:45 AM, Adult class

10:15 AM, Worship 

11:15 AM, Fellowship

12:30 PM, BBKC

Scripture lessons for Trinity Sunday

Next Sunday, we will celebrate Trinity Sunday with lessons from Psalm 8 and Matthew 28:16-20.

The first Sunday after Pentecost is also called Trinity Sunday. One explanation reports that this is the Sunday where you explain the Trinity. Good luck with that. The Trinity is one of those concepts that defies explanation. Oh, we can get close; we can provide hints or glimpses of the reality of the totality of the God we worship. But can we ever say to have explained the complexity that is the interrelationship of the Godhead? Probably not. 

Read more at this link.

Memorial Day Prayer

Fort Logan National Cemetery
photo by Anthony Massey (Wikimedia Commons)

We come before God, not to glorify war,

but to honor and celebrate those

who walked into the chaos and evil that is war:

those who were civilians and those who were military;

those who braved the censure of society

and those who gave of themselves for that society;

those who survived and those who did not;

those who were friends and those who were enemies.

None who have waded through evil, death and sorrow

are untouched in body, mind or spirit;

they are beloved of God.

We all were affected and changed by military action

and all are in need of reflection, renewal, comfort and healing. 

Amen.

“From A Worship Service of Remembrance and Healing, 

Lisa Frenz © 2003. Public Domain.”

Pentecost @ St. Paul's UMC: Prayers

Joys:

+We are thankful for the safe return home of Molly Nunnery and her sons from their travels. 

+Sandra Jordan is thankful for the greening of the land and of the many flowers.

+Sally Owen gives thanks for being able to attend her granddaughter's dance performance this afternoon.

+Rebecca and Scott Glancy are thankful for the belated 50th anniversary of her parents and the family celebrating this coming week in Indiana.

+Louise Cook gives thanks for the beautiful decorations around the church by Sandra Jordan.

+Belinda Alkula gives thanks for the baking done by Pastor Charles for our Pentecost fellowship time.

+We are blessed by those who served this week: Amy Abshire (liturgist), Belinda Alkula (videographer), Pastor Charles (fellowship), Tim Cook (adult class), Etta Levitt (Zoom usher), Kathy Lloyd (Zoom host), and Hyeji Park (piano), and Jim Vander Vorste (usher).

Concerns:

+Rebecca Glancy asks for prayers as Mawce travels to Indiana this week and for the anticipated conversations with family around the issue of non-binary people.

+We join with many across our nation in mourning the deaths of the 161 killed and 426 injured due to gun violence last week. 

Pentecost @ St. Paul's UMC: Announcements

+The June Ladies Lunch Bunch will be meeting at Murphy's Tap House (585 McCaslin Blvd., Louisville) on Thursday, June 1 at 11:45 AM.

+Belinda Alkula is hosting an organizational meeting on Thursday, June 8, 3:00-4:30 p.m. via Zoom to plan for this year’s Women’s Summer Book Group. If you are not on her mailing list and would like to participate, contact Belinda. For more details, please see the May 16 blog post.

+Would you like to grow in your faith this summer? You are invited to sign up for The Wired Word, a free virtual study that is emailed to you each Thursday morning. Taking a story from the that week's headlines and using scripture lessons that are applicable, participants are invited to consider their faith in light of the news of the day. Please let Pastor Charles know if you are interested.

+Fellowship time will continue through the summer at 11:15 a.m. following worship. (We are NOT moving fellowship to 9:45 a.m. before the service as we have done in previous summers.) Plan to stay and enjoy time with your church family. Also, take your turn as host! Sign up at the back of the sanctuary.

+Breakfast Fellowship will meet on Saturday, June 10, at 8:00 a.m. at Le Peep (2525 Arapahoe Ave, Boulder, next to McGuckin hardware). No reservations necessary. All are welcome!

Pentecost @ St. Paul's UMC: Worship

Veni Sancte Spiritus (Come, Holy Spirit)

 

A festive Pentecost

Mark and Sally choose from the cupcake selections.

Fellowship time continues during the summer months.

The Day of Pentecost 

(Video recording of today's worship service)

Today’s Meditation Verse: “Jesus answered, ‘Whoever loves me will keep my word.’” —John 14:23a

Welcome... Pastor Charles

Prelude... Hyeji Park / “Be Thou My Vision,” arranged by Mary E. Byrne

*Call to Worship (from Before the Amen, p. 98)... Amy Abshire

Leader: We have heard about the storied fires of God: fires that lead lost people in the wilderness at night and burn without consuming a green-leafed bush; and come down from heaven on the wings of Elijah’s prayer, consuming the faint hearts of false prophets. On this day of Pentecost, it is the spirits of ordinary people that catch fire with joy, consuming the attitudes and customs that divide them, creating goodwill between them. The Spirit that is Holy appears in those who discover and delight in each other. May it again be so! May such flames dance in us, may we be on fire with the possibility of sharing life in love, and may we spread this fire on!

*Hymn... “Every Time I Feel the Spirit” (UMH #404)

Collect for Pentecost (from Flames of the Spirit, p. 46)... Amy Abshire

Gracious God, Living, Eternal Spirit, we thank You that You seek us in tender loving care, lest any be lost. Help us, in the same way, to reach out toward those who may feel alienated or excluded from the Christian community. Send Your Spirit upon us, that when we speak the word of Your love, people may hear and understand in their own language as on that Pentecost day so long ago; for we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Community prayer requests, concerns, and celebrations                Pastoral Prayer / The Lord’s Prayer... Pastor Charles

Gospel Lesson: John 20:19-23... Amy Abshire

Special Music... Hyeji Park / “Holy, Holy, Holy,” arranged by John B. Dykes

Second Lesson: Acts 2:1-21... Pastor Charles

Pastor: This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Sermon... Pastor Charles / “That’s a mouthful”

*Hymn... “Pass It On” (UMH #572)

*Words for the Journey... Pastor Charles

Postlude... Hyeji Park / “Majesty” by Jack W. Hayford

Bishop Oliveto's Pentecost message

I am praying for the laity and clergy of the Mountain Sky Conference as we prepare for Pentecost.

Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit entered into a room full of followers of Jesus and the world has never the same. With wind and fire, the Holy Spirit came and in the midst of the chaos brought a connection and unity that had never been experienced before. In that moment, the Church was born.

Sometimes I wonder: have we shut the Holy Spirit out of our lives and churches? Where is the fire of a passionate faith? Where is the connective tissue of the Spirit that helps us be stronger, bolder, and more impactful together than separate? Where is the wind that blows where it will, helping us dream new possibilities and sending us off to places we had never intended to go to do ministry we never considered before?

I believe it is time for us to re-experience the wonder of Pentecost, not only individually but with a community of people who are willing to leave themselves open enough so the Holy Spirit can break into our lives, disrupt our sensibilities, challenge us, empower us, and connect us in deeper ways than we ever thought possible.

I believe that like those devout Jews in Jerusalem, we too can be filled with the Holy Spirit, and even in the particularities of our own experiences we can discover a common orientation to life, for it is the Holy Spirit that can breathe into our broken hearts, our shattered dreams, our confining social structures, our confounding denomination and make them a new thing. It is the Holy Spirit that can hold us together, keep us one in spite of ourselves and the ways we distance ourselves from others.

Today is the day when we recall the movement of the Holy Spirit in the lives of our ancestors of the faith. But it's also a time to discern where the Spirit is at work in our own community. To make room, to let go of control, to allow ourselves to be knit together as one by the breath of God. It's a time for us to speak a common language, to prophesy, to see visions and dream dreams for our community and our world.

I don’t know about you, but I realize that I need Pentecost more than ever before. Because this is a day to recommit ourselves to the Church. To realize that we touch something essential here, something that brings us wholeness and peace, and as a result we will commit ourselves, our love and very lives to the Church as it manifests itself in a faith community.

The Spirit might breathe life into our dry and arid souls, but it's up to us to commit ourselves to living out that life, to nurturing our community so that the Church might not be a lamp hid under a bushel but a city on a hillside.

Are you willing to live a Spirit-led life instead of an ego-driven one? Are you willing to let the Spirit move within you and propel you to a greater involvement with your faith community? Will you let the Spirit connect you with people you never dreamed you’d be in relationship with? Will you follow the Spirit’s leading to bring more love, more compassion, more kindness and more justice into our world?

With love,

Bishop Karen

Worship with us tomorrow!

Join us Sunday for worship at 10:15 a.m. in person or online here.  Preview Sunday's bulletin here.

Redistricting Task Force Proposal Meeting

At the October 2022 annual conference, the 2023 budget passed with funding for seven districts from January 1-June 30, 2023, and six districts from July 1-December 31, 2023. Due to funding needs, a Redistricting Task Force was established in November 2022 to study the needs of the Mountain Sky Conference and develop a plan for redistricting beginning July 1, 2023. After seven months of meetings and study, nine conference-wide listening sessions, discussion regarding geography and affinity groupings, and recognition of the multiple cultures within our annual conference, the Redistricting Team is presenting a plan for six geographic districts.

The bishop and members of the Redistricting Task Force will present their proposal in a presentation to the conference on Tuesday, June 6 at 7pm. You are invited to join the meeting and ask any questions you may have about the proposal in order to be prepared to vote at the annual conference session later in June. 

To join the conversation, please use this link.

Spiritual Journey to the Southern Border

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to serve those in which society has pushed to the margins. To serve and care well, part of the work that is required of us is to center the voices and learn from those who are directly impacted and those who serve in the area. We continue to hear about the "crisis at the Southern Border" - if you would like to learn from and more about the people, from those who are serving the community, and to serve in tangible ways, we invite you to consider participating in this upcoming Spiritual Journey. We will be in partnership with The Inn of Southern Arizona, of the Desert Southwest Conference, whose mission is to "Caring for Asylum Seekers. Connecting Families." 

Additional information about travel, lodging, costs, etc. is forthcoming. If you are interested and/or have questions, please contact Rev. Bich Thy (Betty) Nguyen at bnguyen@mtnskyumc.org. 

What happened the day AFTER Aldersgate?

From John Wesley's journal --

Thursday, 25.—The moment I awakened, “Jesus, Master,” was in my heart and in my mouth; and I found all my strength lay in keeping my eye fixed upon Him and my soul waiting on Him continually. Being again at St. Paul’s in the afternoon, I could taste the good word of God in the anthem which began, “My song shall be always of the loving-kindness of the Lord: with my mouth will I ever be showing forth thy truth from one generation to another.” Yet the enemy injected a fear, “If thou dost believe, why is there not a more sensible change? I answered (yet not I), “That I know not. But, this I know, I have ‘now peace with God.’ And I sin not today, and Jesus my Master has forbidden me to take thought for the morrow.”

~ John Wesley (May 25, 1738)

UMCOR responds to Super Typhoon Mawar

Please join us in prayer for those impacted by Super Typhoon Mawar, which passed over Guam on Wed., May 24, with 145 mph winds and heavy rains, marking the strongest storm to hit the U.S. Pacific territory in decades.

UMCOR is communicating with our local partner, UMC California-Pacific Conference and their disaster response coordinator, about early response activities on the island.

To offer support for this and other disasters, donate to UMCOR's U.S. Disaster Response and Recovery Advance here.

Wednesday with the Wesleys

Today is Aldersgate Day

Resourceful Holy Spirit of God,

We thank You for Your servants, John and Charles Wesley.

That You fueled their zeal

and tempered it with divine grace;

brought them through dark times,

enlightened and renewed.

That You warmed their needy hearts,

assured and shaped them by Your active holiness.

That through their willingness,

You worked out Your purposes of hope, mercy, and justice.

Somewhat daunted, we stand today in their deep footsteps.

In a world of new challenges and old needs in a time like no other.

But undaunted, we humbly ask You to do in us,

what You did in and through them.

May we know both Your infilling and outpouring,

that whatever our situation or condition,

we will serve and honour Christ,

and in these, our days, know and believe

that the best of all is, “God is with us.”

Amen.

(By the Rev. Dr. Martyn Atkins from the Methodist Church in Britain website)

Worship with us on Pentecost

 Sunday, May 28th

It's Nominationtide

For one full week, the Supreme Executive Committee will be accepting nominations for Lent Madness 2024. The nominating period will remain open through Saturday, May 27, at which point this brief exercise in Lenten democracy will cease and the SEC will return to their regularly scheduled benevolently authoritarian ways.

Nominationtide, the most underrated of liturgical seasons, never begins at the same time other than the vague "sometime after Easter Day." This is partly because Tim and Scott have day jobs and partly because "whim" is one of their ecclesiastical charisms. But it's here! And the world rejoices!

Read more at this link.

This week @ St. Paul's UMC

Monday:

9:00 AM, Office Hours

Tuesday:

9:00 AM, Office Hours

Wednesday: Aldersgate Day

9:00 AM, Office Hours

9:30 AM, Wednesday Weeders

10:00 AM, Zoom Fellowship 

Thursday:  

9:00 AM, Office Hours

SUNDAY: PENTECOST

8:45 AM, Adult class

10:15 AM, Worship 

11:15 AM, Fellowship

12:30 PM, BBKC

Scripture lessons for the Day of Pentecost

Next Sunday we will observe that most festive of days in the Christian faith: Pentecost with lessons from 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 and Acts 2:1-21.

May 21 @ St. Paul's UMC: Prayers

Joys:

+We are happy to celebrate the graduation of Ella Berlin from Monarch High School.

+Amy Abshire celebrates her nephew Trent's graduation from Centaurus High School. 

+Rebecca Glancy celebrates that Mawce and Ben are coming to the end of their respective school terms.

+Pastor Charles is thankful for the visit from Sharon McClarnon, a friend of his mother, who was passing through our area last week.

+Suzanne Polacek is thankful for Ron being able to receive beneficial treatment.

+Steve Matthews is feeling blessed that his A1C is down four points.

+Belinda Alkula is thankful for the great virtual Spiritual Life Retreat this weekend that was offered from the Mountain Sky Conference United Women in Faith. Belinda presented sessions on Laughter Yoga to the participants.

+We give thanks for the wonderful Sew What held in the Blue Room last Friday! 

+We give thanks for those with birthdays this week: Jerry Cantril, Pat Cleaveland,    Lorie Courier, Suzanne Polacek, and Doris Steiner.

+We are blessed by those who served this week: Amy Abshire (liturgist), Belinda Alkula (videographer), Steve Bainbridge (usher), Pat Cleaveland (fellowship), Tim Cook (adult class), Sandra Jordan (flowers), Etta Levitt (Zoom usher), Kathy Lloyd (Zoom host), Claudia Mills (Fellowship), and Hyeji Park (piano).

Concerns:

+We join with many others in praying for those directly or indirectly impacted by the wildfires in Alberta and British Columbia. Prayers as well for those battling the fires.

+Dennis & Marcia Hult ask for prayers for two friends who have entered hospice care. 

+We join with many across our nation in mourning the deaths of the 153 killed and 439 injured due to gun violence last week. 

May 21 @ St. Paul's UMC: Announcements

+Belinda Alkula is hosting an organizational meeting on Thursday, June 8, 3:00-4:30 p.m. via Zoom to plan for this year’s Women’s Summer Book Group. If you are not on her mailing list and would like to participate, contact Belinda. For more details, please see the May 16 blog post.

+Would you like to grow in your faith this summer? You are invited to sign up for The Wired Word, a free virtual study that is emailed to you each Thursday morning. Taking a story from the that week's headlines and using scripture lessons that are applicable, participants are invited to consider their faith in light of the news of the day. Please let Pastor Charles know if you are interested.

+Next Sunday is Pentecost, one of the most important days on the Christian calendar. Please wear red and join us in celebrating the birthday of the church!

+Volunteers are needed throughout the summer! Sign up at the back of the sanctuary to serve as liturgist, bring flowers, or to host fellowship after worship.

+Today’s choral anthem is the chancel choir’s last anthem of the year. If you are a musician and would like to offer special music this summer — whether instrumental, vocal, or kazoo — please contact Lorie Courier, summer music    coordinator.

May 21 @ St. Paul's UMC: Worship

Flowers from Sandra Jordan

Choir offering!

Hyeji Park offers the postlude

Fellowship fun

Claudia Mills was today's fellowship hostess.

Ascension Sunday

Service begins at this link.

Today’s Meditation Verse: “Look, I’m sending to you what my Father promised, but you are to remain in the city until you have been furnished with heavenly power.”  —Luke 24:49

Welcome... Pastor Charles

Prelude... Hyeji Park / “I Love to Tell the Story,” by William G. Fischer

*Call to Worship (Psalm, 47, CEB)... Amy Abshire

Clap your hands, all you people! Shout joyfully to God with a joyous shout!    Because the LORD Most High is awesome, He is the great king of the whole world. He subdues the nations under us, subdues all people beneath our feet. He chooses our inheritance for us: the heights of Jacob, which He loves. God has gone up with a joyous shout— the LORD with the blast of the ram’s horn. Sing praises to God! Sing praises! Sing praises to our king! Sing praises because God is king of the whole world! Sing praises with a song of instruction! God is king over the nations. God sits on His holy throne The leaders of all people are gathered with the people of Abraham’s God because the earth’s guardians belong to God; God is exalted beyond all. 

*Hymn... “Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain” (UMH #315)

Prayer for Ascension Sunday... Amy Abshire

O God, You have glorified our victorious Savior with a triumphant resurrection from the dead, and ascension into heaven, where He sits at Your right hand. Grant, we ask You, that His triumphs and glories may ever shine in our eyes to make us see more clearly through His sufferings, and more courageously endure our own; being assured by His example, that if we endeavor to live and die like Him, for the cause of Your love in ourselves and others, You will raise our dead bodies again, and conforming them to His glorious body, call us above the clouds, and give us possession of Your everlasting kingdom. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

© 2000 Order of Saint Luke Publications. Used with permission.

Community prayer requests, concerns, and celebrations

Pastoral Prayer / The Lord’s Prayer... Pastor Charles

Epistle Lesson: Ephesians 1:15-23... Amy Abshire

Choral Anthem... “Old Time Religion Medley,” arranged by Mark Hayes

Second Lesson: Acts 1:1-11... Pastor Charles

This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Sermon... Pastor Charles / “There’s a lot to tell”

*Hymn... “Thine Be the Glory” (UMH #308)

*Words for the Journey... Pastor Charles

Postlude... Hyeji Park / “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,” by Oliver Holden