May 19 @ St. Paul's UMC: Announcements

+Rhythms of Giving fundraiser @ Louisville UMC (741 Jefferson Ave, Louisville), May 19, 3:00-5:30 PM.

+Calling all musicians, friends of musicians, family  members of musicians, and lovers of music—we need your help filling out the summer special music calendar. If you or anyone you know would be interested and willing to provide special music this summer, please let Amy Abshire know. Currently, every week   except July 21 is available! Thanks in advance for your help.

+Claudia Mills will lead us in worship next Sunday, May 26.

+Women’s Summer Book Group - It’s time to start planning for the 2024 session of this wonderful group. We meet weekly to discuss a good book, discover new ideas, and share what’s going on in our lives. We’ve met via Zoom since the   pandemic, although it’s certainly open for discussion. The past few years we’ve met Thursdays from 3:00 to 4:30. We try to find a book that is interesting, humorous,    inspirational, spiritual, and available. Suggestions are welcomed and encouraged. If you haven’t participated before, please consider joining us. We’ll have a meeting to get organized, decide on a meeting time, review book selections, and select our book in early June. Watch for an announcement! Contact Judy Waller or Belinda Alkula for more information.

May 19 @ St. Paul's UMC: Worship

Flowers from Sandra Jordan

Suzanne leads the bells in the prelude

Choral anthem

Heyji offers the postlude

Myrle serves up the fellowship treats!

PENTECOST

(link to today's service)

Today's Meditation Verse: “This Jesus is the stone you builders rejected; He has become the cornerstone!” —Acts 4:11

Welcome...Pastor Charles

Prelude...Jubilate Ringers / “Come to Worship,” arranged by Dan Edwards

*Call to Worship (Psalm 23, 1 John 3:16-24)...Rebecca Glancy

L: Come, Holy Spirit, P: The wind of God, the breath of Life.

L: Come, Holy Spirit, P: Our Advocate, our Counselor.

L: Come, Holy Spirit, P: Teacher of Wisdom, Reminder of Christ.

L: Come, Holy Spirit, P: Granter of forgiveness, giver of peace.

L: Come, Holy Spirit, P: May we feel God breathing through our

worship. May we receive the Holy Spirit in this place. Amen.

—written by Joanna Harader, posted on Spacious Faith

*Hymn...“In the Midst of New Dimensions” (TFWS #2238)

Prayers of the People for Pentecost (inspired by the events of Acts 2:1-13)... Rebecca Glancy 

To be read responsively

L: God of wind and flame, blow into our lives. Ignite the fire of hope, fan the flames of possibility. P: Transform us into a people who share Your love with a   world in pain, a people who proclaim Your hope to a world given to despair, a people who live as though the world can be changed into the kingdom that is to come.

L: Baptizing God, who calls us to be a baptizing community, You speak to us in many languages over the course of our lives: the burbles and laughs and wails of infancy, the indistinct speech and partial words of toddlerhood, the strange syntax and slang of late childhood and adolescence, the full language of adulthood, the quavering speech and muted tones of old age. P: Speak to us in the language that we need to hear today, hear us in the language that we speak.

L: God of many languages, You sing the language of joy with us. You join us in the dance of life. Hear all of Your children who sing and dance and praise this morning, those who celebrate new life with all the possibilities of the future, those who celebrate relationships, both the new and exciting and the long-term yet still exciting, those for whom the wonder of life fills their being to the limit, may they hear Your voice joining in the singing and the shouting. P: And yet, God of life, You also speak the languages of pain, of sorrow, of fear, of despair. Hear all Your children who speak, who wail, who whisper in these languages this day: those who find themselves in hospital beds, or waiting    anxiously beside those beds, those who gather to say farewell to one who is traveling, or one who is moving, those who gather at graveside to say that longer farewell, those  who worry about where the next meal, or the next rent cheque, will come from, those who live in places where peace is just a word, a faint hope, a distant dream. May all those whose language is rent by pain hear you lamenting with them.

L: God of Pentecost, God who speaks with many tongues, God who makes God-self known in many ways, fill us with Your Spirit this and every morning, hear the prayers we share using many different languages, we pray in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the one we call Christ, whose life, death and resurrection show us the path to the Kingdom. P: We pray as people of the Spirit, who lights our fires, who fills our lungs with air, who blows us out into the world to live and serve. Amen.

—written by Rev. Gord Waldie, posted on Worship Offerings

Gospel Lesson: John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15...Rebecca Glancy

Choral Anthem...“Praise to the Lord, The Almighty,” arranged by Kirby Shaw

Community prayer requests, concerns, and celebrations 

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

Second Lesson: Acts 2:1-4, 14-21...Pastor Charles

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

Sermon...Pastor Charles / “Prophesies, Dreams, and Visions”

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

*Words for the Journey...Pastor Charles

Postlude...Hyeji Miranda / “My Tribute” by Andraé Crouch

A hymn for Pentecost

Veni Sancte Spiritus (Come, Holy Spirit)

Lord, we believe to us and ours

The apostolic promise given;

We wait the pentecostal powers, 

The Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.

Assembled here with one accord,

Calmly we wait the promised grace,

The purchase of our dying Lord;

Come, Holy Ghost, and fill the place.

If every one that asks may find,

If still thou dost on sinner fall,

Come as a mighty rushing wind;

Great grace be now upon us all.

Ah! leave us not to mourn below,

Or long for thy return to pine;

Now, Lord, the Comforter bestow,

And fix in us the Guest divine.

- Charles Wesley

Join us tomorrow for Pentecost!

 

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

Preview Sunday's bulletin here. 

Sunday is Pentecost AND Music Appreciation Day. Wear red!

May's Sew What gathering

The May edition of Sew What was held today at the home of Sandy Bainbridge. It was a wonderful time of needle work and fellowship for everyone. 

Sew What takes the summer off and will resume meeting on September 5, place tba.

BIPOC and the church

The General Commission on Religion and Race wants us to be aware of BIPOC. What  exactly does BIPOC stand for? It represents Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, encompassing diverse communities worldwide. Discover more about this inclusive term and its impact in our resource. Learn more at this link.

Historic assembly sets United Methodists on new path

For the first time in its 240-year history, the denomination now known as The United Methodist Church has no category of people it officially excludes from some part of its ministry.

That is how historian Ashley Boggan D. describes the impact of the recently completed General Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“This is finally our chance to be the PEOPLE called Methodist,” the top executive of the United Methodist Commission on Archives and History said by email. “And that means ALL of us have the same opportunities for mission and ministries at any and all levels of the church.”

After more than a half century of debate and defiance over the place of LGBTQ people in the denomination, General Conference delegates — by sizable majorities — voted to end decades-old bans on the ordination of “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy and the officiation of same-sex weddings.

The more than 700 delegates from four continents also adopted a whole new slate of Social Principles. The overhaul represents a culmination of an international, 12-year process to make the denomination’s teachings on contemporary social issues more globally relevant, theologically grounded and succinct. Among other things, the revised Social Principles remove a 52-year-old assertion that “the practice of homosexuality… is incompatible with Christian teaching” and broaden the description of marriage as a sacred, lifelong covenant between an “adult man and adult woman of consenting age or two adult persons of consenting age.”

Read more at this link.