You are invited to the Sunday Service on May 17, 2026 at 10 am. The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

You can worship live on ZOOM by clicking the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9658816441      Meeting ID: 965 881 6441

You can also watch Sunday services at your convenience by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click YouTube or Facebook. Each Sunday worship will be uploaded on Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Seventh Sunday of Easter
Sunday, May 17, 2026, 10 am

Children’s Time                “I am happiest when…”                Pastor John

Special Music: Marina Thomas, Piano Solo
Clair de Lune
by Claude Debussy, a French composer (1862–1918)

Message          “The Miracle of Resurrection continues…”       Rev. John Song

This Sunday is the last Sunday of Eastertide. As we come to the close of the Eastertide season, still carrying the joy and meaning of the resurrection of Jesus Christ celebrated on Easter, I will be sharing a resurrection story of my own. About a month ago, I had a powerful dream that resonated deeply in my body and stirred my soul for days afterward. I have been reflecting on it and continuing to work through its meaning. Since then, there has been a noticeable and undeniable shift within me. It feels as though something I have been waiting for all my life is finally beginning to happen.

“For me to be a saint means to be myself.”
~ Thomas Merton

“It’s never too late to come home to yourself.”
~ John Song

When you change yourself from within, your actions change
and you become an integral part of healing the world
through your own “everyday radius.”
~ Hoffman Institute

Jeremiah 1:5
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…”

Philippians 1:6
“He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion…”

You are invited to the Mother’s Day Sunday Service on May 10, 2026 at 10 am. The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

You can worship live on ZOOM by clicking the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9658816441      Meeting ID: 965 881 6441

You can also watch Sunday services at your convenience by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click YouTube or Facebook. Each Sunday worship will be uploaded on Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Mother’s Day Sunday
Sunday, May 10, 2026, 10 am

Mother’s Day Celebration This Sunday May 10, 10 am

Come and celebrate Mother’s Day Service where our mothers will be sharing “Mothers Stories” by Lorrie Rubio, Michelle Stewart, Joan Culbertson, & Marieta Flores​. 

Moreover, our men will be cooking and serving good old-fashion breakfast during Coffee Hour to celebrate mothers, grandmothers, and women of our church.

Bring your neighbors and friends!

Choir Anthem
Thank You Lord, For Mothers Dear
Words and Music by Joe E. Parks
Music: Howard S. Savage

Message: “Mothers Stories”
Lorrie Rubio, Michelle Stewart, Joan Culbertson, Marieta Flores​

Deuteronomy 32:11-12
God described as a Mother Eagle 
“Like the eagle that stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young, 
God spreads wings to catch you, lifting them into the air, teaching them to fly.”

On Children
by Kahlil Gibran from The Prophet published in 1923

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, 
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Norman Rockwell “Parenting Challenges”

You are invited to the Sunday Service with Holy Communion on May 3, 2026 at 10 am. The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

You can worship live on ZOOM by clicking the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9658816441      Meeting ID: 965 881 6441

You can also watch Sunday services at your convenience by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click YouTube or Facebook. Each Sunday worship will be uploaded on Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Fifth Sunday of Easter with Holy Communion
Sunday, May 3, 2026, 10 am

Children’s Time              “The Hidden Gift of Defeat”               Pastor John

So you lost… Now what? Children will learn the hidden gift of defeat.

Message             “A Meditation on W. H. Auden’s Poem”         Rev. John Song

The More Loving One
by W. H. Auden, 1957

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

 “God so loved the world…”
~ John 3:16a

You are invited to the Sunday Service on April 26, 2026 at 10 am. The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

You can worship live on ZOOM by clicking the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9658816441      Meeting ID: 965 881 6441

You can also watch Sunday services at your convenience by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click YouTube or Facebook. Each Sunday worship will be uploaded on Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Earth Day Sunday
Festival of God’s Creation

Sunday, April 26, 2026, 10 am

Today is Native American Ministries Sunday 

Since 1989, United Methodist congregations have observed the third Sunday after Easter as Native American Ministries Sunday. The purpose is to elevate and support the contributions and voices of Native/Indigenous people in our church. A special financial offering on this day goes to support specific ministries in annual conferences.  

Children’s Time                    “Fly Me to the Moon”                      Pastor John

Special Music               Above the Hills of Time           Mike Locke-Paddon
Londonderry Air, arr. Thomas Tiplady

Wayfaring Stranger
Trad. American, arr. Michael Locke-Paddon

Message    “The Effect of Seeing the Earth from the Moon”      Rev. John Song

For all the science and technology that made the Artemis II moon mission possible, I’ve been struck since the launch by the way the mission has opened up much more expansive spiritual questions for both astronauts and those of us tracking their progress from home. What does it mean to be a human being on planet earth? What would change if we could really grasp that we’re all hurtling through space on the same planet together? Humans have always looked up to the skies to contemplate big questions, but we’re doing it less and less these days. I wanted to explore how this scientific expedition became a chance for many of us to look up and feel small.

Genesis 1:14-19

And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors,
we borrow it from our children.”
~ American Proverb

“We have reached a place as a human race
that the bridge can only be crossed all together.”
~ Unknown

Hildegard of Bingen heard God say,
I am the breeze that nurtures all things green.
I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits.
I am the rain coming from the dew
that causes the grasses to laugh
with the joy of life. 
~ Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century German woman Christian mystic

“Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing, and every humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.”
~ Chief Seattle

“Everything is a miracle.”
~ Albert Einstein