Watsonville First United Methodist Church Primera Iglesia Metodista Unida de Watsonville

Watsonville, CA

Are Ye Able?

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 

But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.”   Mark 10:35-39a

I have some questions for you.  Are you ready and willing to return to worship inside and in-person (distanced and masked)?  Have you had a COVID-19 vaccine?  If no, are you planning on getting the vaccine?  These are the questions we’ve all been asking each other.

At our church, strategic ministry planning is an annual, on-going process.  The question is how to apply the principles of strategic ministry planning in this ongoing and seemingly endless season of the coronavirus amidst the changing protocols we find ourselves in.  We start where we always start – with mission.  And what is our mission?  Making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  And for extra credit in Spanish: Hacer discípulos de Jesucristo para la transformación del mundo. 

This has not changed because of the pandemic, but the world around us and perhaps how we make disciples has changed.  People are showing up to our virtual ministry settings at unprecedented levels; over 7,000 views per YouTube Stats!  We are thinking about how we grow deeper in our discipleship in this virtual setting, and how to be in meaningful, virtual or hybrid large and small discipleship groups and committees.  Our world has shifted, so to be a contextually relevant church fulfilling our mission to reach new people for Jesus, we must engage in our community in new ways.

This is our challenge and our gift.  Can I get an amen?  Amen! 

It is within this context that we have developed a relaunch plan that has been approved by our Cal-Nevada Annual Conference to open in-person worship and ministry activities, as well as our extensive outreach in the community, as the restrictions continue to ease. 

Of course, our overriding concern is the safety of everyone involved.   

Last August – September, 2020 we conducted a detailed online survey of our members and friends about your feelings and expectations on how we would worship in the future in light of the pandemic.  The results were revealing.  Although a small percentage were ready to return right away, most indicated they did not plan to attend in-person worship until a vaccine becomes widely available, stay-at-home orders have been lifted and other public gathering have resumed. 

Well folks, that time has come!    

We are preparing our sanctuary to do worship in new ways.  Our leadership has approved the installation of PTZ cameras (pan-tilt-zoom) and the necessary equipment to make ‘em work.  Our online Editor Antonio Pantaleón is involved in this effort.  We’ve also ordered another line for our Internet service, so we’ll soon have the capability to live stream worship from the sanctuary.    

We’re moving in the right direction folks, both for you and our upcoming new pastor to come, as yet at the time of this publication, unknown.  For more details on that please see my sermon dated May 16, 2021 “Hugging the Monster,” available online here or in print form from the church office. 

We ask you to continue to keep us both in your prayers!

Here’s what’s coming next:

LAWN CHAIR- IN PERSON WORSHIP SERVICE

We are officially starting our outdoor Lawn Chair Service on Sunday, June 6th at 9:00 am.  Leadership is doing a run-through practice session—come try it if you want to help—the week before on May 30. 

Here’s what you need to know about the service:

  • The Lawn Chair Service will be outdoors on the front lawn and under the “U” shaped breezeway on Stanford Street.
  • Bring your own chair and dress warmly; the fog can be cold!
  • A COVID-19 release must be signed, available here in English and in Spanish here. 
  • Masks are required to be worn at all times once on campus.
  • Keep 6 feet distance from those outside your household.
  • There will be no bulletins or handouts.
  • We will not collect tithes or offerings, so please continue to give online, drop your check off in an envelope through the office door mail slot or send in via mail. 
  • There will be no access to the buildings or restrooms.
  • The service will be 20-30 minutes.
  • We will set up a piano and sound system outside.
  • Our Music Director Mike Locke-Paddon will lead us in songs played by our pianist Marina Thomas, so feel free to sing along if you know the tunes!
  • We are excited to worship safely with you once again.

In addition, on Sunday, June 6, 2021 a limited form of in-person worship will resume at 10:30 am at 50% capacity to watch the pre-recorded streamed service according to current state guidelines. All indoor guests at this point must wear a mask and social distance between families.  A trained team of volunteers will be responsible for implementing and monitoring healthy hygiene behaviors.  A signed release for COVID will also be required.

Signage has already been developed and placed in appropriate areas as members enter campus and the worship space per county guidelines, including mask and social distancing requirements, and reminders of healthy hygiene practices.  We are following strict workplace standards including mandatory self-check for COVID symptoms and the requirement to stay home when ill.  These apply to all of us.  We also have new waterless hand cleaning stations installed by the Trustees throughout the buildings. 

In lieu of hymnals and bulletins, we encourage everyone to follow our in-doors service on their personal digital devices and/or screens within the sanctuary.  We will have an offering box to establish touchless giving.  Pre-packaged communion elements have been obtained, and will be hygienically placed on seats before service. 

Congregating before and after worship will not be permitted on church property at this time.  Children will be welcome and engaged in our service with their families.  Caregivers will be permitted to exit the service with their children as needed, however the church nursery will remain closed at this time. 

Attendees not following safety requirements will provided with a mask or asked to leave if they are not willing to comply.  We will supply free masks, if needed. 

We’re so looking forward to welcoming you all back to our indoor and outdoor in-person services!  With the health and safety of our entire church family being of paramount importance, and in accordance with government regulations, we’re on track to be together very soon.

Please know that there is no pressure for anyone to return to “in-person” worship.  If you are anxious and do not feel the time is right, or you have concerns because you feel it might put you or a family member at risk, please continue to watch our prerecorded online services from home, and return at a time when you are most comfortable.  In fact, if you are considered “high risk” should you contract COVID, we encourage you to remain at home and enjoy the service online, linked to our website here.

Are ye able to take this all in?  We sure hope so!  This is certainly a time of transition on all fronts, and we want to do it right.  As the song so aptly puts it, “Lord, we are able.  Our spirits are Thine.  Remold them, make us, like Thee, divine.  Thy guiding radiance above us shall be a beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.” (Are Ye Able)

Shalom,

Pastora Robin

When the Master Shows Up

“Keep your shirts on; keep the lights on! Be like house servants waiting for their master to come back from his honeymoon, awake and ready to open the door when he arrives and knocks. Lucky the servants whom the master finds on watch! He’ll put on an apron, sit them at the table, and serve them a meal, sharing his wedding feast with them. It doesn’t matter what time of the night he arrives; they’re awake—and so blessed!

You know that if the house owner had known what night the burglar was coming, he wouldn’t have stayed out late and left the place unlocked. So don’t you be lazy and careless. Just when you don’t expect him, the Son of Man will show up.”

Peter said, “Master, are you telling this story just for us? Or is it for everybody?”

The Master said, “Let me ask you: Who is the dependable manager, full of common sense, that the master puts in charge of his staff to feed them well and on time? He is a blessed man if when the master shows up he’s doing his job. But if he says to himself, ‘The master is certainly taking his time,’ begins beating up on the servants and maids, throws parties for his friends, and gets drunk, the master will walk in when he least expects it, give him the thrashing of his life, and put him back in the kitchen peeling potatoes.

“The servant who knows what his master wants and ignores it, or insolently does whatever he pleases, will be thoroughly thrashed. But if he does a poor job through ignorance, he’ll get off with a slap on the hand. Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!

Luke 12:35-48, The Message

If you would have told me last year when we shut down for COVID-19 in March of 2020 that our doors would be locked for over sixty-three Sundays, I would not have believed you.  If you would have told me that due to a herculean effort, a vaccine against the coronavirus would be developed within that timeframe and distributed to millions around the world, to begin to fight the spread of the virus, I would not have believed you.  And after all that, if you would have told me that we  are finally—finally!—seeing possible safe ways for our church to begin to reopen, as long as proper protocols are in place and followed religiously, I probably wouldn’t have believed that either.

But it’s true!  We are beginning to see a light at the end of this long, pandemic struggle.  Maybe, if all goes according to plan and people follow the rules (which include getting vaccinated, wearing masks, and other safety measures,) that maybe will turn into a definitive yes.  I sure hope so! 

Here’s what has to happen first.

First, we’re United Methodists which means we never park our brains at the door.  We understand the importance of following all the guidelines set forth by the CDC, our state, county and municipality.  Plus, we are a connectional church.  That means that according to our Cal-Nevada Conference guidelines, we have to also submit a detailed written plan to reopen in any form, which has to be approved in writing by my boss, the District Superintendent Samuel Hong. 

You might not have realized it, but our Trustees and Staff Pastor Parish Relations Committee (SPPRC) have both been working for some time on different aspects of this application to re-open and its implications, with the Trustees focusing on the building and the SPPRC on our staff. 

In addition to new, stringent cleaning protocols which have already been put in place, the Trustees have had our ventilation system (heaters) inspected by George Wilson Heating.  The experts came into our facility and adjusted the heaters for more air flow as required, changed the filters into more stringent ones like the schools, and re-wired things so that we can turn on the “air” whenever a group is in the building.  The outside of the building, which included problems of overgrown ivy and bushes, have been cut back and the grounds are being cleaned up as needed.  Plus, we’re ordering chairs for the hall which can be easily cleaned after each use, and other necessary upgrades. 

The SPPRC has worked hard to keep all our staff on the payroll and worked to help us establish new procedures, such as mandatory self-temperature checks when entering the building by staff, enhanced indoor cleaning including hand washing, increased ventilation by opening doors, and use of masks, whenever we have to be in the building to work.  Remote work is also occurring whenever possible.  We have procedures for preventing the spread of the virus including self-monitoring of our health and families, limiting exposure, and other groups have not yet been allowed in the building.    

As you might expect, our first priority is keeping everyone safe and alive.  Everyone means everyone.   

When we issued our all-church survey last year, a majority said that they wouldn’t return to in-person worship until there was a safe and effective vaccine available to all.  Now that the vaccine is available to those 16 and up, we’re almost there, with the caveat that people have to actually get the vaccine for it to be effective.  We see that children and youth are beginning to return to some form of in-person instruction in the schools, and it looks like our COVID numbers are decreasing rapidly in Santa Cruz County.  Things look good at this point.    

But we’re not quite there yet here at church.

We have a number of next steps.  Right now, we’re in the process of putting together a team of dedicated volunteers to help us enforce the new protocols that are mandated for us to even partially open.  For instance, if I’m preaching outside at a lawn chair service, this team will have to ensure that everyone who attends follows the rules, just like they do at our local schools, businesses and other public spaces. 

Are you available to help with our Relaunching Team?  Please let us know and we’ll add you to the list. 

With regard to worship, basically we ultimately hope to offer a variety of different options to meet different needs.  First off, our worship team plans to continue working together to present our online gatherings, which are successfully reaching many more participants both at home and far away than we had in pre-pandemic times.  Worshipping together from home has some real advantages, particularly for those with very young or very old family members, or for those who are vulnerable because of medical conditions or other reasons.  Frankly, I love watching our Online Gathering which premieres every Sunday at 10:00 am on our church YouTube and Facebook social media accounts, while I’m sitting atop a stationary bicycle in our living room.  There are more ways to worship than we’d ever imagined!

But we also are planning a hybrid version of worship where we live stream a live worship service right from our sanctuary.  We’re in the process of getting bids for installing the necessary cameras and lighting which would allow this.  Stay tuned for more information!  An interim version of worship might occur by allowing vaccinated congregants to be screened to watch the service in our sanctuary on our TVs together.   (Sorry, but no indoor singing yet allowed.)  Outside, under current protocols, we may soon be able to offer a lawn chair service, where fully-masked and distanced participants sit outside and worship together that way. 

What’s this mean for you? 

We ask for your patience and understanding in this time of transition.  This has been a hard, hard year for everyone, and it’s not over yet.  Most importantly, we ask that you continue to pray for us and our church.  Without God in the mix, none of this is going to happen.  Jesus taught us to love one another and others as ourselves, so we’re just going to have to figure out how to do it in this new normal.  As the Scripture says, great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!

Are you up for the task?     

Shalom,

Pastora Robin

Thank God it’s Resurrection Time

“When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’” Mark 16:1-3

The question on the mind of the women that first Easter morning was, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”   As one preacher puts it, it’s one thing to get up.  It’s another thing to get out. 

The problem was—they were scared.   

And they’re not the only ones.  Often, we’re scared of life!  There’re plenty of reasons to be afraid in the world, especially these days.  Are we beating COVID yet?  Will enough people get the vaccine?  Are we—and our neighbors—doing what we need to do to stay safe?  Believers like us—who play it safe—still want to leave at least some of our fears behind.  We don’t want to be ruled day in and day out by our insecurities and apprehensions.  We seek inner peace, and we yearn to experience the joy of Easter every day, even in a pandemic; especially in a pandemic.  The only question is how to accomplish it.

Back in the ‘80s, when I was a brand new lawyer representing my client at court for the first time, I was very inexperienced and everybody knew it.  Sure, I’d prepared my case, but then we resolved it, and opposing counsel asked me to prepare the settlement documents, right there and then, in my own handwriting!  I had to sneak out of the room and ask an older, kindly attorney what to do.  It was embarrassing.  It took me years to get over my stage fright in front of a judge.  Why?  I knew all too well what I didn’t know, and I felt like a fraud. 

Some of us live our lives as if we’re scared of life.  We lose our authentic, good selves.  We go where we shouldn’t go, and do what we shouldn’t do, and we’re not prepared for the consequences.  We know we need God in our lives to help us find our way, but we don’t know how to start on the right path.  Can anybody relate here?! 

Which is where our website comes in.  In this issue of the Circuit Rider newsletter we’re pleased to offer you a preview of our newly designed church website.  It’s what they call a soft (i.e. still being developed,) opening designed to coincide with Holy Week and Easter Sunday.  We’ve worked over the past several months to streamline and update our website photos, text and usability.  We were gifted with the guidance of Heather Olah of DesignOlah.  She helped us to discern how best to tell the world who we are as a congregation.  Check it out here! 

Like the women at the tomb, we know it’s one thing to get up.  It’s another thing to get out.     

Currently, our church is not officially open to the public, although we’re in the process of getting ready to do so on a limited basis.  As you might guess, our highest concern is the safety of everyone who walks in our doors.  But in the meantime, we are doing the work of the church and focusing on where God is calling us.  We not only want to get up, we want to get out!

Like the women at the tomb, we pray we not only get up, but get out!  See you there.    

In Jesus’ name,

Pastora Robin

It’s Time for Baptism, Confirmation and Membership

“Then [Jesus] told them a story: “A man had an apple tree planted in his front yard. He came to it expecting to find apples, but there weren’t any. He said to his gardener, ‘What’s going on here? For three years now I’ve come to this tree expecting apples and not one apple have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?’

“The gardener said, ‘Let’s give it another year. I’ll dig around it and fertilize, and maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn’t, then chop it down.”                                                                      Luke 13:6-9, The Message

Sometimes young people, like older folks, think there are easy answers in life.  They imagine that all we have to do is to be in the right place at the right time, and we’ll win the lottery and strike it rich, or pick our mate out of the air like magic, or successfully and effortlessly navigate a career, have 2.5 perfect children, enjoy the biggest house, drive the fanciest car, etcetera, etcetera.  You get the idea. 

I hate to burst your bubble, but that’s not how life works.  

Jesus knew that, and so do we.  Which is where our Scripture comes in.  Personally, I hope I’m never a tree that gets chopped down.  Maybe some of you can relate.  Which brings us to Lent.   

I don’t know how you feel about it, but I think it’s great that we’re in this time of Lent, the 40 days (less Sundays) before Easter.  Since ancient times, Lent has been an extended time of introspection for Christian people, and an excellent opportunity to consider what God has in store for us and our church.  Such opportunities might seem kind of scary, given the impact of the coronavirus and all, but this Lent as we prepare for Easter, I hope we consider how we might grow together and be renewed in the faith.

And how do we do that?  Through Baptism, confirmation and membership.  It’s time.    

Baptism, that sacred, meaningful sacrament of our faith symbolized by water, is the first step on the road to discipleship.  Baptism is a sign of new birth, the door through which one enters the church.  To become a Christian is to receive a new identity in Christ.  Baptism marks our becoming that new person.  It’s what Jesus did, and we do too!  Is anyone in your family not baptized yet?  We can help with that.  In the Methodist Church, folks of all ages—infants to seniors—may be baptized.  

We’re also offering our first online “Confirmation Crash Course 2021,” which will be held via Zoom on the Sunday afternoons of March.  All ages are welcome.  Learn more about our church and meet some of the people involved. 

And membership?  That’s when we say to God, “I’m all in!” 

Are you all in?

Online Gathering featuring Documentary Film “P.A.N.D.A. No, Not the Bear”

For 2nd Lent we’re hosting documentary film producers and Cinematic Arts & Technology Dept. graduates of Cal. State Univ. Monterey Bay, Nathan Morris and our own Antonio Pantaleón, who collaborated to produce “P.A.N.D.A.S. No, Not the Bear.” Nathan will talk to us about his faith and how it sustains him, and we’ll watch their film together on our YouTube and Facebook pages Feb. 28, 2021 premiering at 10:00 am, and available anytime thereafter. See you there!

Working on final media projects in the “Cave” at the library (left to right)) Eros G. Molina, third year junior, Cinema Arts & Technology Major; Nathan Morris, third year junior [at the time,] Cinema Arts & Technology Major; Jerardo Herrera, fourth year senior, Cinema Arts & Technology Major. Photo by Yollette Merritt.