Dear Friends,

I have been of late thinking about a way to improve our Children’s Christian education.

How can we do that without having to hire a part-time Christian educator which we don’t have a budget for. As of now, Joan Culbertson has graciously taught Sunday School about two Sundays a month. And then I had an “ah-ha” moment.

Why not make the Children’s Time lesson each Sunday be the Sunday School lesson? I am pleased with this plan because we are focusing on one story lesson for our children for Sunday. Most importantly, this plan allows our children to be in worship for nearly one-half the time. As a result, they are learning Christian hymns, hearing Call to Worship, scriptures, and Special Music.  Simply being in worship is Christian education itself for our children.

Here is the instruction and training given to our childcare staff Tatyana Martinez and Julissa Solis. It will also apply to anyone who wants to volunteer teaching Sunday School.

On the behalf of the congregation of Watsonville First UMC, I want to thank each of you for your ministry to our children. Going forward, your role will be important in improving the Sunday School experience for our children. Your new title will be “Sunday School Assistants”.

Children’s Time becomes a Sunday School lesson for children when Joan Culbertson is not teaching Sunday School. Please be in the sanctuary before Children’s Time so that you will understand what the story and the lesson are. Be ready to take children to the Sunday School room following the Special Music. If there is no Special Music (Communion Sunday), lead kids out after the scripture reading.

On Communion Sunday, bring the children back into the sanctuary to take Communion. Have someone designated to alert your classroom when Communion is about to start so you have time to wrap up your lesson.

Follow-up Questions for Children following the Children’s Time

These are suggested questions to ask after children are led out following the Special Music. You don’t need to exhaust all the questions suggested. Feel free to pick and choose questions that are most relevant for the lesson and/or come up with your own questions.

Let’s retell the story you heard at Children’s Time.
How did it begin? What came next?
What was the main problem in the story?
How was that resolved?
Do you have a better solution?
Which picture(s) did you like the most and why?
Which person in the story is most like you and why?
If you were that character, how would you have done things differently?
Why do you think this story is in the Bible?
What does it want us to learn?
How would you tell your little brother or sister or a friend what lesson you learned from this story?
What are some examples in your life at home, school, playground, birthday parties, etc. you can apply this lesson?

Following the Q&A, do an activity on the lesson. Here are some suggested activity options:
· Drawing (with words underneath describing the picture)
· Craft
· Drama Play (Each child takes a role of a character and act out the story or convert it into a current situation that is relevant to them.)
· Play in the park

John

An Invitation to Lent

The word “Lent” is related to Latin cognates meaning long and slow (“lente,” “lento”). Like Advent, Lent is a speed bump in the year, inviting us into reflection, confession, and prayer, a time of remembering God’s costly love for us. We enter the season seeking God’s Light in the darkness of war, political tensions, environmental devastations, social turmoil around the globe, and seeking God’s Light, too, in the privacy of our own hearts. 

In this Lenten, we are invited to contemplate God’s great love for us and our aching world. My Lenten sermon series “Numinous: Mystical Fire” will begin on the First Sunday of Lent on March 9th. And it’s a love story. We are drawn to the “Numinous” energy of God that is infused in creation and found everywhere. Throughout history artists have depicted circle of light surrounding or above the head of a saint or holy person to represent their numinous presence and “halo” effect on people.

The word Numinous” comes in many names: divine energy, energy of God, uncreated light, and original light. Carl Jung said, “Numinous is the only thing that will truly heal and transform us.” I hope we will walk together on this Lenten journey that will transform us. As Jesus demonstrated in his teachings and life that without the cross, there is no resurrection.

I want to share with you the words of wisdom from the leader of the Hopi Indians, White Eagle, who recently commented on the current situation we are going through as an American nation. His message is timely, and it’s a voice we all need to hear.

“This moment humanity is experiencing now can be seen as a door or a hole. The decision to fall into the hole or walk through the door is up to you. If you consume the information 24 hours a day, with negative energy, constantly nervous, with pessimism, then you will fall into that hole.

But if you take the opportunity to look at yourself, to think about life and death, to care for yourself and others, then you will walk through the door.

Take care of your home, take care of your body. Connect with your spiritual home. When you take care of yourself, you are taking care of everyone at the same time.

Don’t underestimate the spiritual dimension of this crisis. Take the perspective of an eagle, seeing everything from above with a wider view. 

There is a social issue in this crisis, but there is also a spiritual issue. The two go hand in hand. Without the social dimension, we fall into fanaticism. Without the spiritual dimension, we fall into pessimism and meaninglessness.

You are ready to master this crisis. Grab your toolbox and use all the tools available to you.

Learn resistance from the example of the Indian and African people:
“We were and still are being wiped out. But we have never stopped singing, dancing, lighting fires and being happy.”

Don’t feel guilty for feeling happy in these difficult times. Being sad or angry doesn’t help at all. Resistance is resistance through joy! You have every right to be strong and positive. And there is no other way to do this than to adopt a beautiful, joyful and radiant attitude. This has nothing to do with alienation (ignorance of the world). It’s a strategy of resistance.

When we walk through the door, we have a new worldview, because we have faced our fears and hardships. 

That’s all you can do now:
– Calm in the storm
– Stay calm, pray daily
– Make it a habit to encounter the sacred every day.
– Show resistance through art, joy, trust and love.”
~ Hopi Indian Chief White Eagle

Grace and Peace,
John

ASH WEDNESDY
Wednesday, March 5, 10 am – 4 pm, outside the Pastor’s Office
(Please drive up to the church parking lot to receive ashes following a brief ritual reading.)

Ash Wednesday kicks off the sacred journey of 40 days of Lent. Ash in the sign of cross that we receive on our forehead during Ash Wednesday service is to not so gently remind our overly inflated ego that we are finite: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. From dust you have come, to dust you shall return.” Lent is a time of “Returning to the Lord” from our wayward living through “metanoia” (Greek word for “the re-directing,” “conversion,” or “transformation”) which is a changing of heart and mind that leads to change in our consciousness and behavior. Lent is a necessary journey that each of us has to embark if we want to experience Resurrection. Cross is prerequisite to Resurrection.

“Anyone who wants to be a follower of mine has to put aside self,
shoulder their cross, and follow me. Whoever holds onto their life will lose it.
But whoever lets go of their life for my sake and the Gospel will save it.”
~ Mark 8:34-35

The Sirens’ Call

The year 2025 is beginning to be a turbulent ride upending our lives as we knew it. The earth and humanity are facing critical times. People are going nuts. They are experiencing confusion and not knowing how to survive through constant disruptions and chaos coming out of the Trump administration. How do we make a sense of it all? How are we going to make it for the next four years?

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems along with the Iliad attributed to Homer.

The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca and a Trojan War hero. He has been absent from his home for the past 20 years: the first ten spent at war in Troy, and the second ten spent at sea trying to get home. However, Odysseus runs into countless obstacles along his journey that delay his attempt to return home to Ithaca.

One of his formidable challenges comes when Odysseus and his crew encounter Sirens in the sea who lures sailors on ships with their alluring Sirens’ song to cliffs and rocks to their death. To save his crew’s lives, Odysseus instructs his sailors to plug their ears with beeswax to prevent them from hearing the Sirens’ song and himself ordering them to steer towards the Sirens’ song. Odysseus straps his body to the mast of the ship in an effort to be able to listen to the song of the Sirens without steering the ship toward destruction.

Homer ‘s Sirens’ call in The Odyssey is an apt metaphor of what’s happening in our current landscape. There are many noises and distractions out there trying to grab our attention. Social media today is the modern-day equivalent of the “Sirens’ call” that is leading us astray. Without proper fact checking in place, these media platforms owned by billionaires are spewing out like firehose every day filled with misinformation, disinformation, and bad information monetizing our attention using AI algorithms.

Truth is precious. And it’s hard to find these days. People with good information make good decisions. People with bad information make bad decisions. Inundation of bad information in the public sphere is sewing chaos and is leading us toward our own downfall.

Jesus warned us in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

This is where the metaphor of putting beeswax in our ears to avoid hearing the Sirens’ call is a good start toward recovering our sanity and redirecting our attention to Christ who speaks the truth that leads to life. Here are few suggestions:

· Fasting from mass media or modest consumption

· Spending time in nature or gardening

· Get a goodnight sleep, eat healthy diet, and exercise

· Spend quality time with people who nourish you

· Volunteer for service in your local community

· Quiet time for prayer, meditation, devotional reading, journaling, or curl up with your favorite book (The loudest voice in your head is not always the right voice. Often it is the “quiet small voice” that we can only hear when we are quiet with ourselves.)

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

John

Dear Friends,

In this season of Advent, the 40 days before Christmas when we enter the darkest days of winter, we watch and wait expectantly, anticipating the birth of Christ. We light candles, we sing songs, and we prepare our hearts to receive the Light of the World. 

Let us worship together as we explore the themes of Advent/Christmas as we prepare to receive the birthing of God child, Emmanuel, God with us.

With pregnant joy,

John

Advent/Christmas Services 2024

Arising from a 19th century German tradition, advent calendars count the 24 days leading up to Christmas day. Advent, from the Latin “adventus” for arrival, has been in the Christian spiritual tradition dating back at least to the 4th century CE, and marks a time of celebration of the birth of Christ.

December is also a time to slow things down, make space in our busy lives, and quietly prepare our soul for the birthing of Christ to take place in our inner lives. Traditions throughout the world acknowledge this time of year as the powerful time to connect with our inner light in the midst of the darkness. 

*In-person Sunday Services are at 10 am

December   1    First Sunday of Advent: Lighting the First Advent Candle
Hanging of the Greens & Singing Medley of Carols
(All children & youth will receive Advent Calendars)

December 8     Second Sunday of Advent:  Lighting the Second Advent Candle

December 15    Third Sunday of Advent:  Lighting the Third Advent Candle

December 22    Christmas Celebration:  Lighting the Fourth Advent Candle

Dec. 24, 5:00 pm Christmas Eve Candlelight Service: Lighting the Candle of CHRIST

Three Things I Want to Lift Up

First of all, the “Monumental” Choice is facing American voters in the 2024 presidential election. As I write this Pastoral Letter, more than 55 million people have voted early in the run-up to Election Day on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. The choice is monumental. It will define us for years. The rest of the world is holding their breath and watching us because who becomes our next president will be consequential for the world.

Which direction do we take? Let us think deeply and prayerfully before we make this fateful decision, because our well-being and that of our nation and the world depend on that vote. To put it simply, I believe there are two stark choices before us: the dividing force and the uniting force, the authoritarian world order and the democratic rule-based world order. I want our beloved country to choose a course of direction that upholds the democratic ideals of the founders of our republic and policies that will lead to a better future for our posterity.

Secondly, we voted unanimously at the Leadership Council, after a 3 months process which involved our neighbors, to be part of the solution in providing shelter for the unhoused people in Watsonville. I’m so proud to witness our faith in action. Sam Altis, Director of the Association of Faith Communities (AFC) and Cristina Gomez-Hernandez, Staff of AFC, made their presentations and even came to preach at our worship service. Here was the result of our vote:

7 days/wk. overnight Safe Parking, 6 pm – 7:30 am (up to 7 cars)

1 day/wk. on Tue. for Shelter only in social hall, 5 pm – 8 am (up to 20 people)

This program will not start until AFC has 7 operational locations in Watsonville.

Before the programs begin, we plan to schedule a meeting with our neighbors to explain our participation in the program and to answer questions/concerns.

Finally, our 175^th Church Anniversary Celebration with our new Bishop Sandra Olewine is set for Saturday, October 16, 2027 at 11 am with lunch following​.

Your servant in Christ,

John