You are invited to the in-person Earth Day/ Native American Ministries Sunday on April 23 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 or 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
Sunday, April 23, 2023, 10 am
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 Native-American ministries in annual conferences.
This Sunday is Lego Sunday!
First, children will be in worship. Following the Special Music,
the teacher, Joan Culbertson, will lead our children to the Nursery Room.
Children’s Time “Things We All Can Do to Care for the Earth” Pastor John
Special Music He Speaks to Me Lynne E. Abenoja, Solo
Words by Betty C. Hughes, Music by Robert J. Hughes
Message “What Kind of World Are We Leaving Behind?” Rev. John Song
There is a spiritual sickness in America. We as people have become more fearful, distrustful and isolated. There is an out of control proliferation of guns and we are armed to the teeth. One of our major political parties, beholden by the NRA, cares more about having unfettered access to guns and the right to carry guns in public with no background checks than the lives of our children. Their argument is that more guns in the hands of the public is the solution to our insane gun violence plaguing our society.
How is it that when you mistakenly knock on someone’s door, someone’s car, drive into someone’s driveway, or to retrieve a ball in someone’s yard, you end up getting shot? What is going on? Our society is facing the polycrisis of gun violence, climate change, the loss of religious centers, to name a few. We are unglued. The center will not hold.
On this Earth Day, we will ask the question, “What Kind of World Are We Leaving Behind” for our children and grandchildren? What will save us from ourselves? What will restore us to social sanity in a world that has lost its center? How can we move from “othering” to neighborliness, isolation to connection, loneliness to community?
Matthew 22:34-40
The Greatest Commandment
“When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
