You are invited to Worship on August 17 at 10 am Service.
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.
Ordinary Time
In Sacred God’s Eternal Time
Sunday, August 17, 2025, 10 am
Hot Topics for Summer
For the month of July, we will kick off 4th of July Celebration with Hot Topics for Summer, a 7-part sermon series on “America, the Land that I Love.” We will be examining four areas of American life today that are being challenged.
July 6: Part 1) “Brother, Can You Spare Me a Dime?”
Theme: Widening Income Inequality and the Biblical Ethics of Economic Justice
July 13: Part 2) “Just Who’s Country Is It?”
Theme: History of Immigrants and assault on immigrants today
July 20: Part 3) “Do Not Give Your Mind Away”
Theme: Assault on Academic Freedom, Press Freedom, and Erasing History
July 27: Part 4) “We Are Not the Only Game in Town”
Theme: Climate Justice & Creation Care
Aug. 3: Part 5) “I Hate, Therefore I Am”
Theme: Economy of Hate and Othering as self-definition
Aug. 10: Part 6) “Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World”
Theme: Phenomena of Victimizing and Scapegoating
Aug. 17: Part 7) “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World”
Theme: How do we anchor ourselves and find hope in a mad world?
Conclusion of the sermon series that ties everything together.
Children’s Time: “The Hundredth Monkey” By Pastor John
Special Music: Only Time by Enya, By Brandon & Trisha Kett
Only Time by Enya wrote it in 2000. She said that its message is “time heals pain,”
and that with time things become normal and peace returns.
Voices in the Sky
by Justin Hayward of the band Moody Blues, 1968
Message: America, the Land that I Love: by Rev. John Song
Part 6) “It’s a Mad, Mad World”
How are you doing these days? Does it feel like you are living in a “mad, mad world”? Fearful? Outraged? Exhausted? Heartbroken? All of the above? Does it feel like this nightmare will never end? With so many valid concerns stoking fear in today’s world, it’s no wonder that more and more of us are living in a state of chronic anxiety that seems irreversible.
In this conclusion of the 7-part sermon series on “America, the Land that I Love,” we will learn where we can find hope and anchor ourselves to ride through this turbulent sea of our time.
If
by Rudyard Kipling, 1895
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating
A country that cannot acknowledge its history,
“the good, the bad, and the ugly”, is by definition not “great.”
~ Jason Stanley, the author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future
“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason,
I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
~ James Baldwin
“A willingness to admit when one has done something wrong, shameful even, and to make amends, is one of the crown jewels of our ethics. Consequently, we should be supportive when any public figure makes a sincere apology. In the end, these confessions of regret represent the only path leading out of the wilderness of error.”
~ Sam Harris, 2025
John 14:27
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
“Start by doing what’s necessary;
then do what’s possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi
