You are invited to the in-person Human Relations Sunday Service on Jan. 14 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.
Human Relations Sunday
Sunday, January 14, 2024, 10 am
Special Human Relations Day Offering envelopes are available for you to pick up next to the bulletin in the narthex area.
Every January, on the Sunday before the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, United Methodists come together to help bridge the gap between church and community. We do this by participating in an offering on Human Relations Day. For more than half a century, United Methodists have observed this churchwide special Sunday in recognition of the message Jesus demonstrated during his life: Every one of God’s children is important.
Children’s Time “Stand Up and Be Counted” Pastor John
Special Music I Know Who Holds Tomorrow Carmelita Abenoja, Solo
Words & Music by Ira Stamp
Message Holy Disunity: What Separates Us Can Save Us Pastor John
Part 1) “Disaffiliation in the UMC”
The United Methodist Church is the America’s second-largest Protestant denomination. It is in the final stages of a slow-motion rupture over L.G.B.T.Q. policies that has so far seen the departure of a quarter of the nation’s roughly 30,000 United Methodist churches in the U.S. “It’s the biggest denominational schism ever,” said Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University. There were eight million Methodists in the United States in 2020, according to the U.S. Religion Census.
The General Conference that meets every four years was initially planned for 2020 to tackle this issue but was delayed multiple times in response to the coronavirus pandemic. In the meantime, conservatives launched a rival denomination, the Global Methodist Church, which says it will not ordain or marry gay people. As of this fall, the new denomination said that more than 3,000 congregations had joined it.
In this sermon series on “Holy Disunity”, we are going to roll up our sleeves to wrestle with the “Disaffiliation in the UMC” and shed light on what might be God’s vision for the church and its mission going forward.
Have you heard about the “Word of the Year”? It’s what algorithms determine as the most important word amongst humankind over the last 12 months. Guess what it was for 2023? “AUTHENTIC.”
“Only way to be in a world is be free and authentic.
Only way to be in a relationship is be free and authentic.
Only way to be in a community that is worth belonging to is be free and authentic.”
~ John Song
“God loves you. No exceptions.”
~ a registered trademark tagline of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio
