You are invited to the Sunday Service on March 22, 2026 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 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.
Fifth Sunday in Lent
Sunday, March 22, 2026, 10 am
UMCOR Sunday Offering: This Sunday is our special offering for UMCOR (the United Methodist Committee on Relief). UMCOR envelopes are available next to the bulletins in the narthex. Your gifts ensure UMCOR can respond swiftly to disasters around the world and as a source of hope and healing for those left most vulnerable. Please make the check to “Watsonville First UMC” and mark “UMCOR” and place it in the offering plate or mail it to the church. Thank you!
Children’s Time “The Ten Commandments” Pastor John
Special Music Duet: Trisha and Brandon Kett
My Shining (for him)
by Trisha O. Kett 2014
Skies of Gray (for her)
by Brandon Kett 2018
Today is Trisha and Brandon’s 46th wedding anniversary. Trisha wrote and recorded her song for Brandon in 2014 as a surprise anniversary present. Brandon composed his song 4 years later as a recognition of how playing music with Trisha (and others) brightens his mood.
Brandon and Trisha put out 25 CDs of their songs back in the narthex for you to take for free. There is also a basket, if you wish to make a free donation to go towards our “Coffee Hour Refreshment Program.”
Message “Desire and The Ten Commandments” Rev. John Song
René Girard (1923 – 2015), a French historical anthropologist and philosophical theorist, revolutionized our understanding of ourselves, of human origins, and of the risks and promise for our future as a species.
What is desire? According to Girard, desire is not innate but learned from desiring other people’s desire. This is the primary reason for causing enmity with others that leads to committing violence against each other. It is telling why the last five precepts of The Ten Commandments are about caution against desiring what your neighbors desire. According to Girard, Satan manipulates desire to sow chaos and violence in society. Jesus, the human face of God, reveals once and for all on the Cross the fallacy of Satan’s work in the world. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, offers us the Way of saving from ourselves, individually and collectively.
Exodus 20: 13-17
You shall not kill (murder).
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house;
you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey,
or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
