You are invited to the Fourth Sunday in Lent Worship on March 30 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.
Wheatfield under Thunderclouds by Vincent van Gogh, 1890
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Sunday, March 30, 2025, 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 Frist UMC” and mark “UMCOR” and place it in the offering plate or mail it to the church. Thank you!
About UMCOR & the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church Founded in 1940, the United Methodist Committee on Relief is the global humanitarian relief agency of The United Methodist Church. A part of Global Ministries, UMCOR works in more than 80 countries worldwide, including the United States and its territories. The agency’s mission, grounded in the teachings of Jesus, is to alleviate human suffering with open hearts and minds to all people. Working in the areas of disaster response and recovery, sustainable development and migration, UMCOR responds to natural or civil disasters that are interruptions of such magnitude that they overwhelm a community’s ability to recover on its own. Learn more about UMCOR by visiting www.umcor.org.
Children’s Time “Van Gogh’s Guardian Angel” Pastor John
At the toughest, most turbulent time of Vincent van Gogh’s life, the 20th century Post-Impressionist painter, was supported by an unlikely soulmate, Joseph Roulin, the postman. He saved his life. Because of stranger’s act of extravagant kindness, Van Gogh went on to produce his most important paintings that benefited art history.
Choir Anthem: OTHERS
Words by C.D. Miles
Music by Elizsbeth Mc E. Shields
Message “Jesus’s Response to JD Vance’s Hierarchy of Love” Rev. John Song
Vice President JD Vance said during a Fox News interview on Jan. 29, “There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.”
Well, Jesus has something to say about that. When Jesus speaks of family, it’s not defined by blood or borders but by kinship in God.
Mark 3:31–35
The True Kindred of Jesus
Then his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
Matthew 10:37
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
Matthew 5:44-47
Love Your Enemies
“But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same?”
