You are invited to the in-person Worship Service on Sep. 17 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.
Back-to-School Sunday
Sunday, September 17, 2023, 10 am
(Pastor John & his mom in Korea)
Children’s Time “What My Mother Taught Me About Education” Pastor John
Special Music Die Nachtigall (The Nightingale) Dr. Emily Sinclair
by Alban Berg
It’s a German opera about a young woman’s journey of becoming more fully herself.
Dr. Emily Sinclair, soprano, has performed in opera and concert across the United States, including at the Caramoor Festival, Central City Opera, and Opera Colorado. In the Bay Area, Emily has performed with the San Francisco Choral Society, West Bay Opera, and most recently as the soprano soloist in Verdi’s Requiem with Cantare Chorale in Walnut Creek. Emily received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy, and holds additional degrees from Northwestern University, Manhattan School of Music and Yale University. In Santa Cruz, she conducts Fiat Musica and the Temple Beth El choir, and teaches voice and vocal repertoire at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Upcoming performances include the MAH Common Ground Festival and Santa Cruz Chamber Players.
Message “Stay Connected” Rev. John Song
Back-to-school was always a time of excitement about where the future was headed — new notebooks, fresh supplies, new classes, new friends, and new beginnings. But it feels like students are disappearing into sadness. Let’s face it. It’s becoming more difficult to inhabit a world that is on fire. They are facing the isolation effects from Covid sequestration, a planet devoured by flames and floods, unending school shootings, the assault on LGBTQ, banning books, white washing history, an assault on reproductive rights, the assault on democracy, and most importantly, the assault on truth.
Moreover, our kids are subjected to 24/7 social media with microtargeting algorithms that inflame envy and conflict and divisive politics, promoting a “never enough” achievement and consumer culture, and anxious adults creating a jittery atmosphere. They are digitally connected and yet find themselves emotionally disjointed and spiritually unmoored society. Is it any wonder our kids are reaching for Prozac and looking for shrinks instead of sharpened pencils.
In this Back-to-school message, we will try to find answers from Jesus who becomes our anchor from drifting listlessly in the ocean of chaos.
John 15: 4-11
I am the vine; you are the branches
“4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit
by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them
bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
Mark Twain said, “Your two most important days are
the day you were born and the day you find out why.”
I would add the third most important day to the list,
and that is the day you take action on your why.
~ Light Watkins
