Watsonville First United Methodist Church

You are invited to the in-person Pentecost Sunday Service on May 28 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.

Pentecost
Sunday, May 28, 2023, 10 am

Children’s Time                         “Let’s Learn to Garden”                               Pastor John

This Sunday, our children will learn how to garden starting with preparing the soil, planting vegetable seeds, watering and attending. They will get their hands in the soil and watch how they grow from start to finish. For children to have the firsthand experience of how nature works will be an invaluable benefit for them for the rest of their lives. So please bring your children for worship on Sunday, May 28. There will be experienced adults who will teach and guide them in gardening. Everything will be provided.

Special Music                                   Balm in Gilda’s                             Dr. Emily Sinclair, Solo
arranged by HT Burleigh

Message      “Come, Holy Spirit!”                               Rev. John Song

Pentecost Sunday falls on the 50^th day after Easter.  And this year, it falls on May 28th.  The celebration of Pentecost is one of the most ancient celebrations of the Church.

In Acts 2, recounts the story of the original Pentecost.  Jews from all over were gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish feast. On that Sunday, ten days after the Ascension of Christ, the apostles were gathered in the Upper Room, where they had seen Christ after His Resurrection:

“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as if they were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak with diverse tongues, according as the Holy Spirit gave them to speak.” (Acts 2:2-4)

Jesus had promised to his disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit after he departs from the world. And, on Pentecost, they were granted the gifts of the Spirit. 

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 
“Abba as far as I can I chant a little, I fast a little,
I pray and meditate a little, and I live in peace. 
As far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” 
Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. 
His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 
“If you will, you can become all flame.”
~ From the Desert Fathers

Spirit of the living God, fall a-fresh on us;
Spirit of the living God, fall a-fresh on us.
Melt us, mold us, fill us, use us.
Spirit of the living God, fall a-fresh on us.
~ UM Hymnal #393

You are invited to the in-person Worship Service on May 21 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.

Eastertide
Sunday, May 21, 2023, 10 am

This Sunday is Lego Sunday!
First, children will be in worship. Following the Special Music,
the teacher, Joan Culbertson, will lead our children to the Nursery Room.

Special Music       Marina Thomas, Piano Solo

Message                                      All Things RESURRECTION:                       Rev. John Song
Part 3) “Live and Be Resurrection”

This concludes the 3-part sermon series, All Things RESURRECTION with Part 3) “Live and Be Resurrection.” Who does not seek Resurrection? Who does not seek a full and fuller life? Did Jesus not promise, “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly”? (John 10:10) How am I Resurrection and Life for others? To be Resurrection for another I need to be Resurrection for myself. Resurrection carries both grace and responsibility. Resurrection is the Spirit’s work. It is the life of the Spirit. How can I live and be Resurrection?

It’s a fallacy to think that this is my life. It’s not my life. It’s God’s life.
I came into this world with nothing. I will depart from this world with nothing.
Everything I have is borrowed from God, including my body that holds my soul
for a while on earth to manifest itself in the world.”
~ John Song

You are invited to the in-person Mother’s Day Service on May 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.

Mother’s Day Sunday 
Sunday, May 14, 2023, 10 am

Children’s Time                  “How Is God Like a Mother?”                 Pastor John

Choir Anthem      Thank you, Lord, for Mother’s Dear
Words & Music by Joe E. Parks

Message “Motherhood and Womanhood” Rev. John Song

On this Mother’s Day, we will look at the journey of womanhood that often gets radically altered with the responsibility of becoming a mother. We will play with that as we examine the meaning of “Motherhood and Womanhood.”

If you think back to just 100 years ago, women’s lives were so completely different than women’s lives today. As modern women they have immense amounts of freedom compared to their grandmothers and their grandmothers: the freedom to vote, the freedom to partner with whom they choose, the freedom to work at any job they want.

Heather Ash writes, “Yet what I’ve noticed is while we are externally free, we are not internally free. We are still bound by the chains of our own judgment, comparison, fears, and lack of self-worth.”

The Mother
By Kahlil Gibran from “The Broken Wings”, a poetic novel set in Beirut

The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word “Mother,”
and the most beautiful call is the call of “My mother.”
It is a word full of hope and love,
a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart.

The mother is everything –
she is our consolation in sorrow,
our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness.
She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness….

Everything in nature bespeaks the mother.
The sun is the mother of earth and gives it its nourishment of heart;
it never leaves the universe at night until it has put the earth to sleep to the song of the sea and the hymn of birds and brooks.

And this earth is the mother of trees and flowers.
It produces them, nurses them, and weans them.
The trees and flowers become kind mothers of their great fruits and seeds.
And the mother, the prototype of all existence, is the eternal spirit, full of beauty and love.