Monday, January 25, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Youth Group News for This Week
Youth group will meet this Sunday with regular schedule (5:30-7:30)! Everyone join us!
I hope to have photos and video from Snowblast ready to show you Sunday night. I’m probably going to wait and put it online AFTER I show it in youth group Sunday.
Also, we may have a first look at our winter/spring youth plans.
Remember, Sunday School is at 9:30!
I’ll see you Sunday!
Richard
403-2403
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Snowblast 2010 is this weekend!
Just a quick note to remind all Catalina youth and parents that youth Sunday School and youth group will NOT be meeting this Sunday, January 17, since many of us will be on Snowblast 2010!!
Youth group and Sunday School will return to normal schedule on January 24.
THANKS to all who helped with Project Hospitality! You guys did a great job, worked hard, were friendly hosts, and were a lot of fun to hang out with!
Richard 403-2403
Kristin 602-696-5411
Thursday, January 07, 2010
The Refuge Sunday January 10, 2010
This week, we look at the baptism of Jesus, as found in the Gospel of Luke. The Scripture is Luke 3.15-17, 21-22. Who is Jesus? Jesus is God's dearly loved child. What implication does that have for us? Come and hear about it!
We will also observe a traditional reaffirmation of baptism this Sunday.
Youth News for January 10, 2010
Sunday School is at 9:30 in E-225.
Regular youth group schedule for this Sunday:
5:30 dinner, everything over at 7:30. I think we are planning to do music this Sunday.
If you have not registered for Snowblast 2010 yet, I MIGHT be able to add you. Go to http://foxyurl.com/MJA for details.
The youth group is hosting and providing meals for Project Hospitality this Friday. All the info is at http://foxyurl.com/NGj .
On Sunday, January 17, there will be NO Sunday School and NO youth group—that’s Snowblast 2010!!
We’ll see you Sunday!
Richard 403-2403
Kristin
Project Hospitality for Youth Friday January 8
What it is:
During the winter months, more people than maximum capacity seek shelter with the Salvation Army. Various churches agree to house a few men to relieve the overcrowding. Catalina has been doing this for years. The men are screened by the Salvation Army (usually they send out their regulars that they know) and we house and feed 6 men each week.
What we need:
Set up: I need 2 or 3 people to show up at 5pm on Friday in the church kitchen to help set up E-23 (room next to kitchen) for sleeping and dinner.
Dinner: We provide dinner for the 6 men and any of us who are here at the time. I anticipate feeding approximately 12 people. Here is what we need:
3 boxes of spaghetti (we will cook it at church-it needs to be here by 5:30)
2 pots of sauce (already prepared-can be re-heated at church)
Rolls/bread
2 large bags of salad
2 bottles of salad dressing
Dessert
Clean up: We will clean up dinner tables and dishes.
Overnight: As part of Project Hospitality, we must have someone stay all night. I will be doing this and any interested youth are invited also. However, keep these things in mind:
You will stay all night.
You will need to cooperate and help.
You need to bring sleeping gear because we will sleep.
We will have some work we will be doing.
Feel free to bring games or movies.
This is not something to bring friends to.
We will be getting up EARLY. Breakfast is at 6:15am—and we must prepare it.
Breakfast:
3 doz eggs
3 lb bacon
3 cans of biscuits
2 jugs of juice
1 gallon milk
Fruit
1 tub magarine
1 large jar of jelly
If you plan to come, I need you to bring something. I know this is a rush, but I need to know right away what you can bring so I can resolve any duplicates and know what we don’t have covered. Items can be split up; you can bring 1 dozen eggs, not all 3, etc. You can bring something and leave. You can bring something and stay for part of the time. Obviously, it would be better for me to get the spaghetti sauce covered for sure (since it needs to be prepared ahead of time).
Alright. I THINK that covers it! If you can bring something PLEASE let me know ASAP. You can email me at richard@catumc.org or text or call me at 403-2403.
Thanks.
Richard
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Youth News! For January 3, 2010
A little variety is in store for this Sunday!
High School Youth Group is at Richard’s House
This Sunday January 3. We will begin with dinner at 5:30, and will be finished by 7:30. We will eat, play some games, discuss, pray, share—all the stuff we do at youth group, only in Richard’s living room. What a great way to END (how sad, I know) your holiday break! Casual, informal, fun—don’t miss it.
Here are directions:
1-Go EAST on Broadway PAST Camino Seco.
2-Turn LEFT on to Gollob. Gollob runs between 2 apartment complexes and is the first cross street after Camino Seco.
3-Turn LEFT on to E Berkshire Place (this is the first left on Gollob).
4-My house is the second house on the left (9080 E Berkshire Place).
If you get lost, call me 403-2403.
If you need a ride, I will try to arrange it, but it would probably be with a youth.
Can you bring something? I could use brownies (or other dessert you eat with your fingers), cut up veggies, cut up fruit. Let me know ASAP if you are bringing something, so I won’t get it at the store. Feel free to bring friends.
Parents, if you are driving your youth, feel free to stay to avoid driving around too much. (Or you could park it up at Safeway and have a Starbucks or at McDonalds, etc)
Middle School Youth Group is Bowling this Sunday! Meet at Lucky Strike (Speedway east of Alvernon) at 5:30. Bring money for bowling and food. Parents are invited to stay and bowl! More info? Call Kristin 602-696-5411. I wonder how many of you can beat Kristin at bowling?
Youth Sunday School begins to meet at 9:30 this Sunday in E-225 (upstairs over library).
Snowblast 2010 registrations are due THIS SUNDAY!!!! Info is at http://foxyurl.com/MJA
Project Hospitality Friday January 8 The youth group will be filling all the spots for Project Hospitality on January 8. Project Hospitality is a ministry of our church that takes 6 men from the Salvation Army shelter (they are too full when it’s cold) and houses and feeds them at our church. That means I will need a couple of you to come set up, a few to bring and serve dinner, a few (actually, anyone who wants to) to stay overnight in the library (kind of like a camp-out/overnighter), a couple to bring and serve breakfast. I will have specifics next week. But think about how you would like to help. Maybe your family or friends would volunteer to bring dinner or breakfast. Let me know!
Read a Psalm, high school students!!
Christmas Caroling Photos are at http://foxyurl.com/Nd8
We’ll See You Sunday!!
Richard 403-2403
Kristin 602-696-5411
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Epiphany Sunday
Our study from Christmas to Lent is Who Is Jesus? We celebrate the birth of Jesus, but exactly who is it that we are celebrating? On Epiphany Sunday, we consider that Jesus is Lord of all.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Catalina Youth: News and PHOTOS!!!
1-Christmas Caroling was great! Honestly, I think it was our best year ever! You guys participated very well, and we were received by our "victims" very enthusiastically!! Photos are at http://foxyurl.com/Nd8 and on my Facebook.
2-Christmas Eve services are 5pm [sanctuary], 9pm [hall], and 11pm [sanctuary].
3-No youth group OR Sunday School this Sunday! We WILL be having Sunday morning worship [9:30 and 11]!!!!
4-January 3, Sunday School moves to 9:30am.
5-January 3, high school youth group goes to Richard's house. Word will come on the middle school plan.
6-I have signed up 20 out of 30 spots for Snowblast 2010. Get your paper and deposit in SOON!! Info is at http://foxyurl.com/MJA
Richard
403-2403
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Advent Week Three: LOVE
The Body of Christ
At the first Christmas God didn’t send a book, or a message via a body-less ‘audible’ voice, no text, no website, no thunderbolt but a baby, a vulnerable body. This was the most vulnerable act where this god-child could have been exposed to emotional, physical, sexual and spiritual abuse.
‘The incarnation had nothing to do with theology. It was rather about vulnerability, about letting go, about emptiness, about surrender and none of that is in the head’ Richard Rohr
The two big events celebrated in the Christian calendar in remembrance of Jesus are united by the centrality of body. The commonalties include, nakedness, vulnerability, letting go and emptiness. At Christmas, the tenderness of new born soft flesh and at Easter, the torn, whipped stripped, beaten and wounded flesh and finally killed body.
Even though body is central to Church celebrations it remains uncomfortable with body and often is intent on rejecting and punishing the body. Society is full of people who are unhappy with body and feel the need to cover it, decorate it, change it, build it, enhance it and wound it. The Church often appears to be in constant conflict with body and continues to struggle to unite sensuality, sexuality and spirituality with sexuality and gender issues still hotly debated often causing disintegration.
However, when Jesus asked us to re-member him he didn’t ask us to read a book, obey certain laws, recall and repeat special words or perform a ritual. Instead he asked his followers to re-member his body, to embrace body, to eat body, to reconnect with body, to be embodied.
So this incarnation Christ invites us to hold his small vulnerable body and also his whipped, naked, beaten and wounded body. Christ invites us to love body, listen to body, and welcome body and to be tender with body; mine, yours and the body of Christ.
This is the body of Christ,
We are the body of Christ
We are body
Body!
The Mood of Advent: We All Need A Savior
Whereas the first week of Advent focuses on the hope of the new creation, the second week looks around at the sinful world we live in now. The mood could not be more different. This is the week we learn to lament. Seeing the evil, corruption, and injustice around us (and in us), we cry out to the King of Righteousness to come and put the world to rights. “Cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today!” is our prayer.
To promote the wholesome practice of lament among God’s people, today we run an iMonk post that Michael wrote in December, 2007.
We need a savior.
This is the time that we stop and see that the powers of evil are entrenched in the world. Evil authorities and and evil persons are having their way. A good creation is being ruined. Hearts made for love and light are imprisoned, crying out and empty.
There is war, terror, the loss of innocence and the curses of ignorance, poverty and death. The wise men of this age are propagating nonsense. Men and women made in God’s image are addicted to the worst the darkness has to offer. They think backwards and cannot find their way out of the dungeon. They have lost their will to live and love, and have settled for the cheapest and palest of imitations.
Advent’s darkness includes the failure of religion to bring any light to this fallen and dying world. Religion has become as empty as fool’s errand as can be imagined. The religious take themselves seriously, but the world hears the hollowness of it all.
In the Christian family itself, the prosperity gospel makes a mockery of the very savior it claims to proclaim. Western Christians plunge into the pagan celebration, spending thousands on themselves and their children. We spend enough on our lights to save thousands upon thousands of lives. But those lives are in the darkness of Advent’s waiting. Our “lights” are nothing more than an extension of that darkness. They have nothing to do with the true light that comes to the world.
The real center of Advent’s dark mood is that we need a savior. We who sing and go to church for musicals and eat too much and buy too much and justify the season by our strange measurements of suffering.
We light candles and wait because, after looking around and taking stock, there should be no doubt that we need a savior.
Ironically, after 2,000 years of offering our Savior to others, we- Christians- need one more than ever. When we mark ourselves has “having” Christ more than “needing” Christ, we miss the Spirit of the Advent season.
Despite the fact that the world needs a savior, those offering him and his story to the world look no more “saved” than anyone else. In fact, with an extra facade of religion or two, we seem to be in every bit as bad a shape as the world we call “lost.”
The mood of Advent is that we are all lost. Advent isn’t about the “saved” telling the “lost” to “get saved.” Advent is a light that dawns in all of our darknesses. Advent is bread for all of our hungers. Advent is the promise kept for all of us promise-breakers, betrayers and failures.
Can we find a way to celebrate Advent as those who NEED to be saved? As those who NEED a savior? Not as those who know for certain that someone else does?
Scripture says that we who had not received mercy have now received mercy. Those who were nobodies are now the people of God.
The key to Advent is not living as if we are the people of God and always have been. The key is to live as if we need a Savior, and he has come to us, found us, saved us and is there for everyone in the world.
The mood of Advent isn’t “come be religious like us.” It is “We are all waiting for our Savior to be born. Let us wait together. And when he comes, let us recognize him, together.”
When the day dawns, let us all receive him. We go to the manger and worship. We give to him our gifts. We take his light to the poor.
Until then, we are the poor, the weak, the blind, the lonely, the guilty and the desperate. We light candles because we who are in darkness are in need of a great light. We need a savior.
So we wait amidst the ruins, we protect the lights we hold in hope. We sing to one who is coming. We look and wonder. We pray for his star to take us, once again, to the miracle.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
The Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 2.1-5
Isaiah 9.2-7
Luke 1.67-79
Isaiah 32.16-17
The worship bulletin is here.
Monday, November 30, 2009
God’s Renewed Creation: Call to Hope and Action
"God's creation is in crisis. We, the Bishops of The United Methodist Church, cannot remain silent while God's people and God's planet suffer. This beautiful natural world is a loving gift from God, the Creator of all things seen and unseen. God has entrusted its care to all of us, but we have turned our backs on God and on our responsibilities..."
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Season of Advent – Holy Waiting and Watching
A new liturgical year begins this coming Sunday, November 29, 2009, with the First Sunday of Advent. The Season of Advent consists of the four Sundays before Christmas. The liturgical color for Advent is purple or sometimes blue. We will begin a new liturgical cycle of seasons, feasts and fasts, and scripture lessons. This year the gospel will focus on the Gospel according to Luke with The Gospel according to John interspersed throughout the year but primarily in the Easter season.
The liturgical cycle is not, however, simply about passing time. The liturgical cycle tells the story of God’s life in the world. But it is more than just reciting the story. We are participants in the story not simply spectators or listeners. It is a ritual re-living of the life of Christ. Liturgy is the means by which we tell, live, and experience the story. It becomes real. It becomes our story not in the sense that we own it but in the sense that the liturgical cycle tells the story of our lives.
It has been said that liturgy is humanity’s yearning for God and grace is God’s yearning for humanity. Liturgically, this story of holy yearning—God’s and ours—begins in Advent. Advent means coming or to come. Advent is really about two comings. It is waiting and watching for the coming of the Christ child—new life, new birth, new hope coming into our world and our lives. It is the fulfillment of God’s promises. It is also waiting and watching for the coming of the eschaton—the end times when the fullness of God’s kingdom will be present. These are both future events and at the same time a present reality. They are already and not yet. Both of these advents are about the coming together of humanity and divinity.
The four Sundays of Advent are too often seen as the countdown to Christmas, as the time when we get things ready for Christmas. Santa Clause has been out since well before Halloween. Shopping lists are growing and the number of shopping days is shrinking. Menus are being planned. Travel is being arranged. Families are gathering. Expectations and hopes are growing. The countdown is well underway. Trees need decorating and presents need wrapping. Somewhere in all that is the stuff of everyday life – work, school, car pool, sports, paying bills, and running errands. There is so much to do and time is running out. The temptation is to live a “hurry-up, get busy, Christmas is almost here,” Advent. That is not the liturgical understanding of Advent. That kind of Advent can only lead to a “hurry-up, get to church, open the presents, take down the tree, Christmas is over,” Christmas.
The four Sundays of Advent are not the time when we prepare for Christmas but the time in which we are being prepared for Christmas. Advent is a time when the Church stands up in the face of the busyness of life, shopping, parties, cooking, traveling, and decorating and asks us to slow down, be still, and be quiet. We are to keep awake, looking and listening for the God who is always coming to us. We are called to prepare the way of the Lord. We watch and reflect on who we are. We look for the Christ in all the unexpected places – in the stuff of everyday life, in the poor, the hungry, and the needy. We live with expectancy and anticipation of God’s presence in our lives. We wait for the angelic messenger that promises us that the womb of our humanity will bear a child named Jesus.
That is hard work any time but especially in one of the busiest times of the year which may just mean it is even more necessary. Advent reminds us that waiting and watching are holy work. So how do we do this? Silence is the key. Silence is a way of waiting, a way of watching, and a way of listening to what is going on within and around us. We come to self-knowledge through stillness and silence, through attentiveness and watchfulness.
The desert mothers and fathers knew well the practice of waiting and watching. Abba Arsenius said he heard a voice say, “Arsenius, flee; be silent, pray always.” And Abba Poeman said, “Be watchful inwardly; and be watchful outwardly.” These practices are not just for the ancient desert dwellers. Living as we do in a culture of excessive distraction, noise, busyness, comfort, and instant gratification the wisdom of the desert should not be ignored.
So I wonder what we would discover if for the Season of Advent we took five minutes, ten minutes, thirty minutes even an hour each day to just sit in silence and stillness waiting and watching. What would the Coming One show us, say to us?
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Silence
Monday, November 16, 2009
Wesleyan mDNA By Steve Manskar
“What if the church is not about attracting people into a building but living as God’s people in the public space of their own community and neighborhood?” (Alan J. Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), 170.)
This quote, and the book where I encountered it, have awakened me to a clearer perception of my work and ministry. To use a much over used phrase, I have experienced a paradigm shift. I think I now see more clearly the nature and purpose of the church as it is revealed in Scripture. And, I now see why the United Methodist Church in North America is declining.
Church is what we do between 9:00 am and 12:00 pm on Sunday. It’s where we know we can go to receive religious goods and services. In other words, we have turned the church into a religious version of Wal-Mart.
We have forgotten our Wesleyan DNA. Or, to use Alan Hirsch’s term, mDNA (missional DNA). We have turned the church into an institution. We have encumbered it with structure, bureaucracy and real estate. Consequently, we talk about the church as a static edifice. It is the place we go on Sunday morning and Wednesday night. We go there to be blessed and to grow in our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Church is what we do between 9:00 am and 12:00 pm on Sunday. It’s where we know we can go to receive religious goods and services. In other words, we have turned the church into a religious version of Wal-Mart.
In the vast majority of United Methodist congregations membership has very little meaning because there is very little expected. Church membership has been reduced to something akin to membership in Sam’s Club. You pay your nominal dues and then you are entitled to all the benefits of discounted goods and services. This is particularly true when most congregations reduce membership vows to “will you faithfully participate in [the local congregation’s] ministries by your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and your witness.” Nothing is asked about rejecting the evil powers of this world and repenting of sin, accepting the freedom and power God gives to resist evil, injustice, and oppression, or confessing Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
When we reduce membership to “prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness” we put ourselves and the local congregation on center stage. Christ and his mission for the world are relegated to the margins. The church’s ministry is focused upon attracting as many people as possible to itself. Discipleship becomes an optional program. Mission is relegated to sending money and prayers to missionaries in foreign countries. And if the people who come happen to meet Jesus along the way, well that’s a special blessing. What really matters is that people come to the church. To that end, the governing principle of most congregations is the General Rule of Pastoral Prudence: “The absolute minimum in obligations in order to keep the maximum number of people.”
The Wesleys understood that the church does not exist for itself, it exists for the world that God loves. People are drawn to it when it is like salt of the earth and light for the world.
I am convinced that one of the reasons the North American United Methodist is declining is that more and more people today are looking for meaning and purpose. They are drawn to communities that are missional. They yearn to give of themselves to something bigger than themselves. They want to meet and experience the power of Jesus Christ. They want to make a difference in the world.
The Wesleyan movement was essentially missional in character. It attracted people because of the mission to “reform the nation, particularly the Church; and to spread scriptural holiness across the land.” The Wesleys and Methodism were all about participating in Christ’s mission for the world: to prepare Earth for the coming reign of God. They were a people on a mission. And the mission was centered in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Wesleys understood that the church does not exist for itself, it exists for the world that God loves. People are drawn to it when it is like salt of the earth and light for the world.
We need to reawaken this latent Wesleyan mDNA present in the North American United Methodist Church. God’s reign will come with or without the United Methodist Church. Our task is to become the church that God can use; the kind of church that is like salt and light; the church that witnesses to Jesus Christ in the world, and follows his teachings through acts of compassion, justice, worship, and devotion under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Steven W. Manskar is the Director of Wesleyan Leadership for the General Board of Discipleship.
