Encouragement
Deepening our Spiritual Journey
November 20, 2024A Note from Marilyn Hoeflinger Dear Friends, I love our church, my church. I love and respect our pastors, our staff, those that are in leadership, and the entire community that aligns itself with the core values and principles of our faith community. Being encouraged to continue to learn about what God through Christ is asking of me in these tumultuous times, I humbly remain optimistic that I still have much to learn and offer as we navigate…
Thanksgiving
November 13, 2024A Note from Pastor Jon Dear Friends, November, in my humble opinion, is the best month of the year. It’s not just because we get the privilege of voting, or because it’s No-Shave November, or even the fact that it happens to be my birth month (though that does make it a bit more momentous). For me, November is special because it’s the one month when we intentionally pause to celebrate and give thanks for the abundance and…
A Prayer for Election Day
November 5, 2024A Note from Pastor April Dearest Ones, As we embark on this historic day in an election year like no another, know that your pastors are holding you in our hearts today. The Letters of Encouragement usually go out on Wednesdays, but this week we thought you could use a little encouragement and prayer today. I offer you this prayer written by Kaeley McEvoy, a young leader in Washington, DC, working with the Christian organization Sojourners. Her words…
Democracy & the Renewing of Our Minds
October 30, 2024A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, Successful democracies require that people learn to understand their own beliefs and actions, to reflect nondefensively on these in the presence of others having different beliefs and experiences, and to use these experiences to develop new understandings in the pursuit of the common good. ~ Jon Wergin, Deep Learning in a Disorienting World These words leapt off the page as I was engaging my grad school reading for the week. Wergin…
Wesleyan Quadrilateral
October 23, 2024A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, A few weeks ago, I shared one of our core United Methodist frameworks, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. This framework provides a helpful tool for how we understand and come to know God I like this second image because it also helps us to see how they interact, and particularly how we read and understand scripture. Scripture provides a place to start from and to stand. It is the primary way the story…
For Equilibrium
October 9, 2024A Note from Pastor Jon Dear Friends, I was reading an article about human emotion and came across this phrase “paleomammalian cortex.” I thought theological terminology was difficult enough, but as I read I learned that this is how engineering types talk about the emotional centers of our brain. The emotional center of our brain For me, finding this emotional center can mean reading scripture or looking at an image and entering into the scene. It means moving…
Finding Wonder in the Mess
October 2, 2024A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, Adorable. I love all things adorable. Adorable small towns. Adorable cobblestone streets and squares. Adorable bookstores and coffee shops in said small towns and squares, preferably with adorable gardens and patios where I can sit and savor it all. It took me a while to understand how much the aesthetic around me impacts the way my body feels and the energy I have for my work. There is an intense amount…
Playing with Fire
September 25, 2024A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, You’re playing with fire. ~Parental words of wisdom to our teenagers The symbol of the United Methodist Church for the last 56 years has been the cross and flame. Behind the familiar Christian symbol of the cross, we see a red flame, a symbol of the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, seemingly floating in the air and providing a vivid red backdrop. The church could have chosen another image of…
A More Excellent Way
September 18, 2024A Note from Pastor Jon Dear Friends, Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s hard to miss that election season is in full swing. We are just over six weeks away from the votes being counted in both federal and local elections. If there’s a season that I’m not too fond of, it’s this one. The divisive rhetoric, half-truths, and blatant fear-mongering for votes are not just disturbing — they’re often detestable. Personal attacks and sharp words…
Fall’s Invitations
September 11, 2024A Note from Lindsay Robinson Dear Friends, I was driving home the other day and noticed some of the trees that line the street had begun to change color. They were a lighter green with more hints of yellow starting to show. The leaves signifying to us that fall is upon us. This change in season coordinates with the start of the school year, and for me, it always feels like an invitation. Fall invites us to learn…
Liminal Space
September 4, 2024A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, I’ve always been fascinated by the moments in time when things begin to shift. A word spoken at just the right time, a diagnosis that no one saw coming, an unexpected opportunity, a chance encounter, and sometimes just an idea or inspiration that leads us somewhere we hadn’t foreseen. Most of the time, we see these moments only in hindsight, reflecting on the spark, energy, or awakening that jolted us from…
Solidarity in the Journey of Growth, Revisited
August 28, 2024A Note from Pastor April Greatest Hits: Revisiting some previous Letters of Encouragement, in celebration of all God has done during these last four years! Dearly Beloved, On a week when we hear the news of Russia’s bombardment of missiles and strikes across Ukraine, I am reminded of where we were at the start of the war. The letter that I share with you below was written in March of 2022, just as the war in Ukraine was…