Staying Connected

April 25, 2024

Opportunities this Week:

Sun, 9:30 am:  Adult Sunday School
In the Fireside Room and online
(childcare begins at 9:30 am)

Sun, 10:30 am: Worship Service
In-person and online
Sun, 10:45 am: Children's Sunday School 

Tue, 1:00 pm: Talk 'n' Thought 
In the Fireside Room

Wed, 6:30 pm: ImBible Study
In the Fireside Room and online

A Prayer for Anti-Racism:

God of branches and of roots, God of vines and of fruit,

Those of us who claim the United Methodist Church as our spiritual home call upon the Holy Spirit to work within us as we begin the ordeal we call General Conference. We have struggled throughout our history to live into your vision of what it means to be the church. Sometimes we seem to have come close; other times, our failings and shortsightedness have damaged our witness and our work. Sometimes the “fightings without and the fears within” have kept us from living out the “open hearts, open minds, and open doors” that we claim to represent.

So be with us in these days of General Conference. Help us listen to one another; help us deliberate together, to decide together, and then to minister together as we seek to put your kin-dom before our preferences. Help us tear down the barriers, the divisions, the mistrust, and stand as a multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual community of faith with a story to tell to the nations. Be in us and between us. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Derek C Weber, April 2024

Subscribe to receive a daily prayer by email:
umcdiscipleship.org/articles/praying-for-change-daily-prayers-for-anti-racism

Sweet Dreams
Our 2024 auction is Saturday, May 11, beginning at 5:00 pm.  We need donations!  Bring your items this Sunday and complete a donation form on the Welcome table.  You can also nab a form for a local business that would donate in exchange for some advertising.  If you can help with food, setup or cleanup, please let Virginia know.

This Sunday
Rev Carly Hodge will be with us this Sunday, Apr 28.  She works full-time as a hospice chaplain while also serving as a ¼-time pastor at Parkrose UMC.  As someone living with severe hearing loss, she advocates for the world’s largest minority - persons living with disabilities.  Carly enjoys watercolor painting, reading and writing poetry, kayaking, competing with her axe throwing league (!), gardening, and spending time with her wife Alaina, and their three dogs.  Please be conscious of your speech, especially if you are wearing a mask, since she depends quite a bit on reading lips.
 
General Conference
Pastor Anna is a delegate in North Carolina through May 3.  Please continue to be in prayer for this global gathering.  Visit our conference website, umoi.org/gc2024, to read profiles of our delegates, including Pastor Anna. Also bookmark the General Conference webpage for all the info, to watch the livestream, and more. 

The Three R's
You have probably heard of these key points facing General Conference delegates:
Regionalize.  The most far-reaching proposals facing delegates involve what many United Methodists call regionalization.  Regionalization would restructure the denomination with the goal of putting on equal footing the church in the U.S. and the seven central conferences in Africa, Europe and the Philippines.  Under the plan, each United Methodist regional conference would have the same duties and powers to pass legislation for greater missional impact in their respective regions.
Revise.  The revision process began when the 2012 General Conference approved a petition from the three central conferences in Europe to make the Social Principles “more globally relevant, theologically founded and succinct.”  Delegates will decide on on matters as diverse as poverty, climate change, immigration, substance abuse and colonialism.
Remove.  Removal of the harmful anti-LGBTQ+ language in the Book of Discipline.

iSing Concert
This weekend, Will M will be performing with the iSing choir.  The concerts, which include songs from popular movies such as The Scarlet Letter, Excalibur, The Phantom Menace, The Greatest Showman, and Moana, are at Bethel Congregational UCC in Beaverton.  Tickets are $14, available at https://www.isingchoir.org/

Northwest Senior Theatre
Enjoy The Times of Your Life, May 15 - 18.  Presented by The Northwest Senior Theatre, this "rollicking trip through the 60's and 70's" will be at Rise Church, 10445 SW Canterbury Ln in Tigard.  All shows are at 2:00 pm.  Tickets are $10, available now at bit.ly/TikSp

Easy Giving 

  • Donate online

  • Donate on your phone through the Vanco Mobile app

  • Fred Meyer Rewards program, code SY323

  • CarEasy.org to give 70% of vehicle sale to VHUMC

Contact the church office with any questions.

Talk N Thought  The ‘dynamite’ ladies of TnT meet every Tuesday, 1:00 - 3:00 pm, in the Fireside Room to read and discuss together. Contact Linda Miller at raylindamiller@comcast.net for more info.

Prayer Chain  Email your prayer requests to PrayerVHUMC@gmail.com. If you do not have access to email, you may call Linda Miller at 503.699.8628.  The ‘Prayers of the People’ is crafted weekly from this information; please indicate if your prayer is private.

Want to receive this as a weekly email? Subscribe below