Burlingame UMC reports that it has used to good effect a postcard produced by Igniting Ministry -- the national United Methodist media campaign. It is the postcard from God, saying, "I miss you...I'm ready to try again. If you are." The church says it sends the postcard to all new Burlingame residents. (The church is a member of the Burlingame Chamber of Commerce, which every two months lists new city businesses and residents.) Jessica Lack, a new Burlingame resident now active at the church, said: "The postcard welcomed me to my new home and community and contained an outreach message so truthfully stated to my spiritual needs [that] I sat on my porch steps and cried (to this day that postcard is front and center on my refrigerator as a reminder of thanksgiving)"...From 1995 through 1999, Burlingame UMC headed Golden Gate District efforts for Vacation Bible Schools at Round Valley UMC. It renewed that tradition this year, adding youth and adult leaders from New Vision UMC in Millbrae for a 16-person entourage in late June. New Vision youth did a dance to the accompaniment of Native American drumbeats. Cell phones didn't work in Round Valley -- high in the mountains of Mendocino County. "Four days without electronics is hard for my generation," commented Burlingame youth attendee Hailey Morgenstern...

Ane Tokanga Fuifuilupe Tapa'atoutai, a member of New Vision UMC in Millbrae, is one of a select 12 college students in the nation participating in the ten-week Ethnic Young Adult Summer Internship program of the General Board of Church and Society in Washington, D.C. She writes the congregation: "I had no idea how powerful the United Methodist Church is, and the effects they have on social issues within Congress." Tapa'atoutai had written on women's health issues as part of her application for the internship. With Senators Tom Harkin and Hillary Clinton, she is working on model legislation for fighting eating disorders...

A mission team of 17 people from Mount Tamalpais UMC in Mill Valley -- nine high school students and eight adults -- went to the hill country of Nicaragua in June to build a school side by side with local folk. They also gave, through the church, $10,800 for supplies to build an addition to a village school. "The teens (theirs and ours) traded awesome musical talents," reports Robin Truitt, Mount Tam Ad Board chair. Two Mount Tam teens, Nora and Sarah Barr, sisters, donated an electric keyboard to the Nicaraguan musicians...Rev. Gayle Pickrell of Christ Church UM in Santa Rosa has signed, with other clergy, an open letter on the evolution vs. creation debate that asserts: "To argue that God's loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris"...

Santa Rosa First UMC's chancel choir, 29 members of it, returned from a 12-day excursion in Australia on July 8. On July 4 they joined with seven other American choirs in performing at the Sydney Opera House. They sang in a Fujiian church in Australia to celebrate that Santa Rosa First has a sizable Fijiian contingent among its membership...Santa Rosa First recently invited six praise bands from other Santa Rosa churches to perform for a six-hour program at its new Stony Point campus. Michelle Howard, chair of creative arts at the church, said, "These church musicians rarely, if ever, hear each other perform because they're always busy at the same time on Sunday mornings"...Kay Adams has retired after 21 years of leading the Sonoma UMC bell choir, the New Wine Ringers. When they were in England six years ago, they were featured on BBC...

Crystal Springs UMC in San Mateo now has its much-famed Crystal Springs Players dramatizing the Sunday worship scripture lesson at least once a month...Burlingame UMC is having a summer sermon series on The Gospel According to Harry Potter by Connie Neal. Some sermon topics: "What Should a Christian Think About Magic, Wizardy, and Sorcery?" "The Love of Power Versus the Power of Love." "What Should a Christian Think About Ghosts?" "Good Versus Evil: The Oldest Conflict in Creation."

The Rev. Rebecca Irelan of Novato UMC, as it prepares for its 50th anniversary in September, contends that God comes not from the past but from the future. She gives short shrift to comments like: "We've been trying for 20 years to get children in this church and it hasn't worked." Rev. Irelan responds, "Forty percent of Marin County's youth live in Novato. A bunch of them are in your building every week. They are waiting for you to reach out to them"... Temple UMC in San Francisco is offering bilingual Bible study, in Spanish and English, at the Outer Mission Street Senior Citizens Center. With seminary student Brenda Vaca as the point person, Temple is trying to reach a community that it says is underserved by United Methodists...Temple member Gregg Cummings, appealing for more Sunday School teachers, maintains that his religious education began in earnest when he volunteered to assist the teacher in his daughter Cristina's class. Pentecost "came alive" for him as he watched children drawing flames on the disciples...

Two Golden Gate churches are frowning on talk that we are in lean times. The Rev. James McCray of Jones Memorial UMC in San Francisco implores: "Drop the sour chord of scarcity and start singing a new song! There is a big myth going around town, which is driving many people to dependency and fear -- the myth of scarcity. There is no scarcity of love. We can find it with our co-workers, with our friends and families, in our dance class, in our church." George Carter, finance chair of Willits UMC, reports that there are "a few hundred dollars in the bank and several thousand dollars of current bills." He offers two possible interpretations that people might postulate -- disaster, or "Wow! It's obvious that we're doing a lot of great things and that takes money...Our cup is full to overflowing. Forget that half-full or half-empty discussion. The mood of your Finance Team is full of gratitude and joy that we are part of an exciting and growing church"...

Darlene Fish, treasurer of Sonoma UMC's UMW, reports that, in 2004, the local church helped small foreign farmers by selling $3,062.15 worth of fair-trade coffee. The UMW purchases the coffee from Equal Exchange in Massachusetts, which returns most of the proceeds directly to farmers at a fair price. (Sonoma's UMW says it re-sells for slightly above its costs, but for less than fair-trade coffee in grocery stores.) Catherine Beatty, former UMW president in Somona, said that only 367 of the 37,000 United Methodist Churches nationwide buy Equal Exchange Coffee. She campaigns for more churches to do it so the impact can be greater. Beatty, who is also a member of Sonoma Valley Peace and Justice coalition that meets in the Sonoma church, says the UMW sells more coffee to that group's members -- who largely don't attend worship -- than it does to the church members...

Five youth of Christ-Led Abiding Youth (CLAY, the combined youth group of five Sonoma County UMCs) were in Los Angeles July 3 to 10 to work with the Sierra Service Project in helping disadvantaged families fix up their homes...The youth group at Community UMC of Half Moon Bay raised over $2,000 to fight famine in Kenya and the Sudan from a Good Friday 30-hour fast, culminating in a "Come-and-have-breakfast [John 21:12]" supper. During the fast, the youth wrote letters to students in Kenya, where Half Moon Bay recently completed a ministry for water delivery through a piping system....

The Rev. Larry Thomas says Community UMC of Half Moon Bay will become a "teaching church" to Gayle Dee, a member who is starting the ordination process and assigned to field education at her home church -- in worship, preaching, and hospital visitations...An editor of the Half Moon Bay newsletter, Communique, advises that biblical movies are an interpretation of the Bible: "Who is interpreting the book; are they right, and how would we know?" Craig Pollock asks in the wake of NBC's Revelations (about more than just the Book of Revelation). A CUMC small group came away with advice from member Paul McReynolds, a retired pastor, to read the Bible without reading commentary or footnotes first. "In this way we can experience the Word of God for ourselves before others tell us how to read it or what to think."