October 6, 2006

The city of Sebastopol recently approved a grant of $3,500 to Sebastopol UMC for a facade improvement. It is a grant usually reserved for commercial businesses. "But the city believes that our church is such an iconic building in downtown Sebastopol that improving it will have a significant impact on the look of the downtown area," said the Rev. Judith Stone. In a recent survey, the city found that city residents regard the church building -- at the top of Main Street -- as the single image in their minds that best represented the city of Sebastopol. A church was able to get a government grant because, in this case Rev. Stone said, three secular non-profits-- a pre-school, a county welfare agency, and a theater group -- were building users...

The Rev. Dale Weatherspoon of First UMC of Redwood City was part of a study trip to Alabama sites of the civil rights movement as part of his doctoral program at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC. Eighteen doctoral candidates, among 22 who made the trip, shed "lots of tears and prayed" July 31 to August 4. In Birmingham, they visited Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where four girls were killed by a bomb during Sunday School in September 1963, and went across the street to Kelly Ingram Park, where children were hosed down in a children's march. In Selma they visited the Voting Rights Museum and walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where marchers to Montgomery for voting rights were beaten back one Sunday in March 1965, only to rouse national conscience for a successful march two weeks later. In Montgomery they visited the Dexter Avenue Baptist Chruch where Martin Luther King gave stirring civil rights speeches, and the Rosa Parks Museum beside the road where the seamstress was arrested for refusing the move to the back of a bus in December 1955. They also went to the Southern Poverty Law Center to see the Civil Rights Memorial, a tribute to 40 people who sacrificed their lives for the movement from 1954 to 1968. "You can dip your hands in water and rub them over the names as a way to connect," said Rev. Weatherspoon. The experience was centering, he said, for determining "where the church is called in our day to continue the dream"...

Temple UMC in San Francisco has launched several new ministries this year. A new food pantry of canned goods is serving an average of 75 families a week, a sizable portion of them being new Asian families in the Sunset District. In addition Temple takes 150 brown bag lunches to the Tenderloin two Sundays a month. A Horace Mann Middle School counselor has joined Temple's tutorial program, helping 25 kids with homework and the arts. A mariachi band will instruct a new Youth Mariachi Band at the church, and a new youth gospel chorus this fall will be a community outreach. Long-time member Martha Milk is a new CLayM (conference lay minister) and is coordinating curricula for the growing number of small groups at Temple. The church is planning a series of faith-deepening, one-day retreats on Saturdays at nearby retreat centers, and has started a gardening camaraderie to upkeep its grounds. The Rev. Brenda Vaca is Temple's new associate pastor for Hispanic outreach. Temple is exploring being the United Methodist anchor in the area, with the guidance of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), for legal and social assistance to immigrants. Finally, Temple is hosting a national peace with justice conference in late September that will include active and retired bishops and theologians...

St. Paul's Community UMC of Point Arena will study the varieties of belief and practice in the early days of Christianity, before the church had decided what was theologically acceptable and determined which books should be included in the canon of scripture. For six week starting in October they will look at DVDs of Professor Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina lecturing on Lost Christianities...

Aldersgate UMC in San Rafael has been popular for cell phone antennas since Sprint installed some in 1997, and T-Mobil added more in 2004. Now Cingular Wireless wants to double the number of antennas there. The city of San Rafael refuses cell phone "towers," so the antennas have to appear to be part of the Aldersgate building -- what the city calls "stealth" appearance. Some are at the base of the high cross, which would be fitted at Cingular's expense for more antennas. Neighbors, having petitioned against the initial antennas in 1997, are again petitioning -- objecting to what they feel would be dangerous levels of radation and the possibility of declining property values. The church maintains that radiation is well under the national safety limit of 2%. It reports that, since 1997, there is no evidence that real estate values near the church have declined because of the antennas. The Rev. Scott Wylie says Aldersgate gets $2,350 a month income from the antennas it accommodates now -- an amount in a month that is the typical annual pledge of a member. The additional antennas, which would have been installed in March except for the protests, would bring in $1,500 more a month...

It was pouring rain when the Rev. Cheri Pierre of Willits UMC read a recent study on the number of homeless people in Mendocino County, including her city of Willits. She was moved enough to try to get her church and others in the community involved in some relief. There is now interest throughout Willits to look at the option of shelters, she reports. Willits UMC will host a city forum in the fall but will only be one of many city entities looking for solutions...In late September Willits UMC will also start a new praise worship service on Sunday evenings. It will "avoid the familiar forms and symbols of church tradition that sometimes are turnoffs for persons of little or no church experience," says the church newsletter. "The singing won't depend on the hymnal," said one enthusiastic Leadership Council member...

Sebastopol UMC this fall will teach "Godly Play," a curriculum developed and tested by Jerome Berryman, to children aged 3-12. They will learn how to use religious language, parable, sacred story, silence, and liturgical action to help them become more fully aware of the mystery of God's presence. Godly Play uses visuals to increase a sense of wonderment. "We have lots of boys, who like action and independence," said the Rev. Judith Stone...

Burlingame UMC had a most untraditional, back-to-school worship service August 27. From 9 a.m. until noon -- on a drop-in-anytime basis -- it showcased the worship teams from its various worship services in its social hall like a school registration day. Music, singing, prayer, and personal testimonials on "Spirit Day" were interspersed with worshipers wandering among information tables of the church's various ministries and small group opportunities. Worshipers were asked to sign up for at least one of them. The small groups were designated 101, 201, and 301, to depict school-analogy level of difficulty, outside homework, and level of commitment. Of course there was food. "What Methodist gathering would be complete without that?" laughs the Rev. Laurie McHugh. Two hundred seventeen people came through the social hall -- ahead of the church's usual attendance of about 175... Burlingame UMC has an interim organist to succeed Ron McIntire, the Bach classisist who had given several recitals and demonstrated in music director Lynnelle Bilsey's church music classes for the area's Spiritual Formation Center. She is Juilliard School graduate Betsy Baumgardner, who has a growing piano/voice studio on the peninsula. McEntire and his son left for Jamestown, New York, in May, where he is already playing for churches there...

Ukiah UMC began what it called "an experiment in intentional community" in June as a "Summer Passage." Members met every Wednesday evening for two hours of sharing food, fellowship, singing, prayer, and planning for the fall. The Rev. Lisa Warner-Carey in September called the experiment "so successful" that it will continue into the fall. "The depth of spiritual searching and sharing has been profound," she said. "We have had new faces and familiar faces each week." Edward Dick, who had recently served the pulpits of nearby Anderson Valley UMC and Philo UMC, commented: "Lisa's express invitation was for us to come as an experiment in intentional community based of the first century church as recorded in the Book of Acts. Living in our world today is much like how it would have been to live at that time in the Roman Empire. Our society strips us of our sense of community"...Dr. Paul McReynolds had been a professor of Greek and New Testament at Hope International University in Fullerton -- and still is, on-line, for Fullerton, as well as the University of San Francisco. But he is officially retired, having returned to the peninsula area where he grew up. He has now settled in at Community UMC of Half Moon Bay, where he has been teaching. He has two offerings this fall: a midweek class on Romans for "anyone who would like to take advantage of Paul's wealth of knowledge and experience," said the Rev. Larry Thomas (a comment probably on Dr. McReynolds, but applicable as well to St. Paul). Dr. McReynolds gave an assignment in advance: "Read through Romans in one sitting before our first meeting." And then, he also had a one-evening crash course on "Everything You Wanted to Know About Bible Translations (But Were Afraid to Ask)" -- described in the sponsoring peninsula Spiritual Formation Center's syllabus as a "fascinating presentation about how we got our current Bible, why new translations are made, and how to examine a translation."