Quick Takes . . .
'Nets 'n' Nuts' at Christmas

Updated December 7, 2007

Kids at Hillsdale UMC of San Mateo have a project every Advent, and this year it's "Net 'n' Nuts." The offering on Dec. 16 will be divded between "Nets," mosquito netting for famlies in Africa to reduce malaria -- and "Nuts," actually a product called Plumpy-Nut developed by Doctors Without Borders which is a miracle food for malnourished kids. The Hillsdale kids will bring this 10:30 service offering in a pageant to the Christ child. Later in the week, at the Dec. 21 gift exchange at 7 p.m., about 40 kids will get their presents from their Sunday School teachers. They may be the only presents for some of them...

Aldersgate UMC in San Rafael has adopted a unique method of find a baby Jesus for its Christmas Eve pageant, and it became something of an evangelizing tool. One year it invited a homeless family to be the Holy Family. Last year it found a young Hispanic couple and their baby at a vendor's booth at the Strawberry Shopping Center. They were reportedly delighted to be asked and were perfect in the role. This year Aldersgate is employing a Christmas carol sing-along December 6 (6-8 p.m.) at Waldenbooks in the Northgate Mall as an opportunity for some evangelizing. The carolers will hand out flyers about Aldersgate, its history, and a biography of the pastor, the Rev. Scott Wylie. Some church members a few months ago started their morning exercise by walking in the mall before the stores open, and then going to McDonald's talking to others, and closing by saying in unison: "This is the day that Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118.24). The Waldenbooks manager took notice, and issued the caroling invitation...

First UMC of San Rafael is teaming with Project Avary for Christmas outreach. Project Avary, headquartered in Marin County, works with children from 8-18 years of age in the Bay Area who have had a parent incarcerated. The rate of incarceration for children with an incarcerated parent is extremely high. Project Avary works with children for years, "gaining their trust and guiding them to a healthy adulthood," comments the Rev. Liza Klein.

Katherine Parker of Mount Tamalpais UMC in Mill Valley will be part of the United Methodist Mission in Cambodia next year. It is part of her missionary service with the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM). Cambodia is a mssion for the United Methodist Church as it continues to recover from the genodical era of dictator Pol Pot, and is primarily a Buddhist country...

Sebastopol UMC put 100 pinwheels -- all handmade by church members, some four feet tall -- in Sebastopol's downtown plaza for International Peace Day, Sept. 21. They "captured the imaginations of people," said the Rev. Judith Stone and were pictured in the Sonoma [County] West Times. Editor Rollie Atkinson said in an editorial that the pinwheels are "just one reason to hope that one day 'peace pinwheels' may twirl in the hands of the Statue of Freedom" which stands on the U.S. Capitol dome. An elementary school in Florida started the Pinwheels for Peace idea two years ago, and the idea caught on. Instructions for making them are on a website, and Sebastopol members made theirs in coffee hour for a month. Sebastopol UMC itself has had a permanet Peace Mural for about a decade. Donated by member Martha Wade -- a professional mural artist -- it depicts a peaceful Garden of Eden...

Forestville UMC hopes to be a "hang out," safe place for youth who are waiting for the bus or who have a free school period during the day, and is seeking grants for that. The church wants to provide Internet access, game tables, snacks, and tutoring. It is asking its members to be tutors...Forestville UMC also needs a new source of funding for Prime Time Senior Dining, which has been feeding seniors twice a week at low cost and giving a loving connection that many lack. The church said the goverment-supported non-profit Council on Aging ended its grant. Attendance has dwindled over the years (to about 10) and cost-effectiveness suffered. The meals were driven in from Santa Rosa to the rural Forestville. Still, the third Thursday of the month saw a typical crowd of 30 because of added entertainment. Prime Time Chair Bobbie Miles commented, "It is hard to get transportation to a lunch site that isn't close without spending hours on the bus, and at least one transfer. This is physcially challgenging for most seniors." Forestville UMC office manager Patricia Vincent says a grassroots effort, working with the town Chamber of Commerce, has begun to keep the twice-weekly lunches going...

Barbara Ferguson Los Altos gave $500,000 recently to build a ministry for children and youth at First UMC of Santa Rosa. A Children and Youth Ministries Task Force was put in place to take the next steps in the next three to five years in administrative costs, program, and capital improvements...Sunday School children at Novato UMC were afraid the coffee hour cookies would be gone if they were dismissed late. So now folks bring cookies especially for them for the last 5 minutes of class...

Hillsdale UMC of San Mateo sent a construction team of 26 people to New Orleans Nov. 10-17 to serve the families there still reeling from Hurricane Katrina of 2005. The Rev. Steve Thompson of Hillsdale was among them, as was the Rev. Paul Sweet of nearby Crystal Springs UMC in San Mateo. Rev. Thompson asked the Hillsdale congregation to "please pray that we keep our sense of humor when the unexpected happens, that we will be flexible, that we will remember that we are in New Orleans as servants, and that means giving up our way of doing things sometimes, and that we remember that doing mission is not only in the nails we drive but also in the hugs we give"...

People had been asking the Rev. Schuyler Rhodes of Temple UMC in San Francisco why it is called Temple. Is it an odd Christian/Jewish cult? Rev. Rhodes researched and found that his church was once the "temple" of Methodism on the West Coast -- when William Taylor was an early Wesleyan evangelist in what is now Union Square. It had a building on Leavenworth Street -- 28 stories tall, with a hotel and restaurant. But it lost that site in the Great Depression. The current building went up in the early 1950s...