The mission of St. Paul's United Methodist Church is to ...stpaulsumc-coloradosprings.org/Documents/CrossCurrents07_20.pdf · the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will

July 2020 Volume 26, Issue 7

St. Paul's Staff

Rev. Leslie Wood

Senior Pastor

Pastor Donnie Sturgill

Associate Pastor

Rachel Ford

Administrative Assistant/

Financial Secretary

Gayle Grace

Director of Music Ministries

Woody Woods

Director of Jubilee Bells

Stephanie Shorden

Organist/Accompanist

Valerie Cox

Nursery Director

Aundrea Fuller

Custodian

Dixie Barnes

Treasurer

How to Reach Us

2111 Carlton Avenue

Colorado Springs, CO 80909

(719) 634-7046

www.stpaulsumc-coloradosprings.org

E-mail: [email protected]

Like us on Facebook: St. Paul’s United Methodist Church- Colorado Springs, CO

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Mission Statement The mission of St. Paul's United Methodist Church is to enable people to see the light, receive the light, share the light of Jesus Christ.

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Pastor’s Ponderings

My childhood growing up in East Texas was marked by vast shifts in the national worldview and culture. I was born in the mid-sixties, so I was raised in the South, in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. From a young age I was exposed to this pervasive attitude of race being a definer of persons.

Things were changing, however. While my family wasn’t perfect, I was raised with a different attitude that profoundly influenced me. Because of that, I can’t stand racism and prejudice of any sort. I can’t stand it when people abuse their power and position, status and privileges to set themselves apart and over others in any way at all. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about race or anything else.

So, as I’ve watched the most recent news of the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and, now, Rayshard Brooks, two things…no three…keep rumbling around in my head and my heart. First, my heart aches and I feel troubled because I wonder how much headway was really made 60 years ago during the Civil Rights Movement. Yes. Some laws improved. But did hearts really change? Did opinions? Or was the racist xenophobia simply simmering underneath the surface all along, ready to erupt given the right environment?

Next, my heart aches, yet I feel hopeful that now, maybe, the voices of the ones struggling under racial injustice and discrimination are starting to be heard. Now, it seems, for the first time people of all colors, in greater and greater numbers, are standing up and marching and speaking out, crying “This must stop! How long, O Lord?!?”

“A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” (Jeremiah 31:15 NIV).

Finally, as my heart aches and I feel at once troubled and slightly hopeful, all these issues that swirl around in my head and emotions crash up against the Word we have from God, over and over again in Scripture…the powerful reminder of the incredible value and worth that defines every human being because every human being is created in the image of God.

The psalmist wrote, for instance, of a God who is so passionate about us, so in love with us, that there is absolutely no place we can go where God isn’t already there, before us, beside us, behind us.

“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You” (Ps. 139:7-12).

The psalmist wrote of a God who knew us and loved us and yearned for us long before one cell divided. Before you became you, or I became me.

“For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be” (Ps. 139:13-16).

The psalmist wrote of being so overwhelmed by the extent of God’s love that it is difficult to fathom, and all he can do is rest in the knowledge of God’s precious presence.

“How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with You” (Ps. 139:17-18).

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Page 3 July Cross Currents

A Message from Pastor Donnie

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Page 4

Grace Notes

by Gayle Grace

The United Methodist Hymnal is a wealth of information. I thought that I would spend some time telling you a bit about our hymnal this month. When we meet again, we might not be able to sing in corporate worship, so investigating our hymnal will “kind of” meet our needs of keeping in touch with singing, even though we will not get to sing in church yet. In the PREFACE of our hymnal, the first paragraph states:

“From the time of John and Charles Wesley, Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren hymnals have constituted the ‘worship book’ of our corporate and private piety and praise. Hymn singing has been a vital and distinctive component of our worship of God. From our beginning we have been ‘a singing people’.”

I LOVE this paragraph. “We have been ‘a singing people’.” This is so great. Yes, we have. We indeed do love to sing. If you turn the page in the hymnal, you will see the following list from John Wesley’s Select Hymns (1761).

* Learn these tunes before you learn any others; afterwards learn as many as you please. * Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can. * Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing. * Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan. * Sing modestly. Do not bawl, so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound. * Sing in time. Whatever time is sung be sure to keep with it. Do not run before nor stay behind it; but attend close to the leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can; and take care not to sing too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first. * Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing; and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when He cometh in the clouds of heaven.

This list of direction for singing is priceless and I am glad that in the revision of the United Methodist Hymnal in 1988, they chose to leave these directions from John Wesley about singing. Another priceless gem is a verse written by Charles Wesley in 1749:

“This is the bond of perfectness the anointing from above,

and all the law of life and peace we find fulfilled in love.”

Even though we will not be able to sing in church for a while, we can take heart that we WILL get to sing one day, hopefully sooner than later. Be safe and wear your masks!

Gayle

In all of life, from beginning to end, the psalmist realizes, “I am as present with God as God is with me.” The witness of Psalm 139 – in fact, the macro-witness of all Scripture – is that God is a part of us. So, when we are blind to seeing God in “the Other”, dignity breaks down and that breaks down the humanity within us. It disavows the fingerprint of God on all people and puts a limit on the free gift of grace for all people. When our humanity breaks down, that gives rise to all those distinctions that ultimately create barriers between us and lead to destructive attitudes and actions.

When, however, we acknowledge the creative wonder of God in all people, then we don’t look at another and see divisive distinctions anymore. We look at another and see…a child of God. To see others through God’s eyes is to find there’s no place for racism in God’s Kingdom, where all that divides one from another is stripped away, and all are one in Christ.

That is what troubles me today. Our newsfeed every day shows me that we still have a long way to go. Martin Luther King Jr. once explained that he didn’t stand up to be a leader for Civil Rights just because of the discrimination and severe ill-treatment against African Americans. He said “I'm not going to give in to white supremacy, because this is contrary to the Spirit. White people are not supreme. And every time they think they are, they are killing their spirit too, and every spirit…not just the black persons.”1 MLK understood so clearly the need to see the fearful, wonderful work of God in all people.

It was with this same wisdom of the Holy Spirit that guided a chaplain in World War I when he came across a dying soldier. "May I pray for you?" he asked. The soldier, seeing the chaplain's crucifix, said, "But Father, I do not belong to your church." The chaplain replied, "But you do belong to my God." And he prayed with him as he died.

Shalom,

1Homileticsonline.com. 2Ibid

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This week, Rev. David Amrie, senior pastor at Calvary UMC, wrote a prayer, crying to God from a heart that longs for justice, for peace, and for God’s radical Word of love, mercy and grace to be alive in all of us. May it be our prayer this week. Month. Year. Lifetime.

O God, Dear God – A Prayer Rev. David Amrie • June 13, 2020

On the occasion of the murder of Rayshard Brooks

O God, dear God, merciful God, Creator of us all:

I am tired.

And I am having trouble breathing. For the Litany of Grief is long:

Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and now Rayshard Brooks.

The Litany of Grief is long,

and these are just the names we know.

O God, dear God, merciful God,

Creator of us all: I am tired.

And I am having trouble breathing. For have we learned nothing in the last 20 days? Have we heard nothing of Your love

in the voice of the protestors, in the tears of the families, in the cries for justice?

Have we sold the needy for a pair of shoes,2

and let our personal comfort blind us from doing what is right?

Are we so tone deaf

that we eagerly bring gasoline to a raging fire adding insult to injury?

O God, dear God, merciful God,

Creator of us all: I am tired.

And I am having trouble breathing. For the blood of our neighbors cries out for justice.2

And we who desire the day of the Lord

and want to sing comfortable hymns of blessing and peace

may find Your justice flowing instead

like mighty rushing waters,3 cleansing in Augean finality.4

O God, dear God, merciful God, Creator of us all:

I am tired.

And I am having trouble breathing. For if You kept track of our sins,

who would stand?5

None of us have done what is right in Your sight.

All of us have missed the mark. All of us fallen short.6

Still, with You there is forgiveness

and this is why we worship you.

O God, dear God, merciful God,

Creator of us all: I am still tired.

And I am still having trouble breathing. For the events of this day have taken my breath away –

and you have given it back in rivers of hope

Make me an instrument of Your peace

bringing love, offering pardon, living faith.7

Make me an instrument of Your peace

building bridges, seeking equality, looking for the day when we shall all be one.

Make me an instrument of Your peace

seeing past the racial stereotypes of our time, offering my resources to heal the wounds of the world,8 letting my life be an embodiment of Your love for all.9

1Amos 8:6 2Genesis 4:10 3Amos 5:18-24 4The Fifth Labor of Hercules 5Psalm 130:1-8 6Psalm 14:3 7Prayer of St. Francis 8Luke 10:25-37 9Romans 12:9-21; 13:8-10; 14:10-23

Volume 26, Issue 7 Page 7

July Birthdays!

3rd

Tom Ramos

6th Clarine Smith

7th

Pat Nanniga Alice Woollums

8th

Emerson Bowman Linda Burnett

9th

Kristen Garnhart

11th

Mary Coutts

12th Mike Pfahl

13th

Bob Rickett

14th Woody Woods

18th

Axel Witham

19th Brett Hurlbut

Sally Jo Maisano

21st

Helen Bookman Darlene Lundberg

22nd Jim Mather Lori Thom

23rd

Diane Hance

24th

Fay Lumpkins Chris Rankin

25th

Jean Kitchens Barbara Villanueva

28th

Ron Richter

29th Nancy Butler

30th

Barbara Kafka

Diane & Tom Hance July 4, 1989

31 Years

Diann & Don Geoffroy July 10, 1971

49 Years

Paul & Ginny Fredell July 14, 1973

47 Years

Page 8

I want to thank everyone for their phone calls, text messages, and sympathy cards we received during the recent loss of my sister, cousin, and another relative. It is especially difficult with the CV situation we are in, and the extra efforts you made to provide support to us, has been greatly appreciated. We hope to see you all soon in our regular church! Margaret and Tom Earle

Dear St. Paul’s Family, Thank you so much for the cards, calls, texts and the beautiful basket of flowers from my Disciple Class after my hip surgery. It is a blessing to be part of such a wonderful church family. Thank you again, Darlene Woods

Schedule of Weekly Online Events

Sunday 9:30a Worship 11:00a Book Discussion

Monday 7:00p Barbershop Chorus

Wednesday 8:30a Digital Men's

Bible Study

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Volume 26, Issue 7 Page 9

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 Happy Fourth of July

5

6 7 8 9 6:00p Finance Meeting

10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31

2020

The CC deadline is the 15th of each month, unless otherwise noted. For more information contact the Church office at 634-7046. We reserve the right to edit and condense submissions for publication.

St. Paul's United Methodist Church

2111 Carlton Avenue

Colorado Springs, CO 80909

Email: [email protected]

Grounded in Tradition, Growing in Faith

Phone: 719-634-7046 Fax: 719-634-4752 Visit us on the web: stpaulsumc-coloradosprings.org

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