Epiphany Sunday at SUMC

Wired Word class enjoying the lesson

Altar Guild members take the time to prepare for worship

One of the children's class projects

Chime choir warms up before worship

Epiphany Sunday @ SUMC

We enjoy fellowship time!

What a blessing this morning was at SUMC!  From 'soup to nuts,' our studies, worship and fellowship were spirit-filled!

The morning's sermon is available at this link.

The chime choir's offering, "We Three Kings," is available here.

Devotional for the Twelfth Day of Christmas

"Visit of the Magi" by Qi He 

Today marks the twelfth and final day of Christmas. Tomorrow (January 6th) begins the Season of Epiphany which continues eight weeks until Ash Wednesday (March 5th), the start of the Lenten season.
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Words & Music: John H. Hopkins, Jr. 1857 - Hopkins wrote this carol for a Christmas pageant at the General Theological Seminary in New York City.

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We three kings of Orient are;
Bearing gifts we traverse afar,
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
Following yonder star.

 

Refrain

O star of wonder, star of light,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect light.

Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain
Gold I bring to crown Him again,
King forever, ceasing never,
Over us all to reign. R

Frankincense to offer have I;
Incense owns a Deity nigh;
Prayer and praising, voices raising,
Worshipping God on high.  R

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the stone cold tomb.  R

Glorious now behold Him arise;
King and God and sacrifice;
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Sounds through the earth and skies.  R

DoD Casualty Report for December 29 - January 4

The Department of Defense announced this week the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. 

 

Sgt. Jacob M. Hess, 22, of Spokane, Washington, died Jan. 1, 2014, while supporting combat operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.  

 

Hess was assigned to Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 26, Marine Aircraft Group 26, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Good neighbors in Stevensville

Thanks to Molly Hackett, Kathy Clark, Marilyn Murphy and Belinda Alkula for providing today's lunch for the volunteers at the Habitat for Humanity house on Mission Street.  The volunteers really appreciated the good food on a chilly day!!!

Devotional for the Eleventh Day of Christmas

Recipe for a Happy New Year

Take twelve fine, full-grown months; see that these are thoroughly free from old memories of bitterness, rancor and hate, cleanse them completely from every clinging spite; pick off all specks of pettiness and littleness; in short, see that these months are freed from all the past—have them fresh and clean as when they first came from the great storehouse of Time.

Cut these months into thirty or thirty-one equal parts. Do not attempt to make up the whole batch at one time (so many persons spoil the entire lot this way) but prepare one day at a time.

Into each day put equal parts of faith, patience, courage, work (some people omit this ingredient and so spoil the flavor of the rest), hope, fidelity, liberality, kindness, prayer, meditation, rest (leaving this out is like leaving the oil out of the salad dressing—don't do it), and one well-selected resolution.

Put in about one teaspoonful of good spirits, a dash of fun, a pinch of folly, a sprinkling of play, and a heaping cupful of good humor.

Devotional for the Tenth Day of Christmas

Winter Slumber

Winter be but two weeks old and already they lament. No passion seems as strong as their loudest prayer for spring. Spring will come when it will and wake the grasses and willow. Let Natures brief time of slumber last long enough to rest her.

The winter be time for beauty to be found on ice etched panes, And bayonets of glass, hanging from every eave to be seen. Winter be found in crystalline air so pure only heroes inhale it. And footsteps crunch like breaking lettuce upon the snowy ground.

Beyond winter times will speed and rush their way forward. Spring then Summer and Autumn sprinting to their ultimate ends. Let winter luff her way on tiny frozen feet while fire warms yours. Add another log and settle in for a long nap and a dream.

Anonymous 

Devotional for the Ninth Day of Christmas

John Wesley’s four resolutions, which were not New Year resolutions, it has to be said, are still very good food for thought as we think about we might embark upon this new year of 2014, and about what changes if any, we might want to make.  Many will make and have already made resolutions to do with physical fitness, or physical size, or about lifestyle, and in fact about umpteen other things.

However, Wesley’s resolutions are worth thinking deeply about. In his Journal, he wrote in 1738:

With regard to my own reserve, I now renewed and wrote down my former resolutions:
1. To use absolute openness and reserved with all I should converse with.

2. To labour after continual seriousness, not willingly indulging myself in any the least levity of behavior, or in laughter; no, not for a moment.

3. To speak no word which does not tend to the glory of God; in particular, not to talk of worldly things?  Others may, nay, must.  But what is that to thee? 

And,

4. To take no pleasure which does not tend to the glory of God; thanking God every moment for all I do take, and therefore rejecting every sort and degree of it which I feel I cannot so thank Him in and for.