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The Grapevine
Prosser United Methodist Church – April 2015
824 Sixth Street, Prosser, WA 99350 Phone: 509-786-1097 Website: prosserumc.org
Office Hours: M – Th. 9 AM to Noon
E-mail: [email protected]
APRIL HOMILIES AND
SCRIPTURE
April 05 ............ Mark 16:1-8
Homily — “Initial Reactions”
April 12 ............ Holy Hilarity Sunday
Dean Smith Leading
April 19 ............ Luke 24:36b-48
Homily — “Message of Joy”
April 26 ............ John 10:11-18
Homily — “Message of Salvation”
Sunday morning worship is at 11 AM. Sunday School for
Grades 1-5 occurs during worship.
Nursery care is available during our worship services provided
by Tanya and Katie Cone. Children up through Kindergarten
can be dropped off at the nursery, down the first floor hall of
the education wing of the church.
SPECIAL OFFERING
On Sunday, April 19th, we will have a special offering for
Native American Ministries. This offering supports the
work of our conference and The United Methodist
Church with Native Americans. Thanks for your
contribution!
APRIL EVENTS
April 01 — United Methodist Women quilting, 10 AM
April 01 — United Methodist Women meeting, Noon
April 01 — Time of Prayer & Reflection, 5-7 PM
April 02 — Maundy Thursday Potluck, 6 PM
April 03 — Good Friday Service, 7 PM, at St. Matthew’s
April 04 — Men’s Group, 8 AM
April 04 — Lent Class, 11 AM
April 05 — Easter Sunrise Service, 7 AM
April 05 — Easter Potluck Breakfast, 7:30 AM
April 06 to 12 — Pastor Bo on vacation
April 12 — Holy Hilarity Sunday
April 12 — Potluck, Noon
April 16 — Covenant Class, 7 PM
April 19 — UMY, 4 PM
April 20 — Jubilee Food Bagging, 9:30 AM
April 22 — Administrative Professionals Day
April 22 — Church Council, 7 PM
April 23 — Covenant Class, 7 PM
April 26 — UMY, 4 PM
April 30 — Covenant Class, 7 PM
Holy Week Services
Thursday, April 2nd is Maundy Thursday, and Prosser
UMC will host a potluck dinner with St. Matthew’s
Episcopal Church at 6 PM. The dinner will be followed
by a communion service.
Potluck on the Move
Friday, April 3rd is Good Friday, and St. Matthew’s will
host a joint service with PUMC at 7 PM.
Due to the first Sunday of each month being
Communion Sunday, the Church Council has moved our
Potluck Sunday to the second Sunday of each month.
This way those who are
preparing dishes for the
potluck won’t need to
miss communion.
Please mark your
calendars for April 12th
as this month’s Potluck
Sunday!
These services are meant to enrich our experience of
Holy Week, and our relationship with God. We hope to
see you there.
Pastor Bo on Vacation
Pastor Bo will be on vacation from Monday, April 6th
through Sunday, April 12th. Dean Smith will be leading
worship on the 12th. If you have a pastoral emergency,
please call Rev. Jill Ross of St. Matthew’s Episcopal
Church at 830-6318.
BO’S BLOG
We have been having some discussions about our
facilities, and I wanted to share a few observations I
have from the talks so far.
First, I have been
impressed with the
diversity of thoughts that
have come from many
different people. Some
people have been to all
the meetings, while others have only been to one or two
of them. But overall, we have heard comments from
over 30 different people. This is great, because we
need to hear from as many people in the church as
possible in order to get a direction forward that
represents our church.
Second, although we began our discussions by talking
about the buildings and property, it quickly became
apparent that we view them as being in service to our
mission and our identity as a community of faith. We
started by identifying our buildings, but moved into
asking the question “How does/can our building facilitate
our mission?” This question advocates a healthy priority
on mission—our worship, programs, outreach,
fellowship, and more. I don’t think this question
devalues the buildings we have. In fact, I think it shows
how important they can be in accomplishing the work
God gives us. And that’s why we should continue the
conversations we have begun.
As we do that, I would like to add to our process the
spiritual discipline of ‘holy listening.” It is one of the
spiritual “tools” we have talked about in the Lent class
this year, and has been a part of Christian spiritual
practices for centuries. We Methodists are not very
familiar with it, even though John Wesley, the founder of
the Methodist movement in England, was a strong
advocate of it. Of late, our annual conference has been
seeking to recover the use of this tool, especially among
the clergy at our Orders gatherings.
Holy listening is an intense listening to another person,
seeking to hear how God may be speaking through the
words of that person, through the depths and feelings
behind the words spoken, and/or through the response
we have to those words. It is about taking a step away
from our own agendas, or ways of reacting, to discern
how God may be moving in, or speaking through,
another, or ourselves. And in our discussion about our
facilities, it may be a way we can discern where God
wants to take us—in mission and ministry, as well as
buildings and grounds.
I invite you to keep discussing, keep thinking, keep
asking questions about this topic. And also, to listen for
God in all of it. What are you hearing?
Shalom,
Bo
A Time for Prayer
The Prosser United Methodist Church is opening the
sanctuary for an evening of Personal Prayer and Quiet
Reflection on Wednesday, April 1st from 5 – 7 PM.
Anyone in the community is invited to drop in for a brief
moment or an extended time, to pray for guidance for
ourselves and for our world, in our church sanctuary.
This is an opportunity to concentrate on what is
important in our lives, to take a moment at the end of the
day to reflect on our blessings, and to pray for ourselves
and others in time of need. The sanctuary will be open
at this time on the first Wednesday of each month. If
you would like to host one of these evenings, please
contact Linda Key at 882-3110.
Please Keep in Prayer
Jim Corliss, at Prestige Care Center; the Davison
family, mourning the passing of Della; Rita Edie,
grieving the loss of Bill; John Edom, recovering from
eye surgery; Jerry Key, at home and living with reduced
lung capacity; Sally Smith, at Sun Terrace; Kim Starr
and the Mears family, grieving the death of Tom Mears.
JUBILEE FOOD BASKET
DONATIONS
During the month of April we are asking you to bring in
cans of tomato sauce to donate to Jubilee Food Bank.
Our donation basket is located in the Fellowship Hall,
near the Mission bulletin board. Thanks!
JUBILEE FOOD BANK
On Monday, April 20th, it is our turn to break down large
bags of rice, beans, or oats into smaller bags that can be
handed out by the food bank during the week. Meet at
Jubilee (1429 Stacy St.) at 9:30 AM for fun, fellowship,
and work that will help feed those in need in our
community!
That God once loved a garden we learn in Holy writ. And seeing gardens in the Spring I well can credit it. - Winifred Mary Letts
UMW Unit Meeting
The April UMW unit meeting will be held Wednesday,
April 1, 2015. We will meet at the Quilted Country Inn at
1108 Wine Country Road, Prosser. In addition to our
monthly lunch and meeting, for those who want to
participate we will continue working on the baby quilts
that were started on March 17th. Those who want to
work on quilts will meet at 10:00 AM to tie the quilts that
are ready. The lunch will be at noon and the program
and business meeting will follow. For the potluck,
please bring a salad, dessert or bread. The hostess will
bring a gluten-free main dish, salad and dessert. All
ladies of the church are invited to attend. If you don’t
have time for the whole meeting you are invited to attend
what you do have time for. See you there!
Hostess: Melissa Glasscock and Bonnie Glasscock
Program leader: Bonnie Glasscock
Response Moment: Lethe McGavran
Business meeting: Linda Key, president
Cookbooks Available!
There are a few cookbooks left for sale! If you had
planned on getting one, now would be a good time.
They make great birthday, Easter, Mother’s Day, or
Father’s Day presents. Contact Peggy Edom at 7866996 to arrange your purchase, or pick one up at church
on Sunday! Don’t be left holding a bag of groceries
without a recipe!
UMW Book Table
To compliment Bo’s Blog in the February newsletter, you
may want to read Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial
Politics and The Retreat from Racial Equality by Tim
Wise. Mr. Wise makes light of the idea that the election
of President Obama means we are in the forefront of the
policy shifts necessary to correct our nation’s racial
imbalance on the subjects of crime, health, wealth,
education, and more. This is a somewhat difficult book
to read, but it is an enlightening view of the racial
situation in our country.
PUMC Fundraisers
Kitchen Remodel
Prosser UMC Finances
February Income
2015 Income
$6,965
$14,848
February Budget
2015 Budget
$9,522
$18,953
Difference for the
Difference for the Year
Month
-$4,105
-$2,557
MEN’S GROUP
The Men’s Group will be meeting on Saturday, April 4th
at 8 AM. We meet at the church in the Friendship Room
and have some doughnuts (yum), hot coffee, cocoa, and
fellowship. We may even get in some work! All men,
young and old, are invited to join us. Bring a tool box if
you like, as they do come in handy!
Scholarships Available!
Scholarships for anyone attending post-secondary
school in the 2015-2016 year are available now! The
applications are available at the church website, and in
the church office. The scholarships are for those who
have been active in our church and are graduating from
high school and going on to university, college, trade, or
vocational school, or are continuing their education at
one of these schools. Completed applications are due
April 30th, and scholarships will be announced in May.
Pinewood Derby
Our scouts will be participating in
the district Pinewood Derby
competition on Saturday, April
18th, at Speck Motors in
Sunnyside. The first heats will
begin shortly after 10 AM. Come
on out, support our scouts, and see some finely crafted
wood vehicles go racing down the track!
Amount Remaining
$2,650
That God once loved a garden we learn in Holy writ. And seeing gardens in the Spring I well can credit it. - Winifred Mary Letts
Holy Hilarity Sunday
After the serious reflection period of Lent, leading to the
intensity of Easter and the resurrection, for many
centuries now the church has added a little lightness and
levity to the Sunday after Easter. We will celebrate Holy
Hilarity Sunday on April 12th by holding the worship
service in the Fellowship Hall, singing some of our
favorite hymns or songs, and sharing jokes and stories
around the circle. Come prepared with a story to tell
and/or a favorite hymn to request. It is a time for us to
remember that God created humor, and wants us to
enjoy our faith, as well as take it seriously.
Looking for Graduates
Prosser UMC is looking for those in our church family
graduating from high school or post-secondary school.
If you know of a graduate this year, please contact
Peggy Edom at 786-6996. We will be honoring our
graduates during the May 10th worship service. Thanks!
Thanks Again!
We would like to say thanks once again to all those
whose financial gifts helped us to meet our budget in
2014, and to also pay off the $21,000 loan we had given
ourselves, as well as raise the money needed to repair
our church bell and develop a fund for the remodel of
our Fellowship Hall kitchen. There were several large
gifts that helped us meet those goals, and we are
grateful for them. We are also grateful for the many
people who gave weekly and monthly so that we could
meet our budget and pay our bills. This combination of
committed givers each week and those larger gifts
helped us to have a very good year financially.
We need to continue with the regular weekly and
monthly contributions that we made last year. We don’t
have a loan to pay off, or a bell to fix, this year, but we
do still have the electric bill, the heat, the payroll, the
apportionments, and the other parts of our budget to
fund. As the financial report elsewhere in this newsletter
shows, in the first two months of this year our income
has been over $4,000 short of what we need to pay our
bills for those months. We would prefer that we not end
up having to give ourselves another loan, which we
would be striving to pay off next year.
So we say “thanks” again for your generous giving last
year, and ask that, if you can, you continue that giving
this year, so that all of us may continue the ministry of
Prosser UMC in the lower valley, and around the world.
That God once loved a garden we learn in Holy writ. And seeing gardens in the Spring I well can credit it. - Winifred Mary Letts