June & July. GOOD THINGS HAPPEN Newsletter of Minnehaha United Methodist Church. Inside this issue: We seek, we serve, we celebrate.

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1 GOOD THINGS HAPPEN Newsletter of Minnehaha United Methodist Church We seek, we serve, we celebrate. JUN/JUL 2018 Inside this issue: Calendar 2 Worship Schedule 3 Who in the church... 4 Children s Ministries 5 Cowboy Sunday, Scarves 6 Picnic, Pride 7 Museum tour, Solar vote 8 Rummage, Bike blessing 9 UMW, Friday Films 10 Pastor s Message 11 June & July Good Things Happen is the newsletter of Minnehaha United Methodist Church, published each month. The deadline for August is July 20 Contributions may be brought to the office or ed to: office@minnehaha.org Minneapolis, MN About Us: Minnehaha United Methodist Church is a thriving multi-generational, multicultural Christian community devoted to social justice and personal spiritual growth. The congregation is both mission- and worship-focused. In addition to its worship, education, and social activities, the church supports local mission activities, including a food shelf and a monthly food distribution program. The church also supports a variety of national and international relief, education, and development projects. A Reconciling Congregation: Minnehaha United Methodist Church opens our doors to all God s people. We will strive to offer unconditional love and acceptance to all persons, regardless of race, sexual orientation or faith history. We work to eliminate prejudice and discriminatory practices within ourselves and within our community. -adopted 2006 Our Mission: We seek, we serve, we celebrate, we carry our Christian faith into our community and the world. We provide a caring gathering place to worship God and to grow spiritually. -reconfirmed 2011 SUNDAY WORSHIP 9:00 am Worship with organ and choir. 10:30 am Worship with band and vocals. (Outside, weather permitting) Infant and toddler care available all morning.

2 P a ge 2 Minnehaha Happenings in June & July Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Notes: The calendar is accurate, to the best of our knowledge, at the time of printing. Dates and details may change at any time. Please visit to view an up-to-date version of the calendar, and please contact Heather before scheduling any meetings or events. If they aren t on the calendar, you are not guaranteed a meeting space. Please see online for Brighter Minds Music s schedule. 1 7p Movie Night 2 3Communion 10a Graduation Sunday 11:15a Solar vote 11:30a 9th Grade Confirmation 3p Museum tour 6:30p Togo Church 10 10:30a Worship with Band Saints/Art Closet Cleanup 6:30p Toastmasters 12 Piano Tune 6:30p Nokomis Prov. Group 6 7p Children's Council a Food Shelf Board 14 Flag Day 5p Wedding rehearsal p Wedding 16 8a Rummage Sale 17 Father's Day 10:30a Worship with Band 6:30p Togo Church 24 10:30a Worship with Band 1 Communion 10:30a Worship with Band 6:30p Togo Church 8 10:30a Worship with Band 15Cowboy Sunday 10:30a Worship with Band 6:30p Togo Church 22 10:30a Worship with Band 18 International Picnic Day VBS Set Up 8:30a Music & 9a Music and :30p Finance VBS Set Up 8:30a Music & 9a Music and 6:30p Toastmasters 26 6:30p SPR 3 6:30p Toastmasters 10 6p Parents of Youth gathering 17 6:30p Toastmasters 6:30p Worship Committee 24 6:30p SPR 20 8a VBS Prep 8:30a Music & 9a Music and 9a VBS 27 4 Independence Day 7p Children's Council 11 10a Staff Meeting Summer Solstice 8a VBS Prep 8:30a Music & 9a Music and 9a VBS 28 6:30p Trustees & B+G p Nokomis Sq a Mandala Raptor Center Visit 6:30p Trustees & B+G 22 8a VBS Prep 8:30a Music & 9a Music and 9a VBS 7p Music and Drama performance p Movie Night 13 7p Fellowship Hall reserved 20 Newsletter items due 27 9a Newsletter Collation 23 7a MinneHarvest 30 5p Summer picnic a MinneHarvest

3 Page 3 Worship in June & July We start the month by celebrating our high school graduates on June 3 at one service at 10:00. And, then, as if freed from school ourselves, we begin our summer worship schedule with the 9:00 service inside and the 10:30 service outside in the side lawn. We ll be hearing the faith stories of some of our members in June and July. Jason Emrick, Dave Hougen, Trevor Hicks, Lisa Talcott, and the children attending Vacation Bible School have graciously agreed to share their stories with you stories of what has brought them to or kept them in the church at this point in their lives. Then, on July 15, we ll celebrate Cowboy Sunday at the 10:30 service with a picnic following. The rest of the Sundays in July and into August will follow stories of Jesus from the gospels of Mark and John. We look forward to seeing you in worship! June 3 Wherever I Go Psalm 139:1-18 Communion, Graduation Sunday, One service at 10:00 June 10 Do You Now Believe? Psalm 62:5-7; John 16:29-33 Summer Schedule Begins 9:00 Indoors, 10:30 Outdoors! Blessing of Bikes and Helmets, Jason Emrick preaching June 17 Can You See the Breeze? II Corinthians 5:6-10 Trevor Hicks preaching June 24 Stories from Vacation Bible School July 1 Marching To Your Own Tune Psalm 130 David Hougen preaching July 8 Reflections of God s Light John 1:1-18 Lisa Talcott preaching July 15 Every Last One Luke 15:8-10 Becky is back! 10:30 Cowboy Sunday, picnic following July 22 Rest, so that Mark 6:30-34, July 29 Multiplication, Jesus Style John 6:1-14 Save the Date Future special events at Minnehaha UMC: Aug. 5 Worship at the Falls at 10:30, potluck lunch at Minnehaha Park following Aug. 26 Blessing of the Animals at 10:30 service Sept. 2 One worship service at 10:00, indoors Sept. 9 One worship service at 10:00, outdoors. Sept. 10 Confirmation Sunday July 20

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5 Children s Ministries In the blur of end of the program/year activities, I take great comfort in knowing that summer is just on the other side. P a ge 5 I encourage you to look through this newsletter carefully. There really are things for all ages, for all interests. So, whether we see you at outdoor worship (each week at 10:30, weather permitting), tending the garden, at one of our summer picnics, camps, or the rummage sale - we hope that you'll check in with us over the summer. In the meantime, thanks for being a part of this community and for helping make the program year a wonderful one. Happy Summer, Jenia Strom Director of Children & Family Ministries education@minnehaha.org Right now, there are so many balls up in the air to juggle - not just for us, but for our kids as well - and the excitement helps keep them up. But, it's good to know that we're about to enter a season when we can set some of them down for a bit. Of course, we might be taking on new things. And, I must admit I'm always relieved at the end of summer that routine is returning. But, for the next few months: we take on summer. Long days, sunscreen and swimsuits, mosquitoes and flowers, camps, road closures: summer. Sunday School and Wednesday Night programs take a break for the summer. We'll return to these for the year. But, there are still great opportunities to connect, to grow - to seek, serve, and celebrate - at Minnehaha.

6 P a ge 6 Prayer Scarves for General Conference As many of you are aware, our denomination s world-wide gathering will be in Minneapolis on May 5-15, In preparation, the churches in Minnesota would like to provide each of the delegates and attendees with a special prayer scarf. We will need ten thousand of these, so every congregation is invited to make as many as they can. If you are a knitter or a crocheter, here are the guidelines: The yarn should be a solid royal purple (think Vikings or Prince), not lavender. Acrylic material, please, something that can be washed. The pattern can be of your own choosing, but the finished product should be 6-7 wide and at least 60 long (we want people to be able to wrap these around their necks to stay warm in a drafty room). Sample patterns are available at Each scarf should be placed in a 1 gallon ziploc bag, and we will collect them at the church (you can drop them outside Becky s office). They will also be brought to Annual Conference in June of We will be given tags, and you are encouraged to take a tag for every scarf you make, put your name and our church on it, and attach it to the scarf with a piece of purple yarn. I also encourage you to pray as you knit or crochet, in the spirit of a prayer scarf. You can pray for the person who will eventually receive the scarf, pray for the deliberations of the delegates during the 2020 General Conference, pray for our denomination and the decisions we make, and pray for the future of the church in general, that we might all be more attuned to where the Spirit of God is leading us. Composting at Church Folks who attended Hope Hutchison s recent class on God s Renewed Creation came up with ideas about how to expand composting here at the MUMC building, as a way to extend and deepen our care of the environment. As a first step, we are recruiting a team of people to pick up compost each week already being collected at the church, and take it home to dispose of in their organics bins (furnished by the city) for pick-up. Right now Pastor Becky is doing this, but we would like a composting team could take over this task. If you already have organics pick up through the city at home and would like to be a member of this team, or have questions, please contact Susan Delattre, at sbdelattre@yahoo.com.

7 Pride Parade June is the month for celebrating LGBTQ Pride all over the nation, and the parade and festival in the Twin Cities will be Saturday and Sunday, June The Festival is held at Loring Park, and you can go there anytime from on Saturday or 10-6 on Sunday. You ll find concerts, food vendors, booths for companies and organizations, and so much more. Their webpage, TCPride.org will give you all the information. If you go, look for the Reconciling Congregations booth. The Parade is on Sunday and kicks off at 11:00 a.m. The United Methodist Reconciling Congregations have a marching contingent as well as a float, and members of reconciling congregations are welcome to join in however they can. The units line up on 3 rd Street, facing Hennepin Ave. and the parade goes down Hennepin until it reaches Loring Park. You can find our unit number (which will aid in finding our group more quickly) on the pride web page a couple days prior to the parade. We recommend wearing your Minnehaha T- shirts (if you have one) and bringing some Hershey s kisses to hand out to people along the parade route. P a ge 7 Audrey Damon thanks you for all the beautiful cards and precious calls during her recovery from breaking her right wrist. She hopes the edema in her legs will be healed by Memorial Day! Cowboy Sunday and Outdoor Potluck Get your cowboy on for our third annual Cowboy Sunday on July 15 at the 10:30 service. You can wear your boots, bandanas, hats, or whatever you feel like wearing. We ll have a fire, and the worship service will have a more participatory feel with cowboys chewing the fat for the sermon. Afterwards, we ll all have lunch outside. Bring a dish to share and something to put on the grill (if you don t want hot dogs).

8 P a ge 8 All Church Meeting On Sunday, June 3 at 10:15 the Solar Committee will be requesting a vote on the proposed financing of a 40kW solar system at the church. The original plan for a 40kW system that was unveiled approximately 2 years ago did not come to fruition. However, the Solar Committee has put together a new plan which requires another form of financing, so we are seeking congregational approval. Please join us on June 3, at 11:15 in church sanctuary. At that time we will be voting on the proposal. Rummage Sale Who has the best corner in South Minneapolis to have a yard sale? We do! So we're making the most of our excellent location and hosting our Rummage Sale in alliance with NENAs Annual Garage Sale Day, Saturday, June 16th / 8:00am- 4:00pm. This Rummage Sale is a whole-church event - each of you can play a part... you can bring your gently used items (see flyer for what we're taking), you can sign up to volunteer and help with the sorting, pricing and on sale day to be a greeter and helper for our guest and customers, or help with set-up and/or cleanup. We'll have sign-ups starting Sunday, May 27th, and you can start bringing your items on Wednesday, May 30th. Please put them neatly on the stage in the Fellowship Hall. This event fits every part of our mission: We Seek - we seek your partnership within Minnehaha to work together to help raise funds for our programs and ministries We Serve - we are serving Mother Earth by recycling our unwanted, gentlyused goods and we are serving our community by our vibrant presence right here on 37th & 50th We Celebrate - we can celebrate that we are recycling, being good neighbors and community members and with our proceeds we can celebrate the added boost we can provide our programs and ministries - such as camp scholarships, youth ministries, children's ministries, new members, chaplaincy for our shut-ins, just to name a few I look forward to partnering with each of you in this fundraising and communitybuilding event. If you have any questions, please contact Annette Meier (612) or salmeier@hotmail.com.

9 P a ge 9 Blessing of Bikes (and helmets) June 10 will be a special service to bless bikes and bike helmets. It will be the first Sunday we worship outside, but you can bring your bike and/or helmet to be blessed at either the 9:00 or the 10:30 worship service. There will be a potluck picnic following the service. Food Ministries MUMC supports two food ministries. MinneHarvest is a monthly free food giveaway, and our Food Shelf is a weekly food shelf for residents in our neighborhood, supported by us, Lake Nokomis Lutheran, and St. James Episcopal on the Parkway. Both of these ministries need regular financial support in order for them to continue to provide food to those in need. Please consider making a regular contribution to one or both of these ministries; you can use the handy envelopes provided in the pews, or you can write a check and indicate either MinneHarvest or Food Shelf on the memo line. Parents of Youth Gathering All parents/guardians of youth (those going in to 6 th grade through 12 th grade this fall) are invited to attend a meeting on Tuesday, July 10 at 6:00. We ll have a light dinner, and solicit feedback from you about what you have liked about our youth program and what you d like to see in the future. Worship and Picnic at the Falls On Sunday, August 5 we will be joining with other congregations in our neighborhood for a worship service at Minnehaha Falls Park. The service will be held at the bandshell and will begin at 10:30. Following the service we will be gathering for our last potluck garden party of the season. Bring your lunch and something to share and join with other folks from Minnehaha (and maybe some from the other congregations as well) at the shaded picnic area behind the bandshell for continued conversation and laughter.

10 P a ge 10 First Friday Films Do you find yourself shouting advice to characters during a movie? Nudging your neighbor with an elbow during critical scenes? Wishing you had someone to talk to about the movie you just watched? Then you are in luck! Come to the church on the first Friday of the month at 7:00 and settle in to watch a movie with fellow Minnehaha-ians. Bring your own beverage and snacks, and feel free to bring a friend as well. After the credits roll, you ll have an opportunity to share your aha moments, the things you liked or disliked, or anything else the movie prompted in you. On June 1 (7:00 in room 310) we ll be watching Inside Out, an animated movie meant for both children and adults that follows the feelings of an 11 year old girl who has to negotiate her family s move from the Midwest to the west coast. We will then be on hiatus for July and August, but look for our next movie night the first Friday in September. United Methodist Women Let's get ahead on planning the annual church bazaar! Come to a brief meeting between services on Sunday, June 10 to divide up the duties that go into planning and carrying out this community event. Can't make that date? Please let Maureen Trepp ( ) or Kim Kanuit ( ) what you would like to do. Find us in the Fellowship Hall. Renewal Leave Becky Sechrist will be on renewal leave from June 4 through July 8. In her absence, Rev. Dennis Alexander will be on call for emergencies and funerals, and our lay chaplain team will be doing their usual work of visiting people in the hospital and checking up on people in transitional care. The five Sundays will be covered by a team of 9 people who are leading worship and/or preaching during Becky s absence. Thanks to all of these members for pitching in for the first half of the summer! Please let the office know of any hospitalizations or emergencies; Heather will have the information to get hold of Rev. Alexander, and his contact information will also be on the outgoing message on Becky s voic . Communion at Nokomis Square Due to Becky s renewal leave, there will be no communion service at Nokomis Square in June. But in July we return to our regular schedule of the second Thursday of the month at 1:00 p.m. We look forward to seeing you there on July 12.

11 Page 11 Moments of Spring I have been walking around my neighborhood and enjoying the amazing beauty of spring. The tulips and daffodils are in bloom, and they have been joined by the blossoming of the fruit trees and a few south-facing lilac bushes. Just today, I noticed that the daffodils are done, the tulip blooms are starting to fall apart, and the blossoms from the trees are starting to come off, creating a pool of white and pink and the ground beneath them. By the time you read this, the trees will be all green, maybe some with the buds of future fruit, and the tulips and daffodils will be long gone, replaced by irises and peonies. The lilacs will be faded ends on their branches, waiting for next spring. I feel like I have to pay close attention in the spring. There is so much happened, but it is happening so fast. The pussy willows won t wait forever for me to go out and enjoy them at the wetland in the park nearby. The migrating birds come through and sing their songs for only a short while, resting, and then continuing their journey north or south. Delicate flowers like the trout lily have to wait for the snow to clear and the ground to thaw, but they only get a short time to bloom before they are crowded out by the other plants coming up all around them. As I look for the fleeting notes of spring, paying attention to each small plant, each tiny warbler, I am reminded that this is what my life with God can be like as well. My spring (well, summer now) spiritual practice is to pay attention to where God is guiding me as closely as I pay attention to the blooming of the lilac or the trout lily. In Joy,

12 3701 East 50 th Street Minneapolis, MN Address Service Requested Phone: 612/ Fax: 612/ /18