Happy New Year, 2017, a Year of Covenant Commitment

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1 568 Montgomery Ave Pastor David Tatgenhorst What Gives Me Hope Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you. - 1 Peter 3:15 Being hopeful (which is not to be confused with being optimistic) in this world is not easy. Hope requires some effort and some practice, but if we put that energy into looking for what gives us hope, we can develop it as a habit, like a muscle memory. What gives you hope this month? Here are three things that give me hope this month: -The courage and love of my mother as she accepts assistance from hospice care workers and faces end of life issues. -The victory of water protectors in North Dakota and the movement for clean safe water in Flint Michigan and other cities. -The work of climate scientists to preserve research data on the changing climate. Their moral courage in the face of possible retaliation is an example of the sort of quiet heroism that we ll need in an era of denial and distortion of the truth. Happy New Year, 2017, a Year of Covenant Commitment The year 2017 begins on a Sunday - the perfect opportunity to begin the year with a new covenant commitment by joining in Wesley s covenant prayer and Holy Communion. All this month, I will continue this theme in a sermon series simply titled Covenant. The idea for this sermon series comes from Good News magazine. This is a magazine which I read regularly and with which I seldom agree. Last month I noticed an article by Rev. Kenneth Levingston, a pastor from Houston. From his conservative perspective, he lists a number of false gods that he warns against worshipping. Here s his list: Salvation without sacrifice. Sanctification without submission. Mercy and grace without truth and transformation. Social holiness without scripture. Forgiveness without faithfulness. In my ongoing effort to listen to and engage with conservative voices in my journey as a progressive pastor, I decided to base my January sermon series on Rev. Levingston s list. Each Sunday I will use one of these dichotomies as a jumping off place. Though we would almost certainly disagree in how we talk about these false gods, I agree with Rev. Levingston in the problem he is addressing and I think we will find some helpful learning points, even if his language is different from ours. January is a great time to think about these categories of covenant and commitment as we read about Jesus early ministry and calling of his disciples. We are also preparing ourselves for a 1

2 The Pastor Recommends La La Land. After enjoying this delightful film full of light-hearted dancing and singing, my wife and I were reminded of the run of depression era feel-good movies that helped people take their minds off their troubles. I expect we will see more films coming out of this type. If they are as well done as La La Land, I welcome the trend. The dancing is beautiful and the story is engaging and thought provoking. Gratitude Thanks to everyone who helped set up and clean up for the 140th anniversary dinner. Thanks to Elaine and Jim McDermott for getting greens to decorate the church for the holidays and for leading the Hanging of the Greens event. Thanks to others for helping and bringing cookies. Thanks to Tom Lank for providing support and being willing to cover for Pastor David if there is a crisis with his mother. Thanks for everyone in the congregation for your prayers and concern during an uncertain time. Thanks to the children of St. Luke for performing in the Christmas pageant. Thanks to Sarah Dennis for finding creative ways to involve the children in our worship. Thanks to Lauri Cumming and Carolyn Harmon for caring for and thinking about friends in need. new season with a new president and a new mood in our country. Every new year and every new season is a good time to reassess and rededicate ourselves to God s Way. It seems especially important in this season that we dedicate ourselves to truth and transformation, to faithfulness and living in harmony with God s intention and God s creation. Opportunities We are providing opportunities for this good work all month. On Sunday, January 15th, all the Mission Connexion churches on the Main Line and Havertown will gather at Radnor United Methodist Church to create 50 cleaning buckets as donations for people dealing with flooding and disasters. The flood buckets will go to the Mission Hub at Berwyn UMC for distribution. St. Luke has pledged to help fill these buckets along with 4 other churches. Our assignment is to bring the following items for 50 buckets: detergent One 50-oz. or two 25-oz. bottle(s) of liquid laundry 50 clothespins and One 100-ft. or two 50-ft. lines; 2 pairs kitchen dishwashing gloves We appreciate all the help we can get in soliciting these items from local stores or purchasing them in the next 2 weeks. That same weekend, on Monday, Jan. 16th, St. Luke will participate in a march in Philadelphia along with POWER congregations. The march for civil rights and equitable education begins at 4 locations around Philadelphia and comes together at Bethel AME Church. St. Luke will gather at 30th St. Station at 10 am for a march to Mother Bethel at 419 South 6th St. You can meet for the march at 30th St. at 10 am or at Mother Bethel Church at 12 noon. Another item in a busy month is our church planning retreat on Saturday, January 21st from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm. Please join us to review all our ministries from the last year and to plan for We will plan particularly for our music ministries, our children s ministries, and our mission outreach. Finally, mark your calendars for Sunday, Jan. 29th at 3 pm. That is the date for the next POWER Metro Assembly. Place to be announced. 2

3 Thank you to Virginia Vivino, Carolyn Harmon, and Jim McDermott for helping with the collections for Mary Jane Enrichment Center and the Methodist Home for Children. Thanks to Lauren Nunnelee for working to get new banners for our sanctuary. (See her article in this newsletter.) Thank you to congregation members for gifts and care during the Christmas season. Thanks to Virg for Christmas Eve wassail. Thank you to this whole community of prayer during stressful times. May generosity be our watchword! We will share from our plenty. We will give for those in need. We will praise lavishly. We will encourage frequently. We will care passionately. We will love wholeheartedly. Married Ryan McNeely, son of Ernie and Sherry McNeely to Austin Bernhardt New Church Banners St. Luke has commissioned a local artist to create two large banners for walls at the back of the church. The banners are being hand-made of felt in our church colors to include our St. Luke logo and our tag line, Growing in Love for Life. The artist is Lauren Wrightson, she s a recent graduate of the University of the Arts from Philadelphia who creates works of art from felt. Her work ranges from very large, window displays for retail stores, to very small intricate, dimensional objects that fit in your palm. To the right is a picture of the progress she s making with our banners it s an element she will fasten together to create the larger banner. But the greater purpose of these banners is to not simply to beautify our worship space but more importantly, to help with sound dampening. We re hopeful that these banners will improve the acoustics in our space and reduce some of the reflective noise. This is a big project for Lauren, just sourcing felt in rolls large enough was an undertaking and the lettering is intricate making this a time-consuming and expensive project but one that we expect to be a beautiful and unique solution to our sound issues. We invite you to make a donation to the STLUMC Banner Fund to help defray the costs. I will keep the congregation abreast of Lauren s progress and gladly answer any questions you may have. If you d like to help to donate to the STLUMC Banner Fund please contact Pastor David or Lauren Nunnelee (lauren.nunnelee@gmail.com). December 31,

4 2017: A Time for Commitment Sunday, Jan. 1, 2017: New Year s Day Epiphany Start the New Year off right - with Holy Communion and the Wesley Covenant prayer. John Wesley s prayer is a prayer of deep commitment to God s work. Wesley demanded that kind of commitment from all pastors and encouraged all laypeople in a priesthood of all believers. We would have found him a bit intense, but this month we will consider how we in our time could benefit from a deeper kind of faith commitment - even exploring strange concepts like sacrifice and transformation. Today s sermon is simply A New Year Covenant, a reflection and introduction to a series on who we are called to be in The Men s LIFE group will not be meeting today. The Communion offering today will be for Simpson House Senior Citizen Home. Our Communion Service on this first Sunday of Christmas will be sung to the tune of a variety of Christmas carols. Read: Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, Matthew 25:31-40 Sunday, Jan 8, 2017: Celebration of the Baptism of Jesus Installation of Officers and Leaders for the New Year Every year on the second Sunday of January, we recall the baptism of Jesus and think about the sacrament in our lives today. This is an appropriate day to install and consecrate all of our officers and leaders for the New Year. The sermon today, the second in the series on Covenant is titled Salvation and Sacrifice. Neither of these terms are ones we use very often at St. Luke. I often use the word liberation to help us understand the salvation as the gift of freedom Christ gives to us from sin and oppression. The message today focuses on our tendency to want the freedom and saving grace of the Living God without expecting to make any sacrifice. We will explore what kind of sacrifice may be asked of us when we commit ourselves to taking our baptism seriously. After the celebration today, the Parents LIFE group will meet. Read: Isaiah 42:1-9, Acts 10:34-43 January 15, 2017 Human Relations Day We continue our sermon series about our 2017 Covenant this morning focused for the Martin Luther King birthday weekend on Grace, Truth, and Transformation. All of us want mercy and grace. We know God loves us and we come to church to hear that message. The great prophets like Martin Luther King help us to hear that love in the context of the truth that grace is meant for our transformation and the transformation of the world. This weekend we examine white privilege and why those of us who are white need to be responsible for the healing of the wounds of racism. God s love has made this transformation possible. We are called to realize that love and to make it real. This afternoon from 2-4 pm, we are meeting at Radnor UMC to pack 100 cleaning buckets for the Mission Hub at Berwyn Church. St. Luke is responsible to add to each bucket the following: One 50-oz. or two 25-oz. bottle(s) of laundry detergent 4

5 50 clothespins and One 100-ft. or two 50-ft. clotheslines; 2 pairs kitchen dishwashing gloves Also on Monday, January 16, St. Luke will participate in the POWER Interfaith march for the Martin Luther King Day of Action. We will gather at 30th St. Station at 10 am for a march to Mother Bethel AME Church Mother at 419 South 6th St. You can meet for the march at 30th St. at 10 am or at Mother Bethel Church at 12 noon. More details coming soon. Read: Isaiah 49:1-7, John 1:29-42 January 22, 2016 We re getting near the end of our month of sermons on Covenant. This Sunday we look at Forgiveness and Faithfulness. In what by now is a familiar pattern we notice that we are all about forgiveness. It is one of the most popular themes of my sermons. We all know we need forgiveness, and we re pretty clear that we can t earn that forgiveness. It is a gift to each of us. Yet that forgiveness does demand a response from us - a response of faithfulness. Let s think together for this Sunday about what it means to be faithful in response to the gift of forgiveness. This evening at 7 pm you are invited to Calvary United Methodist Church in West Philadelphia (48th and Baltimore) for the Big Push New Year No Fear Concert. This is the Christmas concert that got postponed this year. $10 donation will be requested. Read: Psalm 27:1, 4-9; Matthew 4: Jan. 29, 2016 Social Holiness and Scripture is the sermon which concludes our Covenant series. We examine this Sunday how our dedication to a just society is supported by a foundation in Bible study - by having a common source of wisdom and ethics to guide our work. This afternoon at 3 pm POWER Metro will hold an assembly to follow up on our Founding Convention last February. The place will be announced in the next couple of weeks. Please hold the date and time. Read: Micah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 PLANNING YOUR WILL? Find our online donation site at The first time you make a gift, you input your routing information from your bank account, and after that you can make gifts any time you want without a checkbook or credit card! Thanks for Keep St. Luke Ministries Alive for Decades Name St. Luke in your will as a beneficiary of your investment account. Don t forget to fill out the Five Wishes form to act as your living will. Questions? Talk to Jim McDermott or Rick Hellberg 5

6 February-Upcoming Events Feb. 19 Mission ConneXion, serving a meal at Grace Cafe, Arch St. UMC Feb. 26 Annual Soup Lunch after church 6