Healdton United Methodist Church

10/05/2021

"Carmela Full of Wishes" is a book from Newbery Medal winner Matt De La Peña and Caldecott Honor winner Christian Robinson. It tells the story of Carmela, who has to decide on her birthday wish, and highlights the special bond of brothers and sisters, and what it means to be an immigrant in the United States.

Find children's books that celebrate family, community, and culture, during . We've got a few suggestions: http://ow.ly/P6en50Gh8i6 📖

10/05/2021

Protecting the right to vote and instituting campaign finance reform is a moral imperative.

02/14/2021

Due to the extreme weather there will be services at HUMC today

01/28/2021

Looking to make a difference with Church and Society?

Applications for the Summer EYA Internship Program now open!

Apply by March 15th: http://ow.ly/svj650CgafN

01/21/2021

For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.

11/26/2020

Love thy neighbor
Wear a mask

11/16/2020

Year Four Poem #1208

Will the Circle Be Unbroken

The circle is getting smaller you said
In the spring we only knew someone
Who knew someone, who knew someone
Who had COVID
Then in the summer we knew someone
Who knew someone
And now this November
We all know someone
Who has it
And we all know someone who is really sick
Or who has succumbed
And doctors and nurses are begging
But you’re not listening
You’re dying to go to your family
This Thanksgiving, many of you will
But hospital beds are brimming already
And hospital morgues are burgeoning
And still you’re not listening.
I heard from a friend who was an incredible nurse
He’s retiring early
I heard from another friend who is an incredible nurse
He calls where he works “Camp COVID”
I’m retiring too, this January 10th
This was planned, but it comes none too soon
I’m not the last one out the door
There are many who are exhausted
Tired of those who don’t care about them
They didn’t sign up for this lack
Of empathy
They didn’t sign up to care for those
Who don’t give a damn about other’s lives
The ones whose slogan was
Make American great again?
The circle is getting smaller you said
1:140 people in Denver are infected
Still the city bustles
Watching the hospitals bulge
Watching the hospitals turn away
Those who have no chance
Of recovery
Meter out care, choose amongst us.
Asking us for our advanced directives
Our power of attorney
Do we want to be a DNR?
Go on the ventilator?
Telling us there will be no visitors
Telling us how shorthanded they are
Telling us how there is no cure
Telling us there is no way to know
No way to tell
How small the circle is going to get
Before it tightens around you
Before it’s broken.

Lynn Kincanon

11/15/2020

https://youtu.be/ibo3tWRU6ws

11/09/2020

The Lord says: “My thoughts and my ways are not like yours. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, my thoughts and my ways are higher than yours. “Rain and snow fall from the sky. But they don’t return without watering the earth that produces seeds to plant and grain to eat.
Isaiah 55:8-10 -

The LORD says: “My thoughts and my ways are not like yours. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, my thoughts and my ways are higher than yours. “Rain and snow fall from the sky. But they don’t return without watering the earth that produces seeds to plant and grain to eat.

11/09/2020

Week Forty-five

The Transforming Power of Love




Love Your Enemies
Monday, November 9, 2020


You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I say unto you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. —Matthew 5:43–45
In the United States few public figures have spoken more plainly and powerfully about Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies than the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This was not an abstract theological question for Dr. King. He wrestled practically and at great cost with how to love his enemies, both through prayer and through nonviolent direct action. This passage is an excerpt from King’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies.”
When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. . . .
Probably no admonition of Jesus has been more difficult to follow than the command to “love your enemies.” Some people have sincerely felt that its actual practice is not possible. It is easy, they say, to love those who love you, but how can one love those who openly and insidiously seek to defeat you? . . .
This command of Jesus challenges us with new urgency. Upheaval after upheaval has reminded us that modern humanity is traveling along a road called hate, in a journey that will bring us to destruction. . . . Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to love one’s enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival. Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of our world. Jesus is not an impractical idealist: he is the practical realist.
I am certain that Jesus understood the difficulty inherent in the act of loving one’s enemy. He never joined the ranks of those who talk glibly about the easiness of the moral life. He realized that every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God. So when Jesus said “Love your enemy,” he was not unmindful of its stringent qualities. Yet he meant every word of it. Our responsibility as Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it out in our daily lives. . . .
When Jesus bids us to love our enemies, he is speaking of neither eros [romantic love] nor philia [reciprocal love of friends]; he is speaking of agape, understanding and creative, redemptive goodwill for all people. Only by following this way and responding with this type of love are we able to be children of our Father who is in Heaven.
Richard again: This is a timely reminder to Christians around the world. We must ask ourselves “What would it mean to seek to embody love as ‘creative, redemptive goodwill’ on behalf of all living things?”

11/09/2020

https://upperroom.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1b5f1dafae8900da3ef72c04d&id=0289e83274&e=7360110240

Today’s Reflection The Lord is gentle; the Lord is slow to anger; the Lord is gracious. But the Lord is also just. The Lord is also faithful. God gives you space for correction, but you love the delay of judgment more than the amendment of your ways. Have you been bad yesterday? Today be […]

11/03/2020

Today’s Reflection
My soul’s house is cramped. Expand it, so that you may enter in. It is in ruins. Restore it. It must offend your eyes. I confess and know it, but who will cleanse it? To whom shall I cry but to you? Clear me from hidden faults, O Lord, and keep back your servant also from those of others. I believe, and therefore I speak. Lord, you know. Did I not confess my transgressions to you, O my God? You forgave the guilt of my heart.

—Upper Room Spiritual Classics: Writings of Augustine, Edited by Keith Beasley-Topliffe (Upper Room Books, 2017)

Today’s Question
What spiritual practices help you confess and then receive forgiveness? Join the conversation.

Today’s Scripture
For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.”

—Hebrews 8:12 (NRSV)

Prayer for the Week
Try this suggested prayer practice this week:
1. Sit comfortably, close your eyes, and remember that God loves you and you are in God’s presence.
2. Imagine God calling you by name, asking “(Your name), what do you want?”
3. Answer God honestly with whatever word or phrase comes from deep within you.
4. Call God by name, a name you frequently use for God.
5. Combine your name for God with your word or phrase to form a brief prayer that flows smoothly.
Submit your prayer to The Upper Room.

Something More
Join The Upper Room in prayer for the U.S. Election. Visit The Upper Room page on today, November 3rd at 11 a.m. (CST) for guided prayer. Regardless of any divisions we have over perspective or politics, let us join together and pray. Save the date, and save the link: facebook.com/UpperRoomCenter

Lectionary Readings
(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78:1-7
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

The Upper Room is a global ministry dedicated to helping Christians create daily life with God.