Centenary Community

10/18/2026

It was a full weekend at Centenary with Mercer volunteers sprucing up the community garden, free yoga, driving to the polls, and a great time of worship! What a great fall weekend in community!

10/18/2026

Join us for Sunday Worship online or in person at 11:00AM, as we "Abide in Love" with the continuation of our Love Your Neighbor sermon series.

10/17/2026

Grab a sweater and come on out to celebrate the arrival of these Fall temperatures. Join us in the morning for worship at 11:00AM, as Pastor Sara continues the Love Your Neighor sermon series.

10/16/2026

Two great fall festivals coming up! We are partnering with First Baptist Church of Christ and Mulberry UMC to have a fun fall festival with bouncy houses, games, and trunk or treats! Join us at Mulberry UMCs parking lot and let us know if you’d like to be a trunk in the trunk or treat or if you’d like to help at one of the activities.

Then Wednesday October 28 from 5:30-7pm we’ll have our fall festival and pumpkin party at Centenary! Vicki and her kitchen crew will have a delicious taco dinner prepared and then pumpkins will be available to paint or carve! RSVP for your pumpkin and dinner and support CCMI through your pumpkin purchase!

Comment below or email at [email protected] for more info or to RSVP!

10/15/2026

Don’t forget to sign up for the Justice Workshop this weekend at Trinity! Let’s join together with our neighbors to learn more together!

Register today for the Justice Workshop at Trinity!

https://onrealm.org/TrinityUnitedMethodistWR/PublicRegistrations/Event?linkString=MmRmNjc3ODAtNDZiMi00NDcwLTkwZDItYjRhZDAxNTBmNDI4

10/15/2026

This weekend in worship we’ll explore the concepts of neighboring with many of these echoes. How can we move from othering to neighboring in our community?

“The Good Samaritan”
“One does not HAVE a neighbor; I MAKE myself someone’s neighbor” -Paul Ricoeur

This parable from Luke 10 is considered one of the most well known in the gospels. Like many other Christians, I have heard this story hundreds of times. However, it wasn’t until adulthood a mentor gave me a more significant understanding of this story.

When an expert in religious law, a lawyer, asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”, Jesus answers him with this parable. A man traveling down a well known dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho is ambushed by robbers, who steal his possessions, and beat him leaving him “half dead.” Two members of the lawyer’s own religious class pass the man by but the one who does stop is an outsider, a Samaritan, who takes pity on the man, caring for his wounds, and takes him on his donkey to a nearby inn. He is the true neighbor. Jesus tells them to go and do likewise. The Jewish listeners would have winched because at the time Samaritans were considered a member of an excluded group, an ‘other’. Jesus is giving the lawyer a lesson in God’s law of love.

In his short essay on this parable Paul Ricoeur notes that the Gospel would completely condemn the modern world. Jesus is telling us that we don’t simply HAVE neighbors. We MAKE ourselves someone’s neighbor. This is a very anti-modern attitude. Through a modern world of fences, borders, screens, social media, ring cameras, automobiles, etc. we are increasingly living in an age of a dehumanized world of abstract, anonymous and distant relationships. Many often using, religion, politics or “the law” to distance themselves from the wounded and most vulnerable people in our communities. Immigrants, refugees, single mothers, the unhoused, and those in prison. Like all of the parables, Jesus is using this one for the church to imagine the kind of community it is called to be. The parables are meant to be lived. If you want to love your neighbor you are going to have to go make yourself one.

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10/14/2026

One of the ways that we "love one another" is by voting and helping others to exercise their right to vote as well.

10/13/2026

Early voting has begun! Get out the vote and share your selfies! Want to help with taking our neighbors? Let us know if you can help out!

10/11/2026

Our special guest preacher today is Rev. David Mount sharing the message, "People of Extraordinary Generousity." Join us as you are able at 11:00AM at 1290 College Strreet.

10/10/2026

Listen as Pastor Sara introduces our guest preacher for tomorrow, Rev. David Mount. It's a service you won't want to miss. Rev. Rachel Paul Hartman will also be providing an update on CCMI and the Transitional House.