Embrace All Reconciling Community

02/13/2022

“I want to go to a dying church”
By Keith Lewis

I want to go to a dying church
I want to sit in the pews of an aging congregation with wrinkled faces and wise hands.
I want my kids to have a couple friends and 36 new grandparents.
I want a retired school teacher to slip my boys a silver dollar when he comes down our aisle.

I want to go to a church that made hard choices and paid for it.
I want a church that will let me leave with dignity if I ever need to go, that doesn’t claim to be anything other than a small part of the body of Christ.
I want a church that split when they ordained women 35 years ago and split again when the pastor performed her first gay wedding.
I want to sit by parishioners who cried when their friends left for the thriving non-denominational worship center across town that puts bloody aborted fetuses on billboards.

I want to go to a church that chose love, a church where the gay organist cried when his husband was ordained.
Where the congregants try to use the pronouns they/them/their for the 17-year-old trans kid who comes alone but never sits alone.
I want a church that makes hard choices, that will ‘do what is right, let the consequence follow.’

Because that is exactly what Jesus did.
Jesus led a dying movement.
His friends betrayed him.
His father forsook him in the garden.
And only a few women stood by his cross and cared for his body.

That’s what I want my boys to learn about God.
Even if Sunday school only has a couple other kids.

11/03/2020

Love one another as God has loved you. Especially in these unsettled times.

Instead, be kind and merciful, and forgive others, just as God forgave you because of Christ.

09/10/2020

Please consider attending the virtual Church Council meeting on September 21st. They are meeting to approve the proposed budget, which includes eliminating two positions, reducing a third, and is predicated on the building remaining closed through the first quarter next year. A letter is forthcoming from Finance and Church Council, but if you have any interest at all in Calvary, you really must engage and attend. As soon as I get the details on how to attend, I will email and post them here.

07/07/2020

But I am giving you a new command. You must love each other, just as I have loved you.

03/06/2020

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1 John 4:7 CEV

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

02/28/2020

An updated chart comparing the various plans to be considered at GC2020.

This chart summarizes and compares proposals to General Conference 2020 about the future of The United Methodist Church. The chart does not include plans from individuals and may be updated after all legislation is published.

02/27/2020

Reminder of tonight's membership meeting: 7pm at Calvary United Methodist Church, 403 South Main Street, Mount Airy 21771; Room 110. All are welcome!

02/14/2020

Great video. Well worth the time.

A conversation about God, the Church and the LGBTQ Community

01/13/2020

A short interview about the mediation process that allowed the Protocol for Separation to be drafted.

(RNS) — 'I thought that the church and what it stands for and its impact on the day-to-day lives of people was important and that we should step up and try and preserve that, which hopefully we've done,' says Feinberg.