St. John's United Methodist Church, Rohnert Park

05/16/2026

How Many R's Are In Church? -

05/07/2026

From Franklin Graham in honor of today's National Day of Prayer:
Lord,

We are thankful for the abundant blessings You have bestowed on America. Our forefathers looked to You as Protector, Provider, and the Promise of hope. But we have wandered far from that firm foundation. May we repent for turning our backs on Your faithfulness.

We pray that this great nation will be restored by Your forgiveness.

From bo***ge, You grant freedom.

Through Your own sacrifice, You offer salvation.

From the state of despair, You offer peace.

From the bounties of Heaven, You have blessed – not because of our goodness – but by Your grace.

You have given us freedom to worship You in spirit and in truth as Your holy Word instructs. May our lives honor You in word and deed. May our nation acknowledge that all good things come from the Father above.

President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that our nation should set apart a day for national prayer to confess our sins and transgressions in sorrow, “yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon… announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”

“We have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our own hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own… we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us! It behooves us then… to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

Help us to pray earnestly for our president and leaders who govern, that they will humble themselves and seek Your guidance so that everything we do will shine the light of Your glory in a darkened world.

May our prayers as a people and a nation be heard and blessed for such a time as this. We make this plea in faith, believing in the mighty name of Jesus our Lord.

Amen

05/02/2026

How Many R's Are In Church? -

Last week, we began with Re-Formation - taking an honest look at what needs to be cleared so something new can take root. But clearing space is only the beginning. This week, we ask what comes next: if faith is meant to change how we live, are we actually willing to move? As we gather at the table,....

04/25/2026

Clearing What Doesn't Belong -

04/18/2026

They Knew It Was The Lord -

04/11/2026

Peace Be With You -

Easter doesn't end the story; it begins something that takes time to unfold. This Sunday, we step into the space where that reality doesn't feel so clear, where faith feels uncertain and questions are real. If Easter didn't settle everything for you, you're not alone and you're not doing it wrong. T...

04/05/2026

When What You Want Isn’t What Resurrection Is Doing

This Sunday we gather for Easter, but what we are really stepping into is resurrection.

Resurrection is not interested in simply giving us back what we lost.
Most of us come hoping for restoration. We want life to return to normal, wounds to be repaired, losses to be reversed, and what changed to somehow be undone. That desire is understandable and deeply human, but this is not what resurrection does.

It does not restore the old world. It creates a new one.

There are moments when what we want is not what resurrection is doing.

We want familiarity, but resurrection is forming something unfamiliar.

We want recovery, but resurrection is initiating creation.

We want the past returned, but resurrection is moving us into a future we do not yet recognize.

That is where our discomfort lives because resurrection does not cooperate with nostalgia.

It is not trying to take you back. It is trying to make you new.

The question is not whether you believe in resurrection as an idea, but whether you are willing to be interrupted by it.

Are you still asking God to restore what was, or are you willing to receive what God is resurrecting?

This Sunday, come ready for that disruption - not the return of your old life, the beginning of a different one.

What you want may not be what resurrection is doing, but what resurrection is doing is always more than what you wanted.

St. John's UMC - 5150 Snyder Lane, Rohnert Park - 10:00 a.m.

04/04/2026

When Nothing Seems to Change

Scripture: Matthew 27:59–60

After Jesus dies, His body is placed in a tomb, sealed and guarded. The story, at least from the outside, looks finished.

Saturday sits in the space between what has happened and what comes next. The worst has already unfolded. There is no visible sign that anything is changing. For those closest to Him, it would have felt like everything they trusted had come to an end.

That kind of waiting is not unfamiliar. It is the place where life feels stalled, where prayers seem unanswered, and where hope can feel distant or uncertain. It can feel like absence, like being left in the middle of something unfinished.

This part of the story holds a quiet truth: just because we cannot see movement does not mean nothing is happening. Some of the most important work unfolds beneath the surface in ways we only recognize later.

Here is the question for today: Where in your life does it feel like nothing is changing even though you are longing for it to?

If you have ever wondered whether your life could actually change, this may be the hardest place to believe it but not the wrong one.
Invitation:

If you are in that in-between space, tomorrow matters more than you think. Come and hear what happens next.

St. John's UMC - 5150 Snyder Lane, Rohnert Park - 10:00 a.m.

04/04/2026

Resurrection Sunday -