“My Banned Black History Sermons” is now in print

From The South Carolina Uited Methodist Advocate:

A new book from the Advocate Press has been released just in time for Black History Month.

Called “My Banned Black History Sermons,” the book from the Rev. Amiri Hooker features a number of sermons that were rejected from a sermon website because they didn’t align with the site’s view’s about biblical history. Some of the sermons maintain that Jesus was Black and came from Africa.

“As someone with 30 years of preaching experience, 20 of those years ordained in The United Methodist Church, I believe the concept of a Black Jesus is not out of line with Scripture,” Hooker wrote in the book’s preface. “In the midst of the current climate marked by the surge in White Christian nationalism and evangelical divisiveness, I sense that it’s an ideal time to explore the concepts surrounding a cultural perspective of Jesus as Black.

“This is also a prime time for all faith groups to be exposed to Black history sermons that speak to relevant theologies of the post COVID-19 world.”

The book is available from the Advocate at https://advocatesc.org/store/books/my-banned-black-history-sermons and on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTFJRZWJ

An Advent Devotion from Rev. Dr. Lenore Hosier, member of United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR)

The following was written by Rev. Dr. Lenore Hosier and is taken from a Methodist Federation for Social Action Advent Devotion series. Please support MFSA with a contribution.

Advent Devotion 5: December 21, 2022

The House of the Watchers:

Reflections from Beit Sahour, Palestine

Luke 2:8-20

While I had passed through Beit Sahour on my earlier trips to Palestine, it was on my trip in 2009 when I went with Global Ministries as one of our conference Mission Ambassadors where I was first introduced to the reality “on the ground” in that little town bordering up against Bethlehem. As part of our immersion experience, I was dropped off at the home of a local Palestinian Christian family to enjoy true Middle Eastern hospitality as I stayed in their home for the night. I confess, it was intimidating to go alone into a home in a strange town with people who seemed so different than those back home. I was not even sure if I would be able to communicate since I did not speak Arabic. There we sat, me with the husband, wife and five children from infant to teen, not quite sure where to begin. What began with food around their kitchen table, though, turned into laughter and stories that lasted well into the night.

Fast forward thirteen years, and I can share that I am still in contact with my family in Beit Sahour. I have spent many a wonderful meal at their table and have even enjoyed a few family weddings. I still do not speak Arabic, but I know a lot more than I used to know, mostly from the kids as we sat in their home playing cards and talking about life. Their eldest daughter has come to spend time with my family here in Pennsylvania, and I have had the privilege of seeing the “baby” of the family grow into a handsome, teenage boy. None of this would have been possible, though, if I (and this family) had not been open to God showing up in a new and unexpected manner.

Reading this very familiar passage from the Gospel of Matthew as we prepare to enter into the Celebration of the Birth of Christ, my mind immediately goes to those sloping, rocky hills of Beit Sahour where tradition locates those watching shepherds not far from Bethlehem, very close to my friends’ home. The shepherds sat there that night watching their sheep in the dark of the night, no streetlights to break through the darkness, probably only a glowing fire to warn away predators that might come looking to steal a sheep or two.

The name Beit Sahour translates into something like “house of the watchers.” The shepherds might have thought they were just watching over their flocks, but the Scripture reminds us that they saw so much more there on the hillside that night. Luke tells us that what they saw made them fearful, but they did not turn tail and run away. Instead, they heeded the “good news” of the angels. Despite the fact they were intimidated, nervous and even afraid, they were curious enough to see how God was going to show up in a new way, so they went to check it out for themselves.

And God did. God showed up in an unexpected manner as a little baby in swaddling clothes, born to a virgin, teenage mother and her carpenter husband. The Lord came to Earth in human form, and it was the unexpected shepherds that were the first to come to worship the newborn king. They were open to God doing something new and amazing while so many others missed it!

So, as we go through Advent, may we set aside our preconceived ideas, our fears, and our assumptions, as well. May we be open to sitting at the table together with those unlike us, maybe to share a meal, stories, laughter and even tears with our Palestinian and Israeli brothers and sisters. May we be watching to see what God might do in our midst, even through us, in unexpected ways.

I hope that we can be like those shepherds, too, in our willingness to glorify and praise God in what we have seen and heard. Despite the struggles that are experienced daily in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza, God is still at work. Throughout this season, keep your eyes open and watch to see how God is moving amongst us so that we might proclaim God’s goodness wherever we go!

Prayer: Gracious God, open our eyes during this season of preparation to see what you would have us to see. May our eyes not grow weary from watching, our heads not start to droop with fatigue or complacency, our spirits not become distracted and discouraged despite all the heartaches in our world today. Keep our eyes looking towards Jesus, our Prince of Peace, that we might experience your Peace today and every day. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Hosier is an ordained elder in the Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church. She earned a D.Min. from Colgate Rochester Crozer in Peacebuilding and Interfaith Dialogue and completed her thesis work on the African American experience in the Methodist Tradition. Hosier has served local churches in her conference, spent almost three years serving cross-culturally/cross-racially as a Mission Volunteer with GBGM and now serves as an interfaith prison chaplain. She has travelled to Israel and Palestine on 16 trips since 2006 and continues to stay engaged with the people and the land by educating others in the Church and beyond through her work with UMKR.

Advent Devotion 4: December 14, 2022 Zechariah 9:9 By Rev. Brandee Jasmine Mimitzraiem

The following thoughtful devotion is taken from the most recent Methodist Federation for Social Action bulletin.

May this devotion move us and disturb us into taking action.

Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jersualem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.”

The crimson of Christmas-to-come can carry a different meaning for the infertile. Hidden in the shadows of city sidewalks, behind the anticipation of the birth of the Child so easily conceived, Advent for infertile and low-fertility women can come with the silent dread of seeing a crimson ribbon where none should be.

I went home for Christmas, after a compassionless ob/gyn giddily announced that I would not be burdened with the ability to conceive children, on crutches. I was moving too fast, carrying too much, and had rolled down a flight of marble stairs. I couldn’t navigate the shopping malls or the piles of snow. I stayed behind while my family members went out. The babysitter. The aunty who could not have her own. Resigned to her fate.

Somehow, we all managed to get to church on the third Sunday of Advent. My mom’s pastor preached the first reading, Zechariah 9:9. “Rejoice,” he said, “for everything you desire is coming soon. Be joyful in the expectation of your wildest dreams coming true.” I hobbled back to my mom’s house, with two sprained ankles and a torn meniscus, feeling the pain of ovaries wrapped in cysts and a uterus that the doctor said would remain empty, and I wondered where the joy was for me, who deeply desired children, but whose physician rejoicingly declared that I would not be one of the scores of Black women who would “suffer through that.” I felt defeated, invisible, and no matter how many times I heard the words “rejoice, O Daughter” ring from my mom’s recording of Handle’s Messiah (or its Joyful Celebration), I could find no cause for rejoicing.

I wonder if the daughters of Jerusalem and daughters of Zion who heard Zechariah’s prophecy felt the same way. Known by their relationships, Zechariah calls out to the women as daughters. Not the mothers. Not the wives. He calls out to the women who were the accidental casualties of a war they did not wage. Rejoice. From the sidelines where they watched the warriors fall. Rejoice. From the margins where they witnessed the mighty be pulled into exile. Rejoice. From the shadows where they heard decisions being made for the nation around them, decisions that did not include them. Rejoice. Unmarried. Cut off from having children. Invisible to the narrative. Rejoice.

We’ve been in a war for abortion rights, this season. Across the United States, we’re battling for access, for the rights of impregnable women to make their own decisions. And in the fringes, on the margins, the infertile and low-fertility shudder in invisibility. The infertile and those of low fertility are the accidental casualties of the battle for abortion rights. Political arguments about the beginning of life – whether at conception or at the first signs of electrical activity – leave fertility clinics, doctors, impregnable people and their families shuddering in the shadows, invisible and unheard. What do these emerging laws mean for the embryos waiting for implantation? What do they mean for the embryos that cannot be implanted? What do they mean for the patient that can conceive but suffers miscarriage after miscarriage, crimson ribbons appearing where they are not welcomed to be? In this battle over the rights of the easily pregnant to choose their own narrative, even those voices crying out in the wilderness, “keep your hands off my uterus” tend to not see the pain of those for whom pregnancy is not simply a choice but is, itself, a battle.
Rejoice.

Perhaps Zechariah’s call to rejoice is not a demand for easy joy, a demand to forget the pain and suffering of exilic life. Perhaps Zechariah’s phrasing of Jerusalem and Zion as daughters – and not mothers or wives – awaiting good news and good tidings is a call for the nations, the community to witness the pain of those marginalized by the battle. Rather than a call for the expectant hope of deliverance at the hands of a king that never came or never existed, perhaps Zechariah calls the daughters to see, simply, that God is present in the midst of their pain. Rather than an easy supercessionist slip into a messianic hope for salvation, perhaps Zechariah calls the community to see that God sees the pain of those at the margins and choose to alleviate the fear therein. Perhaps the rejoicing is not a promise for what is to come but a recognition that the torment and trauma was real and so is the permission to grieve, to heal, and to simply no longer fear. Rejoice.

The Christmas after the Christmas on crutches, I came home in defiant opposition of that doctor. Whatever level of infertility I had, I decided, I would make my body cooperate and bear a child. I came home reeling from multiple failed medicated attempts, never ever wanting to see another red dot or crimson streak. Since I was in charge of decorating the tree, we had a pastel Christmas. And, somewhere deep behind the jingles of joy, I found a trove of sad holiday music. It was a community of tears and, there, I found the possibility of rejoicing. I rejoiced – not in spite of what I lost, not because of the possible fulfillment of all I dreamed, not because of a new hope found – because my pain was shared and vocalized. I was no longer alone. God saw me. I recognized God with me. I rejoiced.

O daughter, whose pregnancy story never makes it to front page news: we see you. Rejoice. O daughter, who hides your tears in the rosiness of frozen cheeks, behind the twinkling of silver bells: God is with you. Rejoice. O daughter, for whom the story of an easy impregnation of a young woman serves as a reminder of your own difficulties: God sees you. Rejoice. O daughter, the trauma of your story has not been swept aside in this battle for sovereignty. Every year, every Christmas, we join our tears in communion with your own. That is rejoicing. O daughter, O aunty, O sister: we remember you, we recognize your pain, we reimagine a future where you are not pressed at the edges of our community. That is rejoicing.

We stand together, rehearsing the words of Zechariah to the daughters left behind after war, exile, and devastation: rejoice, O daughter. Rejoice. Behold – look and see! – God holds and sees you, in your pain. Behold – look and see! – God is with you. Don’t fear disaster. We, too, are with you.

Rejoice.

Bishop William J. Barber, II preaching in Georgia today

Bishop William J. Barber, II was at St. Mary's Road United Methodist Church in Columbus, Georgia today and delivered a powerful message about voting and what's at stake in the runoff election now underway there. What he has to say here affects all of us and every state. What do we take into consideration when we think about politics and vote? Why is what happens in the South so important to the future of the United States?

Quick Banana Pudding

This is another recipe from the "Cooking the Coalwood Way" cookbook put out by the Coalwood, W. Va. Community United Methodist Church, although I made a couple of changes. I know people who go into road rage just pushing a cart through the Walmart so my extra-quick recipe below is for them.

You're going to need:

2 lg. boxes instant vanilla pudding
1 c. sour cream
1 box of vanilla wafers
3 and one-half c. milk
1 large carton Cool Whip
5 or 6 bananas

The recipe says to mix the pudding and milk until smooth. Mix sour cream and Cool Whip together. Add one-half of mixture to pudding mixture. Layer wafers, bananas, and pudding in dessert dish. Top with rest of sour cream mixture. Top with crumbled wafers.

Here is what I did:

I turned on one of those old-time preachers from southern West Virginia on my tablet and let him preach while I cooked. I used two boxes of cook & serve vanilla pudding, made separately. That meant that I used less milk. I left out the Cool Whip and went easy on the sour cream. While the pudding was cooling a little I put the first layer of wafers in, some sour cream, and some of bananas, and then I added the pudding. I made my second batch of pudding and repeated the process. I used mostly wafer crumbs on the second layer. I deliberately put the bananas on top because I like how they age and give me an added incentive to eat. I used 4 very large bananas. I finished just as that preacher was finishing his sermon and blessing everything that we do this evening.

"Why I don't quote the Bible."---Retired Methodist pastor Barbara Nixon and sacred texts

An interesting article by the retired Methodist pastor Barbara Nixon appeared in The Albany Democrat-Herald newspaper of August 13, 2022. The article has the provocative heading "Why I don't quote the Bible." That isn't something that you expect to hear a pastor say. Please read the article before judging.

The sermon that I heard in church this morning was based on Luke 12:49-53. The priest began by admitting that this was one of the most difficult passages for her. She went on to preach an excellent sermon against Christian nationalism and the far-right, but she did not reconcile her views with the scripture reading. How do we understand the challenges of our times in light of Luke 12:49-53? How do we understand and experience scripture and build our lives on it? These are questions to struggle with, and I doubt anyone who is absolutely certain that they have the answers at hand. There can be a holiness in these struggles; let it happen.

Barbara Nixon's opening lines immediately engaged me: 

There are some who understand the Bible to be the direct word of God — flawless in every way that could matter. There are others who say that God is not exactly the author, but those who did write it had a direct line to God as the source.

From both of these understandings comes the view that the Bible is authoritative and contains all God would have us know and believe in order to be saved.

I am among those who see Scripture differently in that the Bible offers many distinct views of God’s interactions with humanity, experienced by various people and recorded by still others, over extensive periods of time.

The Bible is my sacred text, but I do not read it as fact-based history. Rather, it offers insights and interpretations from various writers and editors about how God was experienced in another time and context. Only when carefully read can those understandings be good news in our time and context.

Chair praise with hands clapping---Pastor Kalina Malua Katoa

I find Pastor Kalina to have a special gift for creating calm and bringing us peace as she teaches. I hope that this simple exercise that you can do in your chair brings you some joy. I can't imagine being with her, even on the Web, and not smiling. This is part of a series that Pastor Kalina does, and this series and many of her wonderful sermons can be found on YouTube. 

  

Listen carefully to these Spirit-filled women

Foundry UMC Worship & Prayer with Cassandra Lawrence 7/20/22

Chair praise dance with Pastor Kalina Malua Katoa

 Do this every morning and start your day with praise...

She is a great pastor. I always enjoy hearing her and seeing her.

Some Real Talk About Social Justice

 

On Dogs, Religion & Salvation, Rigidity & Beauty

Introduction

This is a two-part post with the common thread of how our experiences with animals can connect us to the divine and how our experiences with animals can lead to a universalism and a rejection of certain kinds of dogmatic rigidity.

The first post was written by Chuck F. Queen and was taken from the Progressive Methodists Facebook page with Chuck's permission.

The second post comes from me.

I do not share the view that rigid and conservative people, including Christians, can't or shouldn't change. I don't think that their refusal to change in the face of facts and Scripture and outstanding human needs and planetary crises is okay. More needs to be said here about organizing and solidarity. But I do appreciate the universalism and humanism expressed here and the insight into how anxiety drives rigidity and conservatism and the conservative appropriation of religion.

First Part---Chuck F. Queen

Julie, our Down Syndrome adult daughter who lives in our home, has a little dog named Cuma, part Yorkie and part Chiwawa. Cuma has been a means God has used to teach me about God’s love. Cuma needs to be loved, and you see her cry for love and affection in her eyes and face. She is up in age now and there are days when it is obvious she is hurting, because her face reflects it. I can see the suffering of creation in her eyes. When she was young and full of life and energy, she would bark continuously at people or animals she saw outside, which would sometimes drive us crazy. Now, with her health failing and loss of energy, there are days we will place her in front of the open front door to encourage her to bark. Sometimes that works. What always seems to work, however, is the prospect of table food, and I’m the easy pick. She can no longer jump down from the couch, so if she sees me pull up to the table she starts yelping to be lifted down to the floor so she can come over and get some food. She has always been a highly anxious dog and that hasn’t changed. If someone she is unfamiliar with enters our house, she barks and barks and barks. I pick her up, hold her, pet her head which she loves, and say, “Cuma, this is a good person; she is not going to hurt you.” But no matter what I do, she is going to keep barking. She cannot see what is through her anxiety.

There are many, many religious people, Christian people just like Cuma. They are blind to the oneness of creation and to the universality of the indwelling Spirit. They think their faith is the right, correct faith; that only through their Jesus can a person know their God. Their ego will not allow them to believe that we are all children of God, that we are all one people, that we all belong, that we all live within the force field of God’s unconditional love regardless of what stage we are in along the path of moral and spiritual evolution. Their ego insists that others must be “saved” in the same way they think they are saved, not realizing that “salvation” is a process of becoming. They make scripture bend to their programmed beliefs to justify their faith in a tribal God. And no matter how much we try to shake their foundation, no matter how excellent and often we reason with them using the best logic and common sense available, all our efforts tend to be futile. Like Julie’s little dog, Cuma, they are not going to change. And God will speak softly to them and draw then close like I do for Cuma, and keep loving them, and they will go to their grave believing and worshiping and serving a little, tribal god. And God will welcome them and love them and enlighten them as they are able to receive it.

And that is what we must do. We don’t need to yield to them or bend to their will or in any way cater to their exclusive Christian beliefs and practices. If we are living within the flow of God’s Spirit, we will keep on loving them, accepting that in all likelihood they are not going to change (at least not in this lifetime). And that is okay. I was as dogmatic and exclusive in my Christian faith as anyone at one time, but then a crack opened in my ego and the light burst forth. It does happen. Not often, but there are breakthroughs. God needs a few people who will keep at it, praying, sharing, teaching, reasoning, writing, talking, arguing, and all the while loving and hoping a crack will appear that will let the light in. And when it does, when it happens, like the shepherd who found the one lost sheep, there is much joy and gratitude.

Second Part---Bob Rossi

Many years ago when I lived in West Virginia I heard about a woman in a community pretty far out of the way who had some hounds for sale. Hounds are my favorite breeds and I went out to find her and take a look. She showed me to the barn and yard where the dogs lived. It was feeding time so she set out some trays of food and a litter of puppies and their mama came running out of the barn.

One dog in particular, the only male of the litter, made it out first by pushing, bumping, and jumping ahead. But he didn't eat the food. Instead, he grabbed the main tray in his mouth and dragged it going backwards as the other puppies charged. He backed up with the tray in his mouth all of the way to the fence, or about six feet. And then he tried to push his sisters away. 

Now, I knew right then that I wanted that dog. Any of those others would have made great companions and hunting dogs, but I liked that little guy's spirit and sense of humor. I bought him and we had a pretty good time together.

I think about that adventure quite often these days. You can focus on something that is good or functional or smart and you will be okay. And I do understand that you need to look at everything from many different angles in order to understand what you're looking at, know history, and understand context and development. But, you know, I used to look in that dog's eyes and watch it pick up and follow a scent or watch it running through the brush with what I'm sure was a smile and know that that dog was part of a history that I did not share. There were times when I knew that that dog had an entirely different intelligence and had sense that I lacked. There is a great beauty in that, and beauty has to figure in to this.

What's my point? Well, when I hear someone talking about religion or politics or organizing and solidarity these days I think more often about whether or not beauty and history intersects in what they're talking about. I say this after almost 30 years spent as a union organizer: every project that we embark on in order to find salvation or make change should be a work of beauty, following its indigenous directions and intelligence with spirit and a sense of humor. And you should be able to hear the echo of what we're doing as if you were there with us in the dark night in an abandoned strip mine full of Jerusalem Artichokes us much as we could hear the hounds miles ahead when we went hunting. And we would pause, look up at the sky and follow the stars and the dogs leading us up far ahead in the darkness and know that we were never really going to get lost. Our movement and our salvation needs to work like that.

I think about the bad things going on in the world today. I fight back---not as hard as I should, though. But I also know that I'm in this for as long as I draw breath, and in order to stay in the fight I have to look at things sometimes as if there is a pack of hounds there in front of me and I get to take one home and into my heart. I watch for that one thing that crosses my path every day that has spirit and humor, history and strength, to it and I try to hold on to that and let the rest go on.       

7 VERSES CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS MUST IGNORE

I'm not sure if I agree with everything said in this post or not, but I do agree with its central points: This comes from Jim Rigby writing on the Progressive Methodists Facebook page.

7 VERSES CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS MUST IGNORE

“A TIME FOR EVERY PURPOSE UNDER HEAVEN”
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 is a strange little passage that rejects any rigid moral absolutes. Instead, Ecclesiastes says “To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.”

“THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR HUMANS NOT HUMANS FOR THE SABBATH”
Fundamentalists sometimes attack progressives as "humanists." In Mark 2:27 Jesus defends those who place human need over religious institutions. He says the Sabbath (perhaps a metaphor for all religion) was always intended to serve human beings not the other way around. The Sabbath was understood as a call to value human rights and ecological sustainability over religious rules and institutions long before Christianity.

“LITERALISM KILLS”
2 Corinthians 3:6 says, “God has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” If Christianity is to be a religion of love it must come from internalized compassion not heartless and mindless obedience to an external law.

“THE NEW COVENANT OF CHRISTIANITY DOES NOT DISPLACE JUDAISM”
The “new” covenant was being talked about long before Christianity. Jeremiah and Isaiah both spoke of a new covenant for Israel that would be written in people’s hearts and minds not just in external codes (See Jeremiah 31:31-38)

“JUSTICE IS NOT LIMITED BY ANY BORDER”
Leviticus 19: 34 says, “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am your God.” Deuteronomy 27:19 goes even further, “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the orphan or the widow.” Capitalistic Christian nationalism completely rejects this foundation.

YOU CAN’T LOVE GOD AND HATE PEOPLE
The First Epistle of John says in chapter 4 that we can’t love God and be indifferent to human beings. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates a member of their human family, that person is a liar; for one who does not love their human family whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. And this commandment we have from Jesus: whoever loves God must also love their human family”

“WHOEVER HAS LOVE HAS GOD”
The Epistle of John also says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” In other words, a loving Atheist is closer to the message of Christ than a loveless Christian.

And a note from us:

May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

 

"Shepherd Me, O God" by Joyful Noise

 

From the Progressive Methodists Facebook page: Love the sinner or love our neighbors?

Hymn 560 in the United Methodist Hymnal is titled “Help Us Accept Each Other.” It is a catchy little tune of self-congratulation that is indicative of a church that no longer has anything left to say. If Jesus came so that we would merely accept each other, then there’s no good reason for him to die on a cross. You only kill someone when their very being in the world threatens to upend everything you think you know about the world.

The “church of acceptance” leads to the fundamentally unchristian sentiment of “Love The Sinner, Hate The Sin.” We all know we’re supposed to love sinners, that’s what Jesus did. And yet, Jesus does not call us, his followers, to love sinners, but to love our neighbors.

The distinction is important. “Loving sinners” places us in the position of power in regard to others whereas “loving neighbors” reminds us that we, ourselves, are also sinners.

 

"Health care is a basic human right."---A church weighs in

 

Salem First United Methodist Church Sunday Worship Services

MICAH Building---Contemporary Service
680 State Street,
Salem, OR. 97301

Salem First United Methodist Church (Historic Sanctuary)---Traditional Service
600 State St, Salem, OR 97301

 

Special Sunday For United Methodist Church Faithful: Native American Ministries---And a good word from Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston of the Native American/Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church

But even if you don't attend a United Methodist Church you can support Native American communities with a commitment to social justice, humility and providing solidarity! We are all on the lands of indigenous peoples.

From the Native American/Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church:

"I feel my ancestors near me. I feel them standing close. I can hear their breathing. They are that present. And I know why they are here, even without asking. The ones who have gone before know what we are going through. They have walked this path of pain; they have made their share of sacrifice and courage. They have come to help us in our own time of struggle. They are here to add their strength to ours. So look up, whoever you are, look up and be hopeful. Your ancestors are reaching out to you, and perhaps without even knowing it: you have been reaching out to them."

---The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston

And...

"I live in the backyard of faith, the one I knew over seventy years ago. I am still there, among the fireflies and moths, running beneath the pale liquid of the moon, turning my memory to a watercolor, and my hope into a small dog who loved me. The warm air is wrapped around my skinny legs, the night sounds a symphony of crickets. I am still there, all these years later, in my heart and in my mind, innocent of what was to come, but already deep into what would last through it all. On warm summer evenings I still search for the source of the whisper I heard that night: the one that knew my name."

---The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston

And...

"If you listen very carefully, when the world around you seems silent, even if only for a moment, you can sometimes hear the sound of a single voice, singing softly. It is a mother singing to her child. Somewhere, far out there, on the other side of the world, a young woman has captured the whole meaning of life into one song, the one she is singing to the most precious thing in her life, the baby for whom she cares. Listen carefully with your heart, open you soul to hear it, even if only for an instant. For in that distant lullaby is the sum and center of all we hold sacred: the unconditional love of one human being for another."

---The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston

 

"Seeing Jesus"---Dallas Indian United Methodist Church April 24, 2022 Sermon

 

Native American Ministries Sunday Will Be On May 1 This Year. See Details below.

The official date set to celebrate Native American Ministries Sunday is May 1, 2022. We encourage churches to celebrate on a date that is most convenient for your congregation. Resources to celebrate and promote this Special Sunday can be found here.

This is being done by the United Methodist Church, but it seems reasonable to me that other churches could do this as well.

Please go here for more information.

What is Native American Ministries Sunday?

Native American Ministries Sunday serves to remind United Methodists of the gifts and contributions made by Native Americans to our society and in our communities. With more than 20,000 Native Americans within the denomination, this Special Sunday helps to ensure that Native American United Methodist leaders are recognized and to celebrate their special voice in The United Methodist Church.

This Special Sunday was officially recognized in 1988 and has been celebrated on the Third Sunday of Easter since 1989. An offering is taken on this day and is used to develop and strengthen Native American ministries in the annual conferences, and Native American rural, urban, reservation ministries and communities. It also provides scholarships for Native Americans attending United Methodist schools of theology.

Donations support vital ministries and churches in the Native American communities and allow The UMC to partner with existing native ministries to develop new programs on behalf of Native Americans. Half of the donations collected remain within the Annual Conference to provide hope to children and youth, hope for a brighter future in impoverished communities and a voice to those who have felt voiceless for years. This fund is distributed by the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

When you give generously on Native American Ministries Sunday, you equip seminary students who honor and celebrate Native American culture in their ministries. You empower congregations to find fresh and culturally appropriate ways to minister to their communities with Christ’s love.

Read information on the 2021-2024 Quadrennial Vision For Native American Ministries

Did you know we have resources to celebrate Native American Ministries Sunday?

Click here for everything you need to inspire and empower your congregation to give generously.

Need more information about Native American Ministries Sunday?
Click here to find out about our rich and long history of generosity. Our hope is to inspire you to learn more about the work we accomplish together through the ministry we call connectional giving.

Give Now!

To give by mail:Send checks to: GCFA
P.O. Box 340029
Nashville, TN 37203

Please put name of Sunday in note section.