2024
A Letter from Pastor Andy: April 24, 2024
Dear U Park Family,
Have you ever experienced something that seemed miraculous? Someone is healed from a terminal illness. You know something before it happens. What looks like certain disaster is somehow averted. Someone who couldn’t possibly know your situation somehow does. These things are real. I’ve seen them, and probably you have too.
Of course, sometimes it’s the opposite: those horrible moments when something awful happens for no reason, or a person we love falls on hard times they don’t deserve. Most of us have probably experienced those things too. And as easy as it might be to believe that God is favoring us when things go well, it’s hard (and cruel to ourselves and others) to believe that God decides to make things go badly for us when they don’t. “It’s God’s plan” is cold comfort when we’re grieving. “God is punishing us” is even worse. Human beings have always tried to understand the workings of the universe, and usually we end up mystified.
This Sunday, I’ll conclude our “What Now?” sermon series looking at how the first Christians set the direction of the church, and how in some ways that direction still holds for us today. We’ll be looking at stories from the Book of Acts in which terrible things happen, and how the people of the early church responded. I hope you’ll join us for worship at 9:00 in Wasser Chapel, or at 11:00 in our main Sanctuary. If you can’t be here in person, our worship service will be live on Facebook at 11:00 (https://www.facebook.com/UParkumcdenver/) and uploaded to YouTube by Sunday evening (https://www.youtube.com/c/UniversityParkUMCDenver).
On Mother’s Day, May 12, our Children’s and Care ministry director Bethany Hader Crabbs will be hosting our quarterly Family Sunday School. All ages are invited to gather in the East Fellowship Hall at 10:00 to participate together in games and conversation, and for the adults to gain a sense of what our church’s children are learning in our Sunday School program. The family Sunday School is a fun way to live into our vision of being an intergenerational congregation, and I hope you can be there.
Our celebration Sunday is coming up May 19, as we mark the beginning of our Summer programming for the church. We’ll also be celebrating our congregation’s graduates that day, so if you’re graduating or someone in your family is, email Bethany Hader Crabbs (bcrabbs@uparkumc.org) with a picture of the graduate and information about their degree, diploma, or certificate.
After the 11:00 worship on Celebration Sunday, we’ll have lunch in the courtyard prepared by Chef Stephen Rohs of Painted Bench Catering, and we’ll have a bounce house on the courtyard lawn for the kids of the neighborhood. This is a great day to invite friends to church, especially if they have children or youth in their household or family. That day will also be the last day of our choir’s performing in worship until September, so join us for our 11:00 worship to hear them, or come by at 9:00 and then come back for lunch (or stick around through the morning).
The United Methodist General Conference is meeting this week and next in Charlotte, North Carolina. The General Conference is the meeting of United Methodist delegates from all over the world to make policy and doctrinal decisions for our denomination. General Conferences are usually held every four years, but because of the COVID pandemic in 2020 this will be the first General Conference in 8 years. This year we’ll be editing our Book of Discipline (the United Methodist rule book about church governance, doctrine, and theology) to accommodate the ongoing split in the United Methodist Church. In the next few weeks, as news becomes available and we understand what decisions have been made, I’ll be passing along my thoughts about what the Conference will mean for our congregation and our region. In the meantime, please pray for all the delegates present, that they may be guided by God in making the best possible decisions.
I hope you’re enjoying springtime as much as I am, and I look forward to seeing you at church!
Grace and Peace,
Andy
2024
A Letter from Pastor Andy: April 17, 2024
Dear U Park Family,
I once attended a workshop on church leadership facilitated by the founding Pastor of a large church. Talking about what allowed the congregation to grow from a small group of people meeting in a home to more than ten thousand, he said that the most important characteristic he and his co-leaders tried to build into the church’s culture was the idea that every Christian is called into ministry. “Our church,” he said, “has as many ministers as members.”
It turns out this idea is very old – in fact, it goes back to the earliest groups of Christians who first formed churches. This Sunday, we’ll continue our sermon series “What Now?”, reflecting on the community formed by the early church after they met the resurrected Christ. The first churches organized their ministries so that everyone was invited to belong, and everyone could make meaningful contributions to the work of the church. I hope you’ll join us for worship on Sunday at 9:00 in Wasser Chapel or 11:00 in our main Sanctuary. If you can’t be there in person, we have two online options. We livestream our 11:00 worship on our Facebook page, and then by early evening on Sunday, we post an edited version of our worship on both Facebook and our YouTube channel. (YouTube: @UniversityParkUMCDenver. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UParkumcdenver)
Many thanks to all who’ve contributed to our shoe drive! It’s gone very well and will be wrapping up this weekend. Through your generosity, we’re helping people who need shoes, we’re keeping shoes out of landfills, and we’re helping people in poverty-stricken regions of the world start small businesses. Donating shoes is easy, and if you have time this week you’re welcome to bring them by the church – any style or size will do.
Vacation Bible School is coming up June 10 – 14. Bethany Hader Crabbs, our children’s ministry and care ministry director, is working hard to build on last year’s success. Whenever I can, I love to help out with VBS, and I’ll be there this year. It’s fun to do, it’s a great chance to get to know our church’s children, and you can help our congregation live into our intergenerational vision for ministry. There are spots open for working directly with the children, or for helping out behind the scenes. So if you can help, please contact Bethany at the church (303.722.5736 or bcrabbs@uparkumc.org).
Our youth have the opportunity to go on one of three different mission trips this year. Partnering with St. Andrew UMC, we’ll be offering trips to La Veta, Colorado; John Wesley Ranch outside of Divide; and Alamosa to work with La Puente, the nonprofit agency there helping people out of poverty. If you have youth in your family who might be interested in these trips, contact Lauren Cowden, our Youth Ministry director (lcowden@uparkumc.org).
At our Finance Committee meeting last night, we discussed the good news that the church’s income for the first quarter has been almost exactly what we budgeted! Thanks to all of you who are so diligently keeping up your pledged giving. It’s especially important as we start summer, where church attendance typically decreases somewhat as people go on vacation. Last week, we sent out giving reports for the first quarter of 2024 by email. If you didn’t receive an emailed report, or if you’d like a hard copy, contact me at the church office and we’ll make sure to get one to you.
Finally, please pray for our Annual Conference’s delegates (and all the delegates from across the world) to the upcoming United Methodist General Conference, which starts next week and continues until May 3. The General Conference typically meets every four years, and is the only body empowered to make changes to the governance and structure of the worldwide United Methodist denomination. Because of the COVID pandemic, however, next week’s meeting will be the first General Conference in eight years. In that time, our denomination has split and dramatic changes to United Methodism have taken place. More of those changes are coming, and our delegation will join United Methodists from all over the world to decide on some of the most pressing issues facing us. Later in the year, the same group of delegates will take part in electing new Bishops for the Western U.S., as some of our Bishops will be retiring. I’m proud of the people we’re sending, and glad that they’re representing us – but it will be a long and exhausting few weeks of work, coming on the end of months of preparation. So in all of their work, our delegation needs our prayers.
I hope you’re enjoying this lovely spring, and I hope to see you in church soon!
Grace and Peace,
Andy
2024
A Letter from Pastor Andy: April 10, 2024
Dear U Park Family,
If you could create the perfect church, what would you design?
Would it be a close community, but one that was open to new people? A group passionate about serving the world beyond the walls of the church building? A place where we could talk together about hard questions, remaining one body in Christ even when we passionately disagree? A group of people working hard to live out their highest ideals? A place of profound worship experiences and deep spiritual life? A faith community committed to celebrating one another’s joys and shouldering one another’s burdens?
I think that question is important for two reasons. First, it’s a form of the question faced by the early followers of Jesus after his resurrection. Other messianic movements had arisen and died out; the first Christians were faced with the challenge of building something to last around the teachings of their resurrected Rabbi. So at a time when religious faith is declining, we could learn a thing or two by paying attention to the way of life they built, one that’s still with us 2000 years later. This Sunday, I’ll offer the second in our “What Now?” sermon series, examining the early experiments in Christian community that we read about in the Book of Acts and Paul’s letters. I hope you’ll join us for worship at 9:00 in Wasser Chapel or at 11:00 in our Sanctuary as we look at two passages in the book of Acts.
The second reason that “perfect church” question is important is that we’re engaged in a process of strategic planning. This is our opportunity to move in the direction of that perfect church we envision. We’ve assembled an experienced group of people to coordinate the effort and pull together what we’re learning. Thus far, we’ve set some basic goals and had very thoughtful and helpful discussions with groups in the church including adult Sunday School classes, the Men’s group, governance committees, and others. That process will continue, and you’ll have the chance to offer your thoughts – maybe even more than once. We want to develop a plan that guides our shared ministry for the next five years, and we’ll need your help. We’ll be sending out a congregational survey in the next month or so, and we very much want to hear from you about the goals we should set and how to achieve them.
As I mentioned this past Sunday in worship, we have an opportunity to contribute to a shoe drive through the organization Shoes 4 Good. The sponsoring organization gets shoes on the feet of people who need them, keeping the shoes out of landfills. And some of the shoes will be used to help start small businesses in regions struggling with poverty. You can help this week and this coming Sunday by bringing new or used shoes of any size and style to the church.
Remember too that this Thursday, Jim Van Someren of Metro Caring will join our United Women in Faith (UWF) group with a presentation about Metro Caring’s work to end hunger in our city. I’m delighted that we partner with that agency; I’ve followed their work for years because I believe that they’re one of the best front line food pantries in the city. They not only provide for people’s immediate needs, but work hard to ensure that over the long haul their services will not be needed any longer. I hope that you can be at the UWF meeting on Thursday at 10:00. All are invited.
Finally, we would love to have your help with this year’s Vacation Bible School. The dates are June 10 – 14, and you can work with our church’s children or work behind the scenes to create crafts and refreshments. Last year’s program was our first in five years, and this year will build on last year’s success. I always make it a point to help out at VBS. It gives me valuable time with our church’s children, and always helps me feel better about our future. If you can help, contact Bethany Hader Crabbs at the church or via email at bcrabbs@uparkumc.org.
Grace and Peace,
Andy
2024
A Letter from Pastor Andy: April 3, 2024
Dear U Park Family,
I want to thank all of you who shared such encouraging words during Holy Week and Easter Sunday. The services went well, and a number of people let me know that our worship in this most important week of the Christian year was very meaningful. (You were also very kind in checking in with me to ask whether I was tired. I was, but it was a good tired.)
This coming Sunday, we’ll start a new sermon series called “What Now?” After Easter, after the unexpected and unexplainable resurrection, what do we do? How do we live? The early church had to answer that question, and many of their answers are recorded in the Gospels and the Book of Acts. We’ll look at a variety of responses those first followers of Jesus had, and what they can tell us about our own faith and life today. I hope you’ll join us for worship in Wasser Chapel at 9:00, in the Sanctuary at 11:00, or if you can’t be there in person, that you’ll catch our video worship on Facebook at 11:00 or YouTube later Sunday afternoon.
As we’ll see, one thing the early Apostles did was serve people in need. We have two opportunities coming up to do just that. For the next two Sundays, we’re all invited to contribute shoes we no longer need to a shoe drive. The shoes not only end up on the feet of people who need them, they also stay out of landfills and help employ people here and abroad to process and distribute them. Bring shoes this Sunday and next Sunday; we’ll collect them and make sure they get distributed.
On Thursday April 11, Jim Van Someren of Metro Caring will be at our monthly United Women in Faith meeting. Metro Caring is one of Denver’s premier hunger relief organizations, and Jim will be talking about their innovative approach to ending hunger at its root. Everyone is invited to the meeting on Thursday, April 11 at 10:00 A.M. in the church library.
Earlier this year, our church council approved a process of strategic planning, and that process is moving forward. In the next month or so, all of us will have the opportunity to weigh in on our goals. We’ll send out a congregational survey, both electronically and in hard copy, to ask for your thoughts. Once we’ve settled on goals, we’ll lay out a set of milestones and steps to get us there, and we’ll inform the congregation at every step of the process so that you can offer us your feedback. I’m very grateful to be working with such wise and experienced leadership, and I look forward to what you have to say.
I hope that your Holy Week and Easter were rewarding and fruitful, and that you are enjoying the signs of resurrection all around us!
Grace and Peace,
Andy
2024
A Letter from Pastor Andy: March 28, 2024
Dear U Park Family,
I hope that your Lent has given you opportunities for introspection and time with God. This past Sunday was Palm Sunday, which begins Holy Week. I want to thank JoAnn Gudvangen-Brown, Renae Gudvangen, and our choir for the beautiful Cantata they presented in worship. Many thanks also to Caroline Gilbert and Kathy Hulse, who narrated the cantata. Listening to the music and narration, I was reminded once again of how much a strong music program enriches our worship.
This week, we’ll be walking through the classical Easter “triduum,” the three nights of worship that retell the story of Jesus’s last night with his disciples, his arrest, crucifixion, death, and resurrection. On Thursday evening, we remember the story of Jesus calling his followers to serve one another by kneeling before them and washing their feet. On Good Friday, we’ll reflect on his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, his trial, and his death. Holy Saturday is traditionally considered the first service of resurrection, starting at sundown around a fire in our courtyard, then moving into Wasser Chapel to mark the moment of his resurrection and what it means for us.
Throughout these three days, we’ll also have a prayer labyrinth available in East Fellowship Hall downstairs. I’m very grateful to Les and Hope Law for setting up and hosting this quiet, contemplative method of prayer for anyone who would like to try it. The labyrinth is a way of praying involving slowly and silently walking a twisting path to a center circle and back. It’s a metaphor for our spiritual life: the twists and turns we take, the way we get close to God and the center of creation, then find ourselves further away, finally coming back to where we started but seeing it differently. (As T.S. Eliot writes, we “arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”) If you’d like to try this ancient method of embodied prayer, the church will be open from 9:00 to 7:00 today through Easter morning.
On Easter morning, we’ll start with a Sunrise service at 7:00 in Wasser chapel. Then our 9:00 and 11:00 services will be in the Sanctuary, featuring our choir and a brass quartet. I hope you can be here in person, but for those who can’t be, a worship video will premiere on our YouTube channel at 9:00 on Sunday morning. For those who do plan to be at church, our adult Sunday School classes are cancelled and we won’t be serving our usual coffee and food since we’ll have a large group of people coming and going between services. Kevin Flomberg-Rollins, our church administrator, will be sending out parking passes for those of us who can make room in our lot by parking at DU.
If you have young children or grandchildren, or know a family with young children, you’re invited to bring them to our Easter Egg hunt on Saturday starting at 11:00. Bethany Hader Crabbs, our Director of Children’s and Care Ministry, has organized a time of games and music on the front lawn of the church, followed by the Easter Egg hunt at 11:30. We have 1300 plastic eggs stuffed with candy, and more keep coming in by the day. It’s a fun event, and over the past few years we’ve had quite a few people from the neighborhood show up – so this is a great way to introduce them to our church.
Finally, I want to thank all the people who came out for our church cleanup day last Saturday. We had a three-page list of jobs ready to be done, and I anticipated the whole thing taking about four hours. Not only did the group finish the list in just over two hours, they even did jobs that weren’t on the list! The church is ready to receive visitors, and I’m grateful for all the people who helped.
May your Holy Week be meaningful and nurturing – I’ll see you at church!
Grace and Peace,
Andy