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
March 2, 2022
Dear U Park Family,
Blessed Ash Wednesday to you. I hope it’s been reflective and rewarding. We have services at the church today at noon and 6:00 P.M., and I hope you can join us for one of them.
I’ve talked with several Pastor friends of mine, and we are unanimous about one thing: traditional Ash Wednesday and Lenten themes don’t resonate very well this year.
Traditionally, Ash Wednesday is a time to reflect on the transience of life and to think about how we can appropriately use the time we have. It’s the beginning of Lent, and the Ash Wednesday liturgy usually includes what’s called the “invitation to the observance of Lenten Discipline.” Traditionally, when we make the sign of the cross in ashes on the hands or foreheads of worshipers, we say, “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It’s meant to be a solemn reminder of our mortality, as the beginning to a season of reflection and repentance.
But discussing it this year, my friends and I all agree that we’ve had more than enough reminders of mortality over the past couple of years. Thank God, vaccinations continue to increase and the pandemic mortality continues to decline. But the pandemic is far from the only thing reminding us of our mortality lately. Climate change (complete with the recent, bleak IPCC report), escalating rates of violence in our nation, Russia’s sudden and disturbing attack on Ukraine: it seems like everywhere we turn we’re being told that we’re dust and to dust we shall return.
For that reason, I’ll be approaching Lent differently this year. What if the Gospel stories are not just stories about Jesus, but stories about us? What if the resurrection story isn’t just about Jesus’s miraculous triumph over death, but a template for us? In our Lenten reflections this year, I’ll be focusing on what we’re called to leave behind in order to be resurrected – to be formed into the joyful and thriving people we’re called to be. This Sunday in worship, I’ll focus on the story of Jesus’s temptation in the desert, found in the Gospel of Luke. I’ll be asking the question of what the story asks us to leave behind. I hope you’ll join us at 10:00 A.M. in the Sanctuary, or later that afternoon from home by watching on our YouTube Channel.
Speaking of things we’re leaving behind, this coming Sunday we’ll move from “masks required” to “masks encouraged” status. As always, I’m very grateful to our congregation’s medical professionals who have advised the staff throughout the pandemic. We’re all agreed that this is the right move. Of course, there are a number of people in the congregation who need or wish to remain masked, and we completely support that need and encourage you to do so. Others may decide to go unmasked. What’s most important, it seems to me, is that we continue to respect one another and support one another’s needs just as we have done throughout the pandemic.
On the 20th and 27th of this month I will be in Guatemala with our church’s mission team, serving a medical clinic operated by the nonprofit agency Salud y Paz (“health and peace”). Those two Sundays, we’ll have guest preachers – I’ll keep you posted here about who they will be.
May your Ash Wednesday and Lent strengthen and ground you in these unsettling times, as we begin this season of reflection.
Grace and Peace, Andy