Grace from Gary: A Gift of Love for Peace



By admin ~ January 27th, 2012. Filed under: Grace from Gary, News.

Dear friends of the Peace faith Community,

We are almost there! But we need to finish off our stewardship campaign to meet our 2012 budget. To date we are estimating an income of $232,822 with a budget of $246,068; that is a deficit of just $13,246, or less than 5% to meet or exceed our stewardship goal for 2012.

But that does not come without a cost. In order to present the Peace faith community with a balanced budget all staff has taken a 10% salary reduction and money for Sunday School and Vacation Bible School was cut from $4,000 to $2,000. It sure would be nice to reinstate some of these cuts.

A copy of the 2012 proposed budget is available by request.  Email gary@peaceumc.com.

Please do what you can to help us meet our financial goals by giving a “Gift of Love” to Peace United Methodist Church. A “Gift of Love” form is available that you can down load, fill out and return to Peace by putting it in the offering plate on Sunday morning or mailing it back to the office.

Your help can help set us on the right path for the future.

Grace from Gary

LWV WHITE BEAR BEAR LAKE AREA TO HOST SCREENINGS OF DEMOCRACY FOR ALL? WITH DISCUSSSION OF THE HARMS OF VOTER PHOTO ID



By admin ~ January 11th, 2012. Filed under: meetings, News.

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release January 3, 2012

From Mary Santi, League of Women Voters White Bear Lake Area

For more information contact: Sharon Guiser, sguiser@q.com, 651-4833197 or
Kathy Tomisch, ktomisch@comcast.net, 651-490-1809

LWV WHITE BEAR BEAR LAKE AREA TO HOST SCREENINGS OF DEMOCRACY FOR ALL? WITH DISCUSSSION OF THE HARMS OF VOTER PHOTO ID

League of Women Voters White Bear Lake Area will hold public screenings of the LWV Minnesota-produced documentary “Democracy for All? The Barriers of Voter ID” at several times and locations in January and February. The screening of Democracy for All? will be followed by a guided discussion. All events are free and open to the public.

  • 2 p.m. Thursday, January 12 at St. Andrew’s Village Community Room, 240 East Avenue, Mahtomedi.
  • 7–8:30 p.m Thursday, February. 2 at District Education Center Community Room 103, 1520 Mahtomedi Ave, Mahtomedi
  • 1-2:30 p.m.Wednesday, February. 8 at Waverly Gardens Auditorium, 5919 Centerville Road, North Oaks
  • 7 p.m Thursday, February. 9 at White Bear Lake City Hall, 4701 Highway 61, White Bear Lake

This 17-minute documentary puts the current debates around voter photo ID in the context of earlier efforts to expand the voting franchise. Democracy for All? features individuals whose right to vote will be threatened if a voter photo-ID requirement were put in place in Minnesota and includes interviews with election officials on Minnesota’s election safeguards. These safeguards make a voter photo-ID requirement a costly and unnecessary barrier in our already sound election system.

“It may be difficult for many Minnesotans to understand the problems with voter photo identification requirements,” said LWV White Bear Lake Area President Sharon Guiser “The brave individuals featured in Democracy for All? are proud voters, many who have voted for decades, and who now fear that their right to continue voting could be in jeopardy. Their right to vote matters and must be protected.

“LWV Minnesota is proud to share this video that will help all of us understand why we are better off by making our elections more accessible to voters, not erecting barriers that may disenfranchise eligible voters,” said Stacy Doepner-Hove, LWV Minnesota President. “While working to follow the path laid out by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to ‘form a more perfect union,’ we have always found America is stronger by including more voices in our democracy.”

LWV Minnesota is a nonpartisan political organization that encourages informed and active participation in government, and influences public policy through education and advocacy. LWV was formed out of the work to expand the right to vote to women 91 years ago.

END

Christmas Blessings



By admin ~ December 28th, 2011. Filed under: Devotional.

Merry Christmas! I hope the joy of this blessed season may be yours though out the year. A poem is attached for you. Grace from Gary

Christpower

Far back beyond the beginning,
stretching out into the unknowable,
incomprehensible,
unfathomable depths, dark and void
of infinite eternity behind all history,
the Christpower was alive.

 

This was the
living,
bursting, pulsing,
generating, creating
smoldering, exploding
fusing, multiplying,
emerging, erupting,
pollenizing, inseminating,
heating, cooling
power of life itself: Christpower.
And it was good!

 

Here
all things that we know
began their journey into being.
Here
light separated from darkness.
Here
Christpower began to take form.
Here
life became real,
and that life spread into
emerging new creatures
evolving
into ever higher intelligence.

 

There was a sacrifice here
and
a mutation there.
There was grace and resurrection appearing
in their natural order,
occurring, recurring,
and always driven by the restless,
creating,
energizing
life force of God, called the Christpower,
which flowed in the veins of every living thing
for ever
and ever
and ever
and ever.
And it was good!

 

In time, in this universe,
there emerged creatures who were called human,
and the uniqueness of these creatures
lay in that they could
perceive
this life-giving power.

 

They could name it
and embrace it
and grow with it
and yearn for it.

 

Thus human life was born,
but individual expressions of that human life
were marked with a sense of
incompleteness,
inadequacy,
and a hunger
that drove them ever beyond the self
to search for life’s secret
and
to seek the source of life’s power.
This was a humanity that could not be content with
anything less.

And once again
in that process
there was
sacrifice and mutation,
grace and resurrection
now in the human order,
occurring, recurring.
And it was good!

 

Finally, in the fullness of time,
within that human family,
one
unique and special human life appeared:
whole
complete
free
loving
living
being
at one
at peace
at rest.

 

In that life was seen with new intensity
that primal power of the universe,
Christpower.
And it was good!

 

Of that life people said: Jesus,
you are the Christ,
for in you we see
and feel
and experience
the living force of life
and love
and being
of God.

 

He was hated,
rejected,
betrayed,
killed,
but
he was never distorted.
For here was a life in which
the goal, the dream, the hope
of all life
is achieved.

 

A single life among many lives.
Here
among us, out from us,
and yet this power, this essence,
was not from us at all,
for the Christpower that was seen in Jesus
is finally of God.

 

And even when the darkness of death overwhelmed him,
the power of life resurrected him;
for Christpower is life
eternal,
without beginning,
without ending.
It is the secret of creation.
It is the goal of humanity.

 

Here in this life we glimpse
that immortal
invisible
most blessed
most glorious
almighty life-giving force
of this universe
in startling completeness
in a single person.

 

Men and women tasted the power that was in him
and they were made whole by it.
They entered a new freedom,
a new being.
They knew resurrection and what it means to live
in the Eternal Now.
So they became agents of that power,
sharing those gifts from generation to generation,
creating and re-creating,
transforming, redeeming,
making all things new.

 

And as this power moved among human beings,
light
once more separated from darkness.
And it was good!

 

They searched for the words to describe
the moment that recognized the fullness of this power
living in history,
living in the life of this person.

But words failed them.

 

So they lapsed into poetry:

When this life was born,
they said,
a great light split the dark sky.
Angelic choruses peopled the heavens
to sing of peace on earth.
They told of a virgin mother,
of shepherds compelled to worship,
of a rejecting world that had no room in the inn.
They told of stars and oriental kings,
of gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

 

For when this life was born
that power that was
and is
with God,
inseparable,
the endless beginning
was seen
even in a baby
in swaddling clothes
lying in a manger.

 

Christpower.

 

Jesus, you are the Christ.

 

To know you is to live,
to love,
to be.

 

O come, then, let us adore him!

 

9 pm Christmas Eve Readers Needed



By admin ~ December 20th, 2011. Filed under: Worship.

Hello would you like to be a reader for the 9 pm Christmas Eve service? I was going to send an email to only our regular Sunday morning readers and then thought that maybe you would be interested in reading one of the Bible passages. We need 9 readers for the 9 pm service so if you are interested please reply to this email and I will send you one of the readings.

Grace from Gary

Grace from Gary: Stewarship Campaign



By admin ~ December 20th, 2011. Filed under: Donations.

Dear friends of Peace community of faith,

I want to thank all those who have returned their Estimate of Giving form. To date we have received the form from 44 Contributing individuals or families for a total of $129,020. In 2011 we have over 100 contributing individuals or families and when we finalize the budget for 2012 all contributors for 2011 will be included except those who have moved or are planning on moving before year’s end year. But we will have to be conservative in estimating the portion of the 2012 budget that will include those who have not returned an estimate of giving form or sent the information from the form to the Peace office via email, fax or phone message. But if you can still send us an Estimate of Giving form it will help us with our accuracy in finalizing the 2012 budget. Please prayerfully consider estimating your giving as Peace community of faith can living out its vision and mission in 2012.

Grace from Gary

Our Vision:

A progressive community. . .a reconciling congregation . . . a place of peace.

Our Mission:

Our mission is to witness to Jesus Christ in the world and to follow Jesus’ teachings through acts of compassion, justice, worship and devotion under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

More specifically our congregation…

  • is respectful and loving of all.
  • is a reconciling congregation and welcome members of all sexual orientations.
  • is committed to music in worship.
  • have excellent children, youth and adult education programs.
  • uses inclusive language in our teachings and music.
  • partners with other groups for community improvement.
  • serves the least, the lost and the left out.
  • provides opportunities for fellowship.

Adopted by Church Council 7/27/05

Statement of Reconciliation

Peace United Methodist Church is a place of peace for all that choose to enter the doors.  We seek to be an inclusive Christian community believing that we are all children of God, and that God loves us all equally regardless of age, race, gender, ethnicity, religion, marital status, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, physical, mental and emotional abilities.  As a Reconciling Congregation we specifically welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, their families and friends, and embrace them as full members of the family of God.

We respect the diversity of opinions and the Scripture, tradition, experience and reason that lead us to various conclusions, believing that prejudice, hatred, and discrimination directed toward any individual or group are contrary to the life and spirit of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, we shall work to eliminate prejudice and discriminatory practices within our church, our community , and ourselves.  With God’s help we shall strive to build bridges and promote a ministry of reconciliation believing that God’s grace is a gift to all.

Peace Church is a progressive church, we are Christians who…

1.       Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus,

2.       Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us,

3.       Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’ name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God’s feast for all peoples,

4.       Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to):

believers and agnostics,

conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,

women and men,

those of all sexual orientations and gender identities,

those of all races and cultures,

those of all classes and abilities,

those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope;

5.       Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe,

6.       Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty – more value in questioning than in absolutes;

7.       Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God’s creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers; and

Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day



By admin ~ December 17th, 2011. Filed under: Worship.

On Christmas Eve, Saturday December 24 there are two choices to celebrate, at 4 pm and 9 pm. The 4 pm will be a child friendly service and the 9 pm service will be a modern version of the Service of Lessons and Carols which includes lots of singing and listening to the story of God’s love as it becomes flesh in the world. Either would be a wonderful way to begin your Christmas celebrations!

On Christmas Day, Sunday December 25 at 10 am you are invited to participate in Taizé Worship of Christmas Light. It will be a time of prayer, quite reflection and singing set in Pioneer Hall.

Last Chance for Pecan Purchase



By admin ~ December 17th, 2011. Filed under: Donations, missions.

Last Chance for Pecan Purchase: UMW will only be selling the chocolate covered, dark chocolate covered and clusters of pecan this Sunday after worship & at 6 p.m., prior to Christmas at Peace concert. Thank you to all who purchased for the benefit of Methodist Missions.

Winter Retreat – January 13–15, 2012



By admin ~ December 17th, 2011. Filed under: Donations, meetings.

Winter Retreat – January 13–15, 2012 – There are still rooms available for anyone wishing to join the Anderson, Bratager, Carlson, Findell, Fried, Longe, Navratil, Randall, and Scott families as well as Gary and Becky. If you have never been before, talk to any of the above families and you will hear why they keep coming back year after year. Kids and parents have a great time! Please call Jeanne or Tom Randall at 651-765-8076 if you are interested or would like more information.

Christmas at Peace this Sunday evening at 6:30 pm



By admin ~ December 17th, 2011. Filed under: Music, Programs.

Please come to Christmas at Peace this Sunday evening at 6:30 pm. Most Peace Church musicians will be involved in some way in the concert, including the children and the J-Walkers. We will explore the meaning of the Christmas season through some very traditional music and some readings that are not so traditional for Christmas, as we let some of the earliest Christian writings – the letters of the Apostle Paul – inform our thoughts about the meaning of Emmanuel (God with us) for our lives in our own times.

Please join us for a reception this Sunday, December 18



By admin ~ December 17th, 2011. Filed under: meetings, News, Worship.

Please join us for a reception this Sunday, December 18 in Fellowship Hall honoring AUDREY AND JERRY WILDER and STACEY AND JEFF TIDBALL following the worship service. We will be saying thank you and farewell to these faithful members who are moving in the New Year, Wilders to Colorado and Tidballs to Kansas.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Our new address is 16130 Quandary Loop Road, Broomfield, CO 80023. The new phone number is 720-379-4003. ~ Jerry and Audrey Wilder.