Service Highlights or Announcements for this Sunday
Announcements:
- Pastor James is encouraging us to join him in the daily devotions by Father Richard Rohr on the Center for Action and Contemplation. Click this link to find these daily devotions.
- We thank those who have already returned their financial commitment to AUMC. Your generosity supports the work and ministry of Anaheim United Methodist Church. You may continue to return your commitments via mail.
- Click here to sign-up for the current Lenten Book Study.
- Come check out our virtual Gather(ing) via Zoom on Wednesdays at 7 pm. We would LOVE to see you there. Come ready to discuss our scripture passage and raise our voices in song! If you would like the Zoom link, please sign up here. Sign up for the Gather Zoom meeting information here.
Reflection of the Week
Highlights for Worship: February 21st, 2021.
On this First Sunday of Lent, we commence praying, fasting, and following Jesus, who spends 40 days with God and Satan in the desert (Mark 1:9-15). The sermon, “Simply Live,” is the first of a five-week sermon series we will call “Loving Life.”
During these 40 days before Easter, we will honestly assess whether we love the life we lead or whether cynicism, frustration, or despair have eclipsed life’s joy.
To clear-away the negativity that clouds our view, we will practice Christian contemplation, growing in our ability to recognize God’s Spirit in any time or place. Contemplation is the practice of merely living, full of the love of self, God, and neighbor.
We will follow Father Richard Rohr’s wise counsel, one of the foremost Christian spiritual growth teachers in our time. Fr. Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation daily devotions are designed to help us to live more gratefully in our skin and in this world which God has created.
May this Lenten season be a sacred one so that we may rise on Easter morning, free from our burdens and newly alive in God’s Spirit.
I hope we can worship together virtually this Sunday!
Pastor James
Scripture Passages of the Week
Mark 1:9-15
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’
