Service Highlights or Announcements for this Sunday
Announcements:
- Baptism and Reception of New Members: This Sunday, please gather as we observe the sacrament of Baptism of Kay Higbee, who, with Sharon Davis and Bob Osborne, will become members of Anaheim United Methodist Church during this Sunday’s video worship. Please mark this special observance of our faith by viewing and speaking our own vows of support, welcome, and encouragement to Kay, Sharon, and Bob in their faith.
- Song of Tribute: This Sunday Serena and Pastor James will share, once again, a song of tribute to beloved Anaheim UMC members who have recently died. Please join us as we honor in song the faithful lives of Bob Fackiner, Gordon Palmer, Alesandro Toledo, and Marcia Frazier.
- 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 28th, 2021.
The sermon, “Live Ready,” is the second of a five-week Lenten sermon series we will call “Loving Life”. Like Abram, in Genesis 17, we are called to be ready to “go” when God calls us. This means, even when life seems empty or full of obstacles, we still look for what’s next in God’s plan for our lives.
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
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.’ Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.’
Mark 8:31-38
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’
