Confidence – Creativity – Collaboration: Choirs at PUMC

 

 

lorie photoParents—PUMC members and non-members–don’t let another year go by without signing  yourr child up for PUMC’s Children’s Choir. Music education is one of the most important developmental programs we offer children and we don’t want you to miss out on this opportunity.

Under the direction of Tom Shelton, Professor of Sacred Music, Westminster Choir College, PUMC’s Children’s Choir offers invaluable musical training. Mr. Shelton is an accomplished choral director, with a long history of conducting children’s choirs in the public schools and directing honors choirs in choral festivals across the country and internationally. He is also very active with choral associations, serving as President elect of the American Choral Directors Association, and selected by the US Choristers Society to teach a webinar on How to Teach Songs to Children’s Choirs, on August 18th. PUMC is very lucky to have a children’s choral director of his caliber.

Under Mr. Shelton’s superb guidance our program develops the highest standards of children’s choral singing. Moreover, it is fun. He makes it fun. The children have a wonderful time singing and performing together and even acting. Part of the musical training at PUMC is musical theatre –a unique element of our program.

It isn’t all just fun and games, however. The children are developing critical life skills through this musical training that will carry them far in life.

In 2008, the President’s  Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH) released the findings from a landmark study on arts education (Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future) that “clearly showed the effect of arts education on student academic achievement and creativity.” The report went on to say that “It also became clear that arts education provides a critical benefit to the private sector. To effectively compete in the global economy, business leaders are increasingly looking for employees who are creative, collaborative and innovative thinkers. A greater investment in the arts is an effective way to equip today’s students with the skills they will need to succeed in the jobs of tomorrow.”

SpreadMusicNow Foundation, a private foundation that raises funds for the arts, has developed a memorable moniker for the key benefits of music education: “Confidence. Creativity. Collaboration.” They go on to say that these are just some of the things that improve when a child participates in structured, rigorous music education.”

So, Parents, please don’t miss out on this opportunity to sign your child up for PUMC’s Children’s Choir and give them the gift of music education.

Contact Tom Shelton directly at Tom@PrincetonUMC.org to learn more about this program.

by Lindsay Diehl

Being Molded by God

 

altar potterEverything went together yesterday, Sunday September 4, to tell a salvation story, that if we make a habit of looking for God, even if we do wrong, God will reshape us. The text from the lectionary was Jeremiah: 18: 1-22,  ‘At The Potter’s House.” Beautiful pots and vases, made by our music director Hyosang Park,  were arranged on the altar.

As Malisa Langdon said, at Children’s Time, all of the pots and bowls are different. We are all made differently, and God works with each of us as individuals.  She told of a failed knitting project that she put on a shelf. In contrast, a potter can take a failed pot, turn it back into a lump of clay, and reshape it.

That’s what God does, said Rev, Jana Purkis-Brash in her sermon “Being Molded by God.” It may take a long time to find directions to “the Potter’s House,” but (paraphrasing) the Creator who made us can take our mistakes and our guilt and reshape us into whole and healthy disciples of Christ. We’re not good at waiting and yielding but here are clues:

  1. Learn the right address, where we are permitted to be works in progress.
  2. Make the right turn, repeatedly. Jeremiah uses language of turning and changing.
  3. Allow the potter to work with your clay as the potter chooses.

The ‘pickup choir,’ directed by Hyosang Park, sang “The Image of God” by Craig Courtney, reminding us that we are all created in God’s image, “uniquely gifted for His own plan and purpose.”

After the service of Holy Communion, and rousing choruses of “Since Jesus Came Into My Heart,” (Gaither version here), we gathered in Fellowship Hall for Summermikaela Sharing, where Mikaela Langdon, a senior at Rowan University,  told of her mission trip to Hawaii and how God changed her while she was there. What she learned about how to witness for Christ is valuable for how PUMC is thinking about reaching out to passersby on Nassau Street.

What she learned: don’t pass out things, instead let the people come to you. Invite them to take a survey. Arrange some kind of display that attracts their attention. The goal is to start a conversation so that they think about God. Let God help them find the Potter’s House.

 

 

 

Rally around the Heifer Ark on September 11

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Second and third graders meet with Mae Potts and Tracey Feick-Lee

We’re getting off to an exciting start to the Sunday School year! On Rally Day, September 11, kids  parents, teachers will gather in the sanctuary at 9:30 a.m. for the first 15-20 minutes of worship. We will celebrate that our Sunday School is ready to buy an ark for Heifer International.

Kids and teachers will be blessed, and sent off to classrooms to begin a new Sunday School year ad-venture. Adult classes Contemporary Issues and Heart of Faith will begin at 9:30.

UMM: Chaplain on September 11

photo by Michael Mancuso, Times of Trenton
CHAPLAIN TED TAYLOR photo by Michael Mancuso, Times of Trenton

The date of September 11 lives large in all our memories. This year, for the United Methodist Men’s breakfast, Chaplain Tedford J. Taylor’s topic will be “Thinking about end of life decisions — how to plan for the future.” Ted will discuss this difficult subject in the context of our faith, having peace rather than denial. By coming to terms with it– spiritually, psychologically, and rationally — and thinking it through, families won’t have to scramble with not knowing what Mom or Dad would wish.

Ted joined Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton in 2007 as the Director of Pastoral Care & Training where he supervises more than 20 volunteer and intern chaplains in providing the spiritual and emotional care to patients. Ted is a diplomate in pastoral supervision through the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy (CPSP) and is board certified as a clinical chaplain with a fellowship in palliative care and hospice through CPSP. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Baptist Theological Seminary.  Ted resides with his husband Kevin in Ewing Township and is a Recorded Minister in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and is active in the Yardley Monthly Meeting.

When Chaplain Taylor spoke at the UMM breakfast in January 2015, the discussion on patient centered care was so lively that time ran out, and we welcome his return. The delicious hot breakfast begins at 8 AM, followed by the program  at 8:30. A $5 donation for the meal is requested. Everyone is welcome!

Summer Sharing: Mikaela Langdon

2016 september mikiMikaela Langdon will speak about her mission trip to Oahu on Sunday, September 4, at 11:15 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall, after the 10 a.m. service. Mikaela ‘grew up’ in this church, faithfully participating in choirs and the Appalachia Service Project. Her parents are Malisa Winn Langdon and Scott Langdon, and her brother, Connor, is a senior football player at West Summer Windsor-Plainsboro South.

Mikaela is a senior at Rowan University, studying Writing Arts.  Over the summer of 2015, she traveled to Hawaii with CRU  (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) where she spent seven weeks growing in her faith and sharing the Gospel.  During her time there, she volunteered at an aquarium and helped grow Cru at the University of Hawaii.

Youth Group: Ice Cream Hangout 9/4

SkitchMatson
Skitch Matson, youth pastor, invites 6th to 12th graders to Youth Group
September 4th: From 7-8pm there will be an open-door ice cream hangout in the fellowship hall for youth and parents to get to know Skitch, play a few fun games, and hear some stories from his life. Drop by for a few minutes, ice creamor for the full hour!
 
September 11th: This is our Fall Youth Kick-Off! From 6pm-8pm we’ll continue the jovial tone from last Sunday as the youth enter into their regular youth group routine, including games, worship, a sermon, and small groups. We’ll particularly look at what hopes and dreams we have for the upcoming year.

Slake Thirst, Sharpen the Saw: Sermon Series

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Finnish lumberjack in 1944

It’s easier to get fast food than to learn to make nutritious meals.

It’s easier to blow a paycheck on exercise machine that will sit in the basement than to coordinate a sensible schedule of diet and exercise.

It’s easier to take a self-help quiz in a magazine or on Facebook than to do the hard work of seeing a therapist.

It’s harder to keep in conversation with God than to turn to God in desperate prayers. “Last minute may be our preferred mode but it’s not God’s,” said Rev. Jana Purkis Brash in her sermon, “Thirst,” based on the lectionary verses from Jeremiah 2:4-13

“Beneath the  surface of the Jeremiah text is the theme of God’s covenant relationship with the Hebrew people. It was a hard sell. We have a huge appetite for novelty, and we are apt to forsake ordinary cistern water for fancy bottled water. But bottled water won’t slake our thirst for very long.”

Stephen Covey’s “7th habit of a highly effective person” is to “sharpen the saw.”  Covey tells about lumberjacks who keep sawing away, back and forth, with their dull saw because they are “too busy” to stop and sharpen it. The longer they work, the less effective they are. It is easy for them to imagine if they just keep going they will succeed. There is something soothing, even hypnotic, about it.

Worship is like sharpening the saw. Day in, day out, we need to do it, to be still, to devote time to prayer. As Jeremiah predicted, the cistern needs to be kept on good repair – it is our means of grace.

When our blade is sharp, and our cistern is full — God is with us, even in the anxious times.

Gather with your brothers and sisters in Christ, remember your baptism, come away from the Communion table renewed and refreshed.

 

Summer Sharing: Duncan Hartley

george by duncan
Photo by Duncan Hartley

Many wonder why PUMC’s Tiffany window shows St. George and the Dragon. “The legend of St. George and the Dragon is simply an allegorical expression of the triumph of  the Christian hero, or the church, over evil,” says Duncan Hartley. “Having dared to criticize a Roman emperor, St. George was subjected to horrible torture. ”

Duncan will talk about the window in the Summer Sharing series on Sunday, August 28, at 11:15 a.m. (after the 10 am service) in Fellowship Hall. His title: “My Life Through a Lens: from Shakespeare to St. George.” 

The dragon has been a Christian symbol of sin since the Middle Ages. The metaphor is taken from Revelation 12:9 where Satan is termed “the great dragon” and “that old serpent.” In Psalm 91:13 it is written that “the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.”

Christian art and literature has made frequent use of this symbolism. “Tudor duncanpoet Edmund Spenser, for example, named the Redcrosse Knight as the champion of holiness in The Fairie Queen,” says Duncan. “The knight and Una, representing the true religion, are finally betrothed after he has killed the dragon. The figure Gloriana represents glory in the abstract, and Queen Elizabeth I in particular. ” St. George became the patron saint of England in the 14th century and is now the patron saint of Moscow. Many of the most famous artists depicted St. George, and almost every major museum has a painting of him.

 

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Photo by Duncan Hartley

 

Warming up to music: Tom Shelton

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Tom Shelton, PUMC children’s choir director, tapes PUMC choristers for his webinar.

Tom Shelton, director of children’s and youth choirs at Princeton United Methodist Church and  assistant professor at Westminster Choir College. will present a nationally broadcast webinar on Thursday, August 25, at noon for the Choristers Guild, a church music publisher, on Effective Teaching Techniques for Working with Children’s Choirs.

To prepare the webinar he invited members of the choir to join him in the music room last week. Here is how they “warmed up.”

And here is how Tom uses the Dalcroze Method to teach rhythm:

Looks like fun, doesn’t it! EVERY child is invited to join the PUMC Children’s Choirs. Participation is free, all are welcome.

Tom Shelton invites children and parents to a Children’s Choir open house at the church, Nassau at Vandeventer, on Wednesday, September 7. Kindergarten and first grade come at 4:30 p.m., second through fifth graders at 5:30 p.m.

Youth from grades 6 to 12 are invited to an open house for the Youth Choir, led by Tom Shelton, at Princeton United Methodist Church, Nassau at Vandeventer, on Sunday, September 11 at 5 p.m.  Parking is free on Sundays; for parking information click here.  Email Tom@PrincetonUMC.org or call 609-924-2613.

 

 

 

BOOM! Speaking truth to power

“Boom!” was the topic for Rev. Jana Purkis Brash on August 21, 2016. “Boom!” as in the sound made by the mike when a speaker — invigorated by the success of the speech — drops the mike and walks away.

In healing a crippled woman on the Sabbath, Luke 10:13-17, not only did Jesus perform a miracle, but he triumphed over the religious leaders who objected to healing on the Sabbath. Jesus “dropped the mike.” He spoke truth to power.

As Christians we are called to help the oppressed, those who are so burdened by life that they cannot stand straight.  And we too can “drop the mike” to fight social injustice. We can speak truth to power.

BOOM!

In a gentler vein, Jana welcomed six little girls to Children’s Time. Some came from as far away as New York, Canada, and even Mexico! She emphasized that — even though some don’t get to visit very often — they are all part of our church family.

childrens time