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PALM SUNDAY | SING HOSANNA TO OUR KING!

  🎼🎻🎺 HOSANNA, LOUD HOSANNA! 🎸🎷🎵

On Palm Sunday, we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem as he begins his journey to the Cross, riding on in majesty to die. Our Palm Sunday worship will feature special performances by all choirs and our pianist:

  • The Children’s and Youth choirs will sing the Introit “Antiphonal Hosanna” by G. Alan Smith.
  • The Virtual Chancel choir will sing “Hosanna to the Son of David” by B. Gesius.
  • The Virtual Handbell choir will perform “There is a Balm in Gilead” by Erik Whitehill during the Offertory.
  • Pianist Julia Hanna will play Blumenfeld’s “Prélude #9” and Joaquín Turina’s “Pequeña danza from Jardín de niños” favorite classical music of PUMC. We are grateful to all our musicians for lifting us up with such beautiful music.  

On this first day of Holy Week, as we sing “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna,” we join the crowds who went to meet Jesus, waving palm branches and spreading them along his way, as Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem.

Video    “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” 

Video:  Hosanna in the Highest 

Click here to join us as we wave our palms and share in songs, music, prayer, listen to scripture, John 3:1-21, and to Pastor Jenny’s Sermon, “Repairing the Brokenness.”

If you’re looking for inspiration: Come worship with us at PUMC. If you suffer or grieve, you will find healing here. If you are burdened with sin, you will find forgiveness here. If you are exhausted, you will find rest here. There is a place for you here in our beloved PUMC community, where you will have the love and support of others.

[Video Source: YouTube] [Photo courtesy of PUMC]

Written by Isabella Dougan

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

In his sermon on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Rev. Skitch Matson recounted Jacob and Esau’s story and the broken relationship between those two brothers. He reminded us that their reconciliation was twenty years apart, telling us, “God feels our pain, hears our cries and wants to give us peace.” He also told us that those burning with anger should know that they are not alone, stating that Jesus too was burned with anger and flipped tables at the injustice in his time. “For true healing to occur, there needs to be a change of heart for all parties,” Pastor Skitch added. He recalled that the church, the community of Christ on earth, is a community of broken people and the community seeking healing for the broken.

At Princeton United Methodist Church, we can learn to overcome our brokenness by being part of this beloved community. Click here to watch the PUMC worship service and listen to Pastor Skitch’s sermon.

Written by Isabella Dougan

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WORSHIP MUSIC | FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

🎼🎸🎻🎺🎵”O God of every nation, of every race and land, redeem the whole creation with your almighty hand. Where hate and fear divide us, and bitter threats are hurled, in love and mercy guide us, and heal our strife-torn world.”🎼🎸🎻🎷🎵

On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, we will have a music performance featuring the PUMC Children’s Choir singing “Lenten Love Song” by Helen Kemp.  “God Made from One Blood,” a hymn set to a Welsh folk melody, refers to Acts 17:26, which tells us that from one man [Adam], God made all the families of the whole earth. It also deals with the reality of the modern family. The hymn  “O God Of Every Nation” is an appeal to God who created all races and the whole world, to deliver every nation and heal this strife-torn world. It also pleads for truth, love, and justice for all humanity and a bright future with an end to hate and division.  Joaquín Turina’s classical music including “Berceuse From Niñerias” is a favorite of PUMC.  Thank you Julia Hanna for playing such beautiful music! Our music and hymns always give us hope with renewed faith, especially this Sunday, as we mark one year of virtual worship. We look forward to going back to worship in our beautiful sanctuary.

Video “Sanctuary”

“Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary (Haz de mí, Dios, hoy, un santuario Vivo).” The authors of the text of “Sanctuary” are Randy Scruggs and John Thompson. Born in 1953 in Nashville, Tennessee, Randy Lynn Scruggs is a music producer, songwriter, and guitarist. He had his first recording at the age of 13. He has won a Grammy Award and was twice named “Musician of the Year” at the Country Music Association Awards. He was one of the authors of “Lord of lords, King of kings.” The  hymn “Sanctuary” is asking God to make us “pure in our devotion to his love and holy in our commitment to obey his call.”

                                       [Image: – singing in our PUMC sanctuary]

If you’re looking for inspiration: Come worship with us at PUMC.  If you suffer or grieve, you will find healing here. If you are burdened with sin, you will find forgiveness here. If you are exhausted, you will find rest here. There is a place for you here in our beloved PUMC community, where you will have the love and support of others.

Click here to join us as we share in songs, prayer, music, scripture, and listen to Pastor Skitch’s Sermon.

 [Video Source: YouTube]

Written by Isabella Dougan

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

In her sermon on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Pastor Jenny explained the terms “false self” and “true self’ that she quoted from Thomas Merton. She said the broken pieces inside us reside in the ‘false self,’ while the “true self” is our belovedness, or “the secret beauty of our hearts.” “Are you afraid of the darkness inside you? Are you afraid of being truly alone in solitude with yourself?” she asked. The way to that true self is to let God into those dark places with us. “God will help us look at those broken things inside us, and they will start to dissolve, and we will see something beautiful come out of us.” Our true selves – our compassion – will come out shining as bright as the sun. 

In Lent, as we journey to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, let’s see if we can be less afraid of the dark. To do this, we should keep our minds off earthly things and look to divine things. Come worship with us at Princeton United Methodist Church. God will help us show compassion to others.  Click here to watch the worship service and listen to Pastor Jenny’s sermon.

Written by Isabella Dougan

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WORSHIP MUSIC | FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT

🎼🎵♬“Bind us together, Lord, bind us together with cords that cannot be broken. Bind us together, Lord, bind us together, Lord, bind us together in love. .🎼🎵♬

On this Fourth Sunday of Lent, we will have a special music performance featuring our Youth Choir singing “Your Servant I Will Be” by Mark Patterson. Our hymns today bring the message that we need to be united in love as the body of Christ.

The scripture this week comes from Mark 8:31-38 and Colossians 3:1-4.  As we journey with Jesus during Lent and witness his suffering, Jesus predicts his death and explains to us the way of the cross, saying, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” To appear with Christ in Glory, we must set our minds on things above and not on earthly things.   Rev. Jenny Smith Waltz will preach a sermon on the topic:  “Broken From Self.”

Video “Bind Us Together” 

Bob Gillman wrote the text and composed the tune to “Bind Us Together” in 1974. This hymn’s theme is that love binds us all together in unity, as reflected in Colossians 3:14 and Ephesians 4:1-6. Gillman started writing songs at the age of 13 when he became a Christian. His interest in music included guitar and banjo playing. He also wrote children’s books, “Tales of Upchurch Station,” being one of them.

Video: “When We Are CalledTo Sing Your Praise”

Mary Nelson Keithahn, a retired UMC ordained pastor, wrote the hymn “When We Are Called To Sing Your Praise” in 2000. Ralph Vaughan set it to the tune KINGSFOLD. In 2016 Keithahn published a chapter book for children entitled “Elfie: Adventures on the Midwest Frontier.”

If you’re looking for inspiration: Come worship with us at PUMC and enjoy our hymns and music. They will give you hope with renewed faith. If you suffer or grieve, you will find healing here. If you are burdened with sin, you will find forgiveness here. If you are exhausted, you will find rest here. Remember, Jesus died for you. There is a place for you here.

Click here to join us as we share in songs, prayer, music, scripture, and listen to Pastor Jenny’s Sermon.

[Images courtesy of Google Images, and PUMC] [Videos Source: YouTube]

Written by Isabella Dougan

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

In her sermon on the Third Sunday of Lent, Hyelim Yoon explained that this is a story of two sons. The prodigal son, who had left home but dared to come back despite his past mistakes, asking for his Father’s forgiveness and receiving a generous welcome and so much more than he could have imagined. The elder son, the beloved child who stayed at home with his Father, but felt entitled to more recognition and love, was not very welcoming to his brother. 

One of the  reasons Jesus is telling this parable is to show that just like the elder son, we too are much broken from God even though we live in God’s home and profess to be righteous. We are as much broken from God as many others who live without Christ. When we live in a broken world, the brokenness comes into our hearts to become part of our lives, no matter how hard we resist.  Hyelim reminds us that we are God’s children, and like the prodigal son, we have to accept that we are in desperate need of God’s grace. To receive God’s love fully, we must ask God to help us face our brokenness. 

At Princeton United Methodist Church, we can learn to overcome our brokenness by being part of this beloved community. Click here to watch the PUMC worship service and listen to Hyelim Yoon’s sermon.

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WORSHIP MUSIC | THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT

🎼🎶“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.
There’s a kindness in God’s justice, which is more than liberty.”🎼🎶

On this Third Sunday of Lent, which is also Communion Sunday, we will have a special music performance featuring our Chancel Choir singing “Come Find Forgiveness and Love” by Don Besig.

Our hymns today draw on the theme that Jesus, the good shepherd, will always look after his sheep, even bringing back the lost ones. They also remind us of God’s love, justice, and mercy for all. As we reflect on God’s love and pardon for lost sinners in Bible times, we are filled with hope and joy that if we repent when we sin, God can forgive us too. The scripture this week comes from Luke 15:11-32 and tells the story of the Prodigal Son. Intern Hyelim Yoon will preach a sermon on the topic: “Broken Things: Broken From God.”

As we journey with Jesus during Lent and witness his suffering, we learn to manage our fear and anxiety and the difficulties we encounter and trust our Lord and Savior.

Video “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” 

“Sir Henry W. Baker,  editor-in-chief of Hymns Ancient and Modern, wrote the text of “The King Of Love My Shepherd Is” in 1868 based on the Welsh version of  Psalm 23. He draws connection between this well-known psalm and other New Testament images on the theme of the Good Shepherd saying that even though we do not always deserve his kindness, and we sometimes act foolishly, God loves us and his goodness towards us never fails. The hymn reflects on Jesus as a shepherd leading his followers from evil and despair towards salvation.” {Wiki}  Sir Henry  is said to have spoken  stanza three of this hymn as his last words before dying. This hymn is sung to four different tunes including  DOMINUS REGIT ME (Dykes)

Video “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” 

“The author of “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” is Frederick William Faber. He wrote this hymn in 1862 to the tune of WELLESLEY  by Lizzie Tourjee. Tourjee wrote this tune for her school’s graduation ceremony. Influenced by the rituals and traditions of Rome, Faber, an English clergy,  converted from the Anglican Church to Roman Catholicism in the 19th century. The theme of this hymn is based on the premise and paradox that a sovereign ruler, unlike earthly rulers demonstrates welcome, kindness, grace and mercy. All we need to do is have a simple faith that “rest[s] upon God’s word.” Faber wrote many widely known hymns such as “My God, how wonderful thou art,” and “Hark, hark, my soul, angelic songs are swelling.” {Wiki}

Are you sick, struggling with sin, exhausted, anxious about anything? Come worship with us, and you will find healing, forgiveness, rest, and peace here at PUMC. If you feel broken, remember, God loves you regardless of how you feel. Let us, therefore, lift our voices together in song to our God and King.

Click here  to join us as we share in songs, prayer, music, scripture, and listen to Hyelim Yoon’s Sermon.

[Images Source: Google Images] [Videos Source: YouTube]

 

 

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

In her sermon on Sunday, Pastor Jenny reminds us that we are broken from creation. “If we stop struggling against nature, we will find wisdom and healing and loving and harmony,” she says. “Only then will we be able to reconnect those broken pieces.” “God is always providing a way for us, she adds, “therefore we must  give him and the earth thanks because the things that we touch and eat are from the earth.”  At Princeton United Methodist Church, we can learn to overcome our brokenness by being part of this beloved community. Click here to watch the PUMC worship service and listen to Pastor Jenny’s sermon.

 

 

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Daily Devotional | Sunday, February 28

Sunday, February 28

Ecclesiastes 9:11 – Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.

Photo by Keisha Finnie. In June 2020, Keisha Finne worked with artists Adam Serrano, Kaya Hobbs andKearasten Jordan to create a mural in memory of Black lives lost to police brutality, called “Say Their Names”. The mural is in Lancaster, PA.

“In a 2017 nationally representative study on prevalence of institutional discrimination in America, NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that 60% of Blacks (49% in urban areas and 67% in suburban areas) reported that they or a family member had been unfairly treated or stopped by a police officer due to race, compared to 27% of Hispanics, 13% of Asians, and 6% of Whites.” Excerpted from On the prevalence of racial discrimination in the United States, January 2019
Derived from a fictional 19th c Irish bartender, written originally in the form of a criticism of the press’ failure to do, is this charge that can be equally given to the church, “to afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted”. Considering the self-reporting of our siblings of color the nation, the press, media, the police, nor the church is successfully comforting the afflicted and offering a level playing field. And our black siblings are dying for it.

Action step: today, with brutal honesty ask if it isn’t way past the time when we as United Methodist discard any reservations about antiracism relating to white fragility and our fears of losing members and support. Here the voice of Jesus as George Floyd cries out, “You’re going to kill me, man. Can’t believe this, man. Mom, love you. Love you. Tell my kids I love them. I’m dead.”

Prayer: On Reading “How to Be an Antiracist”

God of all things, help me now.

I want to be an ally to my black brothers and sisters.

I want to be an ally to my brown brothers and sisters.

I want to be an ally to all who are oppressed by racist systems and policies.

And so I fight for their right to get the same education that I had.

For the right to acquire the same wealth that I have.

For the right to live in a “good” neighborhood as I do.

For the right, in short, to be like me.

And as I pray this, O God, my words convict me of my sin.

Why do I privilege my reality as the one that everyone should desire?

God, help me fight for the right for everyone to be themselves –

to live and love and speak from their own hearts.

Give me the courage to admit my false sense of superiority.

Give me eyes to see others as you see them.

To celebrate their distinctive ways of being in the world.

To honor their culture; to honor their values.

Holy One, open my ears. Open my eyes. Open my heart.

Lead me into humility. Call me into love.

Amen.

 

Elizabeth Moore, OSL

Abbot, the Order of Saint Luke shared on August 6, 2020  by UMC Discipleship’s Praying for Change: Daily Prayers for Anti-Racism Email

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Daily Devotional | Saturday, February 27

James Cone, Illustration: Uzo Njoku (UVA ’19)

Saturday, February 27

The Rev. James Cone, writing in the 1989 preface to his 1969 book, Black Theology & Black Power, offered this holy and human observation on his place in history, “Since theology is human speech and not God speaking, I recognize today, as I did then, that all attempts to speak about ultimate reality are limited by the social history of the speaker. Thus, I would not use exactly the same language today to speak about God that I used twenty years ago. Times have changed and the current situation demands a language appropriate for the problems we now face. But insofar as racism is still found in the churches and in society, theologians and preachers of the Christian gospel must make it unquestionably clear that the God of Moses and of Jesus makes an unqualified solidarity with the victims, empowering them to fight against injustice.”
Thirty years later we have, as a Conference answered the call to see that “insofar as racism is still found in the churches and in society, theologians and preachers of the Christian gospel must make it unquestionably clear that the God of Moses and of Jesus makes an unqualified solidarity with the victims, empowering them to fight against injustice.” We as a Conference committed ourselves, in holy conferencing, to antiracism. From 1969-1989 Rev. Cone saw movement, not completion of the task, but movement. We stand now at an historic moment of crisis in American Christianity. Future generations will be right to ask, “when hate arose yet again did they as leaders answer the call to antiracism?”

Action step: today, with brutal honesty ask simply, “can I, as a called church leader, ignore the call to antiracism?”

Prayer:

God of Unity, We come before you dismayed at our own divisions. We have struggled as your church to come to live in unity; but we are divided – along all the fault lines of our societies. The ruptures in our families, among friends, among denominations, among nations are wide and deep. When we attempt to get on the same page, we build taller walls and dig deeper trenches. God, help us! We know that Christ is not divided. We know that it is your baptism to which we have been called. It is your service to which we are compelled. You have called us to proclaim the gospel, but we even fight about what that is. Help us, God! Help us to give up our power and our privileges. Help us to yield for the sake and cause of the cross of Jesus. Help us to embrace and to live the foolishness of a life emptied of power and given to service, in the likeness of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Help us to walk in salvation – in the name of the Servant Christ, Amen.

Valerie Bridgeman Davis, The Africana Worship Book, Discipleship Resources, 2006, p.85