Posts

Posted on

Chaplains on the Medical Team

2015 jan tn04xxtedtaylor_2mm-(ZF-2175-91045-1-001)Many of life’s critical moments take place in a healthcare setting. For most of us the bookends of our lives – birth and death – take place with the support of a medical team outside the home. With more attention now on patient-centered care, other healthcare team providers are being recognized for the roles they play at these crucial times.

An important, but sometimes overlooked or neglected, component of the healthcare team is the pastoral care provider.  Chaplain Tedford J. Taylor, director of pastoral care & training at RWJ University Hospital Hamilton, will speak at the UMM breakfast on January 11 on how chaplains and others can offer pastoral companionship and support during these critical times.

Ted supervises more than 20 volunteer and intern chaplains in providing  spiritual and emotional care to patients.  A diplomate in pastoral supervision through the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy (CPSP), he is also 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 lives 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.

The delicious hot breakfast begins at 8 AM, followed by the program at 8:30. A $5 donation for the meal is requested. Please RSVP to umm@princetonumc.org or 609-924-2613 by noon on  Friday, January 9. Everyone is welcome!

Posted on

Cornerstone Kitchen: New Year’s Eve @ 1 pm

Annette Ransom Judith MillerWest Windsor Plainsboro News, the biweekly paper, celebrated Cornerstone Community Kitchen volunteers Annette Ransom (left in this WWP photo), Judy Miller (on the right) and Chris Orsini (pictured below, in action, wrapping take-home meals).

In the article, published on December 19 and distributed to every home in West Windsor and Plainsboro, reporter Lynn Miller quotes CCK’s founder:

“The greatest unexpected pleasure that’s come from our service has been the coming together of people from throughout the community to serve,” says Larry Apperson, founder of the project.

DSCF8057Thanks to all the volunteers who help Cornerstone Community Kitchen, to partner with TASK to serve meals every  Wednesday since June 6, 2012. This year, it will offer its New Year’s Eve meal at a different time — 1 to 2:30 p.m.

 

 

Posted on

Cornerstone Kitchen on Christmas Eve

CCK servers Klass who and Lee IMG_0304Cornerstone Community Kitchen celebrates its third Christmas, its first in the new Fellowship Hall. We serve every Wednesday, no matter what ! But on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve the meal will be 1 to 2:30 p.m. (instead of the normal 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Today Cornerstone Community Kitchen was featured in an excellent article, “Princeton UMC Takes Lead as Community Kitchen Host,” in The Relay, the newspaper for the United Methodist Church of Greater New Jersey Conference. Click here to see the article. 

The Relay used the photo above, showing (from left) PUMC member Joan Klass, community volunteer  Jeanne McGann, and PUMC member George Lee.

The CCK team for second Wednesdays could use another volunteer! Email cck@princetonumc.org for information.

Posted on

Singing our way to Christmas

Karen zumbrunn 3Celebrate the season with Christmas carols at Princeton United Methodist Church — starting with the Advent Extravaganza on Sunday, December 9, 4 to 7:30 p.m. Listen to the children’s choirs and Sunday School classes present the Christmas story and join in the singing. Then enjoy dinner and crafts followed by dessert and caroling, led by Dr. Karen Zumbrunn. (If your last name begins with A to L, bring a side dish. From M to Z, bring a dessert.) Questions? anna@princetonumc.org.

Then at the United Methodist Men’s breakfast on Sunday, December 16, Dr. Zumbrunn plays and shares stories behind the carols. The delicious hot breakfast begins at 8 a.m. and the program is at 8:30 a.m. All are welcome. Please RSVP to umm@princetonumc.org or 609-924-2613 by Friday, December 12 at noon.

That night, December 14, 7:30 p.m., the combined choirs, directed by Hyosang Park and Tom Shelton, present Lessons and Carols From Around the World. A freewill offering will be taken.

On Sunday, December 21, at 4 p.m., the sanctuary hosts the New Jersey Gay Men’s Chorus as it presents Masters of Good Cheer.

And then — the candlelight services on Christmas Eve, 6 p.m. for families, a traditional service at 8 p.m.  Youth choir alumni are invited to sing with the youth choir: rehearsal at 7:15 p.m. in Room 203.

“People, look east and sing today: Love, the Lord is on the way.”

Posted on

Methodists Respond to Ferguson

In response to Ferguson, the Greater New Jersey Conference will hold a “Just in Time” Prayer and Reflection for Justice and Peace, on Sunday, December 7, 5 PM, at Trinity United Methodist Church, 1985 Pennington Rd. Ewing. Contact welcome@magnoliaroadumc.org or 609-388-8852
The keynote speaker will be Rev. Gilbert H.Caldwell, civil rights activist. Huffington Post blogger, and retired Methodist minister. A former public defender, De’Travius A. Bethea, will also speak. Reverend Vanessa M. Wilson JD, chair of the conference’s Commission on Religion and Race, will facilitate.
The conference initiated the Conversations about Race Series as a safe forum for clergy and laity to discuss issues of race, ethnicity and culture, as well as gain tools to equip participants to build bridges for full and equal participation of racial and
ethnic people in the total life of the United Methodist Church.
“Just in Time” indicates that the session is being convened as an immediate response to a recent event. In this case, it is the Ferguson, MO grand jury finding of no indictment of Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting and killing of an unarmed
teenager, Michael Brown. This session is designed to be informational, educational and inspirational, as we examine the situation in Ferguson; as well as, the bigger context of race, religion and American law.

 

Posted on

Children’s Sabbath: November 16

2014 nov Shelton choirJoin us on Sunday, November 16, for a Children’s Sabbath service, when the youngest members of our church will lead worship at both 9:30 and 11 a.m. Fourth graders will receive their Bibles and read from them. With Pastor Anna Gillette the fourth and fifth grade class will deliver the sermon.  Led by Tom Shelton, the children’s choirs — shown here in rehearsal — will  sing. All in all we look forward to a very special time, when together we worship God, our loving parent.

Posted on

Moral Monday Rally: October 27

The Campaign to End the New Jim Crow is holding the Moral Monday Rally to end the criminalization of our youth, remove barriers to re-entry, reduce the prison population and invest in the social safety net (schools, housing, jobs).

On October 27, noon to 2 p.m., The Moral Monday Rally will aim for lawmakers to reform our criminal justice laws and racially discriminatory incarceration systems.to end the criminalization of our youth, remove barriers to re-entry, reduce the prison population and invest in the social safety net (schools, housing, jobs). It will be October 27, noon to 2 p.m., on the steps of the New Jersey State House in Trenton. Parking is available in the New Jersey State House and Trenton Wyndham Hotel decks.

jim crow book

Inspired to organize by Michelle Alexander’s seminal book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, the Campaign to End Jim Crow is an all-volunteer grass roots coalition of area leaders and concerned citizens who have come together to raise awareness of our broken criminal justice system, promote prison reform legislation and to garner support for the incarcerated and their families.

In 2010, Michelle Alexander, a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar who has taught at a number of universities, including Stanford Law School, published The New Jim Crow which details how, by targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice systemfunctions as a contemporary system of racial control. Through America’s “war on drugs,” black and brown men in America were targeted for incarceration, thereby recreating a racial caste system denying these people access to employment and voting rights hard fought and won through the civil rights movement, and succeeding in decimating black families. In noted historian Cornel West’s forward of The New Jim Crow, he writes of “the massive use of state power to incarcerate hundreds of thousands of precious poor, black, male (and, increasingly, female) young people in the name of a bogus “War on Drugs.”

Join CENJC’s rally to end the criminalization of our youth, remove barriers to re-entry, reduce the prison population and invest in the social safety net (schools, housing, jobs). Visit CENJC on Facebook.

Methodists, of all Christian denominations, share John Wesley’s heritage of pushing for prison reform.

 

 

Posted on

Christopher McWilliams at the Organ

fantasiaRemember the opening scene from Disney’s Fantasia? With the image of the conductor (Leopold Stowkowski) lifting his arm for the crashing downbeat? That’s J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in d minor, and it’s featured on Christopher McWilliams’ organ recital on Saturday, October 25, at 2 p.m., at Princeton United Methodist Church (PUMC)

McWilliams, the organist at PUMC, will also play selections by  Francois Couperin, Herbert Howells, Marco E. Bossi, and Calvin Hampton. Admission is free; a freewill offering will benefit capital improvements to the church.

Christopher McWilliams A Vermont native, McWilliams has a Bachelor of Music in Piano and Organ Performance and a Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy and Performance from Westminster Choir College of Rider University, where he studied with Phyllis Lehrer, Matthew Lewis, and Kenneth Cowan. He teaches private lessons in piano at the Westminster Conservatory of  Music, at PUMC, and in students’ homes, and is a frequent accompanist at the Dutch Neck Presbyterian Church.

 

 

Posted on

Help Tell Faith Stories: Online Learning

Here’s news about an online learning course: Church Communication in the 21st Century 

For too long, the voice of people of faith has been hidden, drowned out or altogether silent in the public media. This course is designed to help you reclaim your own voice in order to speak faith to a world desperately in need of the good news of God’s love by using the communications tools of the 21st century. Next class begins on November 5, 2014 and costs $29. PUMC can help with the cost. Find out more here.

What will you learn?

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Explain the importance of telling stories of faith and sharing individual messages in the public sphere.
  • Craft and share personal stories of faith.
  • Identify people and organizations with whom to build relationships via social media and other 21st century communications tools.
  • Use and participate in specific tools, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram or Flickr, and Blog.
  • Articulate and implement best practices for using 21st century communications tools to communicate faith.
  • Discover additional training opportunities to organize a local church small group study for Communicating Faith in the 21st Century that can empower the local church to tell its stories of faith in the public sphere.
  • Access resources from United Methodist Communications, The United Methodist Church, United Methodist News Service, and other denomination and faith-based organizations.

What can I expect?

This online course allows learners to complete the 6-week schedule at their own pace, at their convenience.

In the course, you will

  • Read information,
  • Explore multimedia materials,
  • Engage in discussion forums,
  • Complete assignments,
  • Take quizzes, and
  • Share feedback

Claim — or reclaim your voice to share the Good News!