Worship Videos 2015-7-26

Chinese Choir

Chinese Sermon

English Sermon

English Ministry News and Notes 2015-7-26

• Great Thanks for your generosity in donating healthy and delicious snacks to this summer's Adventures in Faith (AiF) ministry. Keep them coming! Together, the children having been exploring how the "G(od) Force" leads us to move, act, and care. You are invited to continue lifting this ministry in prayer.

• Save the Date: Street Fest Outreach Sunday is Aug. 23rd! Your presence, energy, and participation make a HUGE difference. Plan to be a part of it. More info to come!

• Pastor Emily's Office Hours: Pastor Emily is in the office/at church on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. She works from home on Fridays. You are welcome to connect with her via email (pastoremalee@gmail.com), phone (510.452.1020, mailbox #1), stopping by, or making an appointment.

• It Takes a Community - Keeping the church clean, tidy, and inviting takes all of us. Please be sure to pick up after yourself, clean any cups/plates you use, and pitch in to keep our common space beautiful.

Continuing with Ephesians: Week 3 [Ephesians 3:14-21]

The following introduction and invitation to reflect comes from www.umcdiscipleship.org.

You are encouraged to meditate and pray with this week’s lectionary text throughout the coming week.

Today’s selected reading from Ephesians really does need to be expanded, to include verses 1-13. Verse 14 begins “For this reason…” It is the previous verses that supply the reason and the chapter before that which supply the reason.

Through Christ, God has broken down the dividing wall of hostility separating Jew and Gentile, and by the power of Christ’s love and the work of the Spirit, God is making one new humanity in place of the divided two.
 

God is busy making one new humanity, including especially in their midst, in their Christian communities that bring together both Jewish and Gentile people as one body in Christ.

And God’s strategy for doing this is nothing other than filling people with and spreading abroad the abundance of love God has for the world, ultimately expressed in Jesus Christ.

That’s why Paul prays what he prays in today’s reading.

His hope and prayer is the people in the Ephesus circuit may become so rooted and grounded in the love of God which knows no breadth, width, depth or height, that they may become so filled with the knowledge and love of God by which God continues to break down these barriers and build new community everywhere, starting where they are.

And Paul is aware this is a big ask. That’s why he concludes this reading as he does, because he knows God can accomplish far more that even the biggest thing we can ask to accomplish God’s purposes.

 

Whenever we hear someone praying over us, our first response should be gratitude that someone is praying and for the Spirit empowering that prayer. Our second response should be our own prayer seeking how we may participate in fulfilling what is being prayed over us.

How shall we be strengthened in our innermost selves with the power of the Holy Spirit?

How shall we allow Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith, more and more?

How shall we allow ourselves to be rooted and grounded in love?

How shall we open our awareness truly to comprehend, more and more, the breadths and length and height and depth of God’s love in Jesus Christ, a love that truly surpasses all human knowing?

How shall we become persons and a people, within and across our congregations, who are filled with all the fullness of God?
How do all and each of these become concrete, lived and living realities and not just eloquent wishes for us?
 

Worship Videos 2015-7-19

Chinese Choir

Chinese Sermon

English Sermon

Jae Choi mission itineration report

Rev. Jae Hyoung Choi, missionary with the Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church, is assigned to the Philippines and is serving at Union Theological Seminary, Dasmarinas, Cavite, Philippines. His work is with the Center for Geocentric Ministries of the seminary where issues on land justice and ecology are researched and taught. - See more at: http://www.umcmission.org/Explore-Our-Work/Missionaries-in-Service/Missionary-Profiles/Choi-Jae-Hyoung#sthash.O4BpJqcy.dpuf

Rev. Jae Hyoung Choi, missionary with the Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church, is assigned to the Philippines and is serving at Union Theological Seminary, Dasmarinas, Cavite, Philippines. His work is with the Center for Geocentric Ministries of the seminary where issues on land justice and ecology are researched and taught. - See more at: http://www.umcmission.org/Explore-Our-Work/Missionaries-in-Service/Missionary-Profiles/Choi-Jae-Hyoung#sthash.O4BpJqcy.dpuf

Rev. Jae Hyoung Choi, missionary with the Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church, is assigned to the Philippines and is serving at Union Theological Seminary, Dasmarinas, Cavite, Philippines. His work is with the Center for Geocentric Ministries of the seminary where issues on land justice and ecology are researched and taught.

Rev. Jae Hyoung Choi, missionary with the Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church, is assigned to the Philippines and is serving at Union Theological Seminary, Dasmarinas, Cavite, Philippines. His work is with the Center for Geocentric Ministries of the seminary where issues on land justice and ecology are researched and taught. - See more at: http://www.umcmission.org/Explore-Our-Work/Missionaries-in-Service/Missionary-Profiles/Choi-Jae-Hyoung#sthash.O4BpJqcy.dpuf

English Ministry News and Notes 2015-7-19

• We warmly welcome Rev. Deborah Lee as our preacher this morning. Rev. Lee is the Director of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity which works to achieve an equitable, inclusive and healthy society, culture, and economy where all people have equal opportunities and access to the resources and tools needed to achieve a higher quality of life.
• Save the Date! Our 2015 annual Uganda Benefit Dinner to support Kumi Christian Visionary School will be held on October 16th! All proceeds go towards keeping the school running for another year.
• Witnessing for Jesus ANEW! Get on board with what's astir in discipleship and leadership in the Cal-Nevada Conference by attending DiscipleShift. This is an innovative lab-oriented conference to help us navigate ministry in the 21st Century. It will be held at UOP in Stockton on Saturday, Aug.8th, from 8:30-4:00. If 5 or more people attend, the group rate will be $99 per person. CCUMC will reimburse $50 which makes the cost an affordable $49 including light breakfast and lunch. See Becky to sign up by July 26th.. Carpools to be arranged. This is an opportunity to learn from and collaborate with our conference to get our church to become a more vital congregation. .Details at http://www.discipleshift.com Registration is through Eventbrite at Http://discipleshiftconference.com

 

Continuing in Ephesians: Week 2 [Ephesians 2:11-22]

The following introduction and invitation to reflect comes from www.umcdiscipleship.org. You are encouraged to meditate and pray with this week’s lectionary text throughout the coming week.

Again this week the lesson from the Epistle is most likely an early Christian hymn. What did the early church sing about? They sang about the possibility of peace and reconciliation that was now available to the whole world through Christ. In this hymn, we have word pairs showing the contrast between “then,” the time before Jesus came into the world, and “now.” 

 

Then they were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel

Then they were strangers to the covenant
Then they had no hope
Then they were without God in the world
Then they had no access to the Father
Now they have been brought near
Now both groups are one
Now the dividing wall is gone
Now the hostility is no longer
Now they are all a new humanity through him, one body, reconciled to God, with Christ himself as their cornerstone

These are powerful words and images for us to hear today. They point us to our eternal hope that one day there will be peace on earth and good will toward all people. One day, there will no longer be categories of people signaling division: no longer slave or free, woman or man, Gentile or Jew or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist, straight or gay, black or white or yellow or brown. One day, some day, the peace that is in Christ will reign.

We need to sing this hymn of hope in our world today, because we live in a world that is all about walls and barriers, insiders and outsiders, privileged and unprivileged. In some places, such as the holy lands of Israel and Palestine, there are literal, physical walls that separate the Palestinians from the Jews.

What walls, invisible or physical, are in your community? Can you talk about the separations? Can you look beyond the more obvious signals such as skin color, class, and religion and talk about the barriers in your community or your congregation that hold people back from becoming fully a part of the neighborhood, the classroom, the Sunday School group, or the church? What can you do to begin to tear down those walls in the name of Jesus Christ?

 
 

Worship Videos 2015-7-12

Chinese Choir

Chinese Sermon

English Sermon

English Ministry News and Notes 2015-7-12

• 2015 Benefit Dinner Planning Needs Your Help! Did you know that our annual Uganda Benefit Dinner to support Kumi Christian Visionary School is only 14 weeks away? That means we need to get the ball rolling to enlist volunteers for all the aspects that make it a success. Our first planning meeting is today, July12th, 1:00 PM, as the Missions Ministries Team begins to shape the general plan. Please attend as many hands and hearts are needed. All proceeds go towards keeping the school running for another year.
• Mission sharing. Plan to come to church on Friday evening, July 17th, to meet UM missionary Jae Choi who serves with his wife Grace in the Philippines. The Chois have visited CCUMC in the past, and blessed us with their slides, songs, and stories of God's grace and power at work. A light supper will be served at 6:00 pm followed by Jae's presentation with time for Q & A. You are invited to make a free will offering to support the work of UM missionaries around the globe. It is truly a blessing to be part of the connectional outreach ministries of the worldwide UM Church. Please sign up or email Becky (rebeccawong8@gmail.com) so we will have ample food for the evening.
• Witnessing for Jesus ANEW! Get on board with what's astir in discipleship and leadership in the Cal-Nevada Conference by attending DiscipleShift. It will be held at UOP in Stockton on Saturday, Aug.8th, from 8:30-4:00. See Becky to sign up by July 26th. Details at www.discipleshift.com
• We invite you to read Bishop Brown’s Statement on our UMC Conference website about the recent Supreme Court decision on Marriage Equality: http://calnev-email.brtapp.com/viewemail/343231

We're Starting a New Series on Ephesians!

Below is an short introduction of Ephesians from www.umcdiscipleship.org. You are invited and encouraged to read and re-read the whole letter (it’s short!) as well as the weekly lectionary readings during the series. Let us listen to how the Spirit might be speaking and moving through scripture, each of us, one another, and the world.

Ephesians is a very different kind of letter to a very different audience and a very different focus than we saw in 2 Corinthians, from which we have been reading up to now.

 

For starters, Ephesians was a “circular letter”; that is, a letter intended to circulate among seven congregations, six of which had been started by and remained in an oversight relationship with the congregation Paul helped to establish in Ephesus. For that reason alone, Ephesians tends to focus on broader themes of Christian theology and community life rather than on more specific details of the life, concerns, or questions of any particular congregation.

 
One of the realities of this region is that Jewish people and Gentiles had been living side by side with each other for centuries. This informs a key section of the letter, focused on how in Christ God broke down the “dividing wall” separating "Jew" from “Greek” (gentile), and so the life of Christian congregations both could and did include both Jewish and Gentile members as equal participants. 

As a circular letter, Paul's point is not simply to reinforce the value of cross-cultural congregations in each place. Indeed, as we might say in Nashville, this letter isn't for "you" in "your" congregation. Rather, it’s for “all y’all” across an intentional local network of congregations. Paul’s larger agenda here was to support the thriving connection these seven congregations could have with one another, across the different kinds of city and town cultures represented in each. The vision of church Paul advocates for in this letter expresses unity in Christ not simply on a local level, but also, and as importantly, on a regional level. We might even say he was teaching all of these congregations, individually and in their regional network, what it means to be “One in Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world."

 

Spending these next seven weeks in Ephesians, starting today, becomes an invitation for your congregation, perhaps with several others in your area (even of different denominations!), to be exploring how you can be united in common ministry and supporting each other in that ministry in your larger community or region.

  

Worship Videos 2015-7-5

Chinese Choir

Chinese Sermon

English Sermon

English Ministry News and Notes 2015-7-5

• We are thrilled to welcome Pastor Emily back from her year away bonding with her twins Milo and Imani! Pastor Emily will be in the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30 –4pm in addition to Sundays. She will work from home on Fridays. We will have a pot luck “Welcome Back Luncheon” next Sunday, June 12th, after parallel worship beginning at 10:30AM.
• Summer Intergenerational class will center on the topic of Non-Violent Communication. It began this Sunday and will run for 8 weeks.
• Plan to come to church on Friday evening, July 17th to meet UM missionary Jae Choi who serves with his wife Grace in the Phillipines. A light supper will be served at 6:00 pm followed by Jae’s presentation with time for Q & A. Connect with Becky Wong to sign up!
• Witnessing for Jesus ANEW! Get on board with what's astir in discipleship and leadership in the Cal-Nevada Conference by attending DiscipleShift. It will be held at UOP in Stockton on Saturday, Aug.8th, from 8:30-4:00. If 5 or more people attend, the group rate will be $99 per person. CCUMC will reimburse $50 which makes the cost an affordable $49 including light breakfast and lunch. See Becky to sign up by July 26th. .Details at www.discipleshift.com

Supreme Court Ruling Response by Dr. Jeffrey Kuan

This past week, the Supreme Court ruled on the matter of same-sex marriage finding it a right under the Constitution. This news was met with everything from great joy to deep consternation across the Christian family. We offer the letter below from our beloved pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan, who now serves as President of Claremont School of Theology, as food for thought. Pastor Jeffrey remains connected to CCUMC through his family - Val and Janene - as well as claiming us as his Charge Conference. Let us continue to be in prayer about how we can best live out God's love in the world.

Welcoming Supreme Court ruling with Joy!

I write to you to express the profound joy that has filled my heart since the Supreme Court announced its ruling that establishes marriage equality as a fundamental right across the United States, regardless of a couple’s sexual orientation. This ruling marks a significant moment in this country’s history and a significant victory for a decades-long civil rights struggle.

 

The impact of this ruling will immediately affect the quality of life for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. My heart delights in the fact that there will no longer be a divide in our country, and amongst our community of students, faculty, staff and alumni/ae, between those who have access to marriage as a testament to the bonds of loving relationship that can grow between two people and those who do not. And I give thanks for the relief that same sex couples will begin to experience through the legal benefits and securities that marriage offers.

Religion’s role in the campaign for marriage equality has been complex, to say the lease. It has simultaneously served as the oppressor and liberator of LGBTQ people in their long-fought struggle for justice. That conflicted relationship will not end with this ruling. To that end, it is crucial that CST continue in its mission to educate the Church and its leaders to Create a Difference for the World We Live In. We must use our expertise and experience to help religious communities to grow in their understanding of God’s radical and unconditional love by providing them with theological resources available within our respective traditions.

 As a United Methodist, I turn to the teachings within the Book of Discipline that "all persons

"all persons are individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God” (2012 Book of Discipline ¶ 161F). It is the image of God, the imago dei, that each one of us bears, that should motivate us to heed the Prophet Micah’s call to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.” If we accept the Gospel truth that each one of us has been created in the image of God, then an authentic life of faith calls we upon us to identify and celebrate the diverse manifestations of the divine we witness in our shared humanity.

 

We should harbor no illusions that this historic achievement marks the end of the struggle for equality and justice. On the same day that so many danced in the streets to celebrate justice at work, others mourned the ongoing injustice in our country, embodied  by the loss of the Hon. Rev. Clementa Pinckney and 8 other precious children of God at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC.

As we begin to live into this new era of equality in our country, let us commit ourselves to work together to build on this watershed victory for love. Let us unite our hearts and voices to bring about God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Let us dance with those who dance and mourn with those who mourn as we walk together along the way.

 

Sincerely,

Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan