English Ministry News and Notes 12-29-13

*Hospitality in the New Year! Do you love sharing a tasty treat with a brother/sister after worship? Do you enjoy sipping a cup of hot tea and catching up on Sunday? We do too! Please consider pitching in to provide hospitality after worship in the new year. The new sign up sheet is posted! Thank you!

*LMUMC Food Pantry Ministry Day: Saturday, Jan. 11th. Pitch in and make a real difference!

*Poinsettia Donors: Please feel free to take a plant home today! Thanks again for bringing great beauty to the sanctuary!

*Please note, the church office will be closed on Jan. 1st.

*Community New Year Hike, Jan. 1st! Hikers and bikers are invited to gather to welcome the new year by gathering in front of the Lafayette Safeway at 9 a.m. For more info please connect with Charlie.

*Prayer Invite: Please hold our youth and young adults in prayer as they head off to a snow trip in Arnold, CA lead by Ben and Aeri, from Jan. 3rd—5th.

*Curious About Baptism or Membership? Please connect with Pastor Emily to if the Spirit is moving you to connect intentionally with God and the community.

12 Days of Christmas - Beth A. Richardson

Do not put Christmas away too soon — keep the joy and the song going for the whole season.- Mary Anna Vidakovich from Sing to the Lord: Devotions for Advent December 25 is only the first day of Christmas. The Christmas celebration continues for twelve days, after which we celebrate the arrival of the kings who fol-lowed the star to find the holy babe. The awaited event is here! Don’t put away the celebration just yet, but instead, follow the Christmas journey all the way to Epiphany.

Every Christmas, a good friend of mine gives me a huge Christmas shopping bag filled with twelve smaller bags. Inside each small sack is a gift for me or for someone in my family (even the dog sometimes gets a gift). I’m grateful for this tradition of opening one gift each day of the twelve days of Christmas. This tradition reminds me to keep celebrating Christ’s nativity all the way to Epiphany.

CELEBRATE THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

• December 25: Memorize this verse: “A child has been born for us, a son given to us.” Isaiah 9:6
• December 26: Take five minutes to think about three things you enjoyed most about Christmas Day.
• December 27: Gather good clothes and take them to your church or a family shelter.
• December 28: Use the fronts of old Christmas cards to make thank-you cards for people who gave you gifts.
• December 29: Sit down with your family and tell each other what you like about each other.
• December 30: Write about one of your favorite Christmas memories. Pack it with the Christmas decorations. You can read it next year.
• December 31: Take some time to think about your hopes for the next year.
• January 1: Pray for people who are traveling.
• January 2: Sit quietly and think about how you hope the world will be dif-ferent next year.
• January 3: Share Joy and Peace!
• January 4: Cut out paper stars and put them in the windows of your home.
• January 5: Read about the wise men’s journey to find Jesus in Matthew 2:1-12.

English Ministry News and Notes 12-22-13

*Great Thanks to each of your generosity for your giving towards our student missioners. It's not too late. If you were unable to do so last week, please place your special offering in the plates this week with a note in the memo: 2014 VIM Trip.

*Come Christmas Caroling! We will be heading out over the hills and everywhere to share the good news that Jesus Christ is born, Monday, Dec. 23rd, at noon. If you haven't already, please sign up today!

*You are warmly invited and welcomed to Christmas Eve Candlelight Worship, Tuesday, Dec. 24th at 7:00 p.m. It will be a beautiful, joy-filled retelling of the Christmas story and lots of our favorite Christmas music.

*Hospitality in the New Year! Do you love sharing a tasty treat with a brother/sister after worship? Do you enjoy sipping a cup of hot tea and catching up on Sun-day? We do too! Please consider pitching in to provide hospitality after worship in the new year. The new sign up sheet is posted! Thank you!

*Please note, the church office will be closed on Dec. 25th and 26th.

*Curious About Baptism or Membership? Please connect with Pastor Emily to if the Spirit is moving you to connect intentionally with God and the community.

Emmanuel, Rev. Steve Garnaas-Holmes

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” —Matthew 1.23

Forget all the fancy theories of salvation,
how this birth will be the latchkey
to our otherwise impossible forgiveness.
No, it is much more simple.

God wants to be with us.
That’s all.
Messed up as we are,
the Beloved likes to be close.

God desires to be with you,
delights to be with you.
Our Heavenly Lover delights
to be with all humanity,
because that’s what love is like.

All the stars in the darkness,
all the aching hearts,
the strangers who,
after all, are lovely,
all of this marvel
is just the divine plea
for friends.

How simple it is
to give God
immense pleasure!

English Ministry News and Notes 12-15-13

*Great Thanks to each of your generosity for your giving towards our stu-dent missioners. It's not too late. If you were unable to do so last week, please place your special offering in the plates this week with a note in the memo: 2014 VIM Trip.

*Appreciations to those who served at LMUMC's Food Pantry yesterday!

*Let's Wrap! You are invited to pitch in to wrap all the wonderful toys that were collected over the last few weeks today. We'll begin around 12:45 p.m. in the Annex. The gifts will be given this week participants of Asian Com-munity Mental Health Services (ACMHS).

*Please Note: Church Secretary, Theresa Leung, will be on vacation from Dec. 16th - 20th.

*It's Adventure in Faith Time! Our monthly chapel will be held this Wednesday, Dec. 18th. Volunteers will gather at 2:00 for a time of preparation. If you'd like to volunteer but have never done so, please connect with Pastor Emily.

*We're Going Caroling - We will be visiting both home-bound seniors and nursing homes on Monday, Dec. 23rd. Our time will begin at noon (please come having eaten lunch) and conclude by 5:30 p.m. in Castro Valley. Please sign up today in order for us to arrange for teams and rides. We welcome drivers (must be 25 years or older with a valid drivers' form on file.)

*Christmas Eve Candlelight Worship - We will retell the astonishing story of Emmanuel, God with us, on Tuesday, Dec. 24th, at 7:00 p.m. You are encouraged to invite family and friends to this beautiful, awe-filled service.

Nelson Mandela and Advent by Steve Goodier

Nelson Mandela died December 5, 2013, at age 95. It is fitting that we remember him during Advent.

Advent reminds us to wait … change is coming. Mandela urged his people onward toward change, but the road was arduous. "I am fundamentally an optimist," he said. "Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward" (Long Walk to Freedom). Change was coming. But the road stretching out before them was so very long.

Advent speaks of peace. Nelson Mandela was one of the great peacemakers of our lifetime. He lived by the words, "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." But peacemaking was neither quick nor easy. "I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended" (Long Walk to Freedom).

Advent is a season of hope. Mandela’s opposition to apartheid landed him in prison for 27 years. "In my country," he said, "we go to prison first and then become President." Though often discouraged, he did not give up. Later in life he said, "Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again." Much of his success lay in his persistence. In his autobiography Mandela tells of his joy when, during those years, he was introduced to his new baby granddaughter. In her face he saw the future of his people. It was customary for the grandfather to name the babies in the family, so he chose her name. She would be called Zaziwe, which means Hope. She would be named for a hopeful future for his people.

And finally, Advent points us toward the source of love, the greatest of all gifts. Mandela said so eloquently, "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite" (Long Walk to Freedom).

Nelson Mandela was a great catalyst for positive change in the twentieth century. If he will be thought by some to be a saint, he would contradict by saying, "I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying."

So it is fitting we remember him during Advent. May we each strive to be saints: sinners who keep on trying.
Steve Goodier is the Director of Communications for the Rocky Mountain Conference.

English Ministry News and Notes 12-8-13

• Special Giving Opportunity Today: We will take a special offering today for our student missioners, Jacinto, Michelle, and Jeffrey, who will travel to Uganda in May. You are invited to give generously!
• Christmas Poinsettias! An annual CCUMC tradition is the decorating of the sanctuary with poinsettias for Christmas Sunday and Christmas Eve. If you would like to contribute a plant, please place your order with Laura. Each plant is $10. We will take orders through today.
• During the month of December, we are collecting used children's books, grades K-4, to send to Kumi Christian Visionary School which opens next year in Uganda. This will form the basis of a small school library which the Mission Team will help establish next May. See Jeffrey Lu for details.
• Charge Conference! You are warmly invited to attend our annual "business meeting." We will gather in the Annex promptly at 1:00 p.m. today to celebrate ministry, nominate and vote on leaders, approve the pastoral compensation package for 2014, and more. All members of the church are urged to attend.
• Christmas Eve Candlelight Worship: Mark your calendars now and invite your friends! We will gather in the hush and beauty of candle light to welcome the birth of Christ on Dec. 24th at 7:00 p.m.

Making Room for God: Reflections on Advent

It happens every year. Each November, I eagerly anticipate the coming of Advent. I inch out slowly into this ecclesial season like a parched root twisting awkwardly towards water. Advent, these four expectant weeks before Christmas, is a season that permits pondering, for pacing our pleas, and our confessions, for succumbing softly to those year-old aches and questions, and sitting with resolute silence as we peel back the layers of our hearts and expose vulnerabilities before God. We so often think of Advent as the "waiting season," waiting on God to make good on God's promises. It is that and so much more.

I have been meditating on the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke and have found myself stuck on Elizabeth, that righteous woman of God, that blameless old woman of God, that barren woman of God. I am a single woman. I have never been pregnant. I have never tried to get pregnant. I do not know of the severe hunger many women feel for pregnancy. I do not know what it feels like to be barren. But I dwell on Elizabeth because her story is barely told and I imagine many women might discover something about Elizabeth's life to which to relate. We know so little about her life before Luke 1:5, the contours of her relationship with God, how she aged into her unmet longing and lived with the pain of constant desire. We know so little about how her sorrow shaped her. I do not know what it feels like to be barren, to live with a womb that refuses to do what it was created to do. But, like most women at some point in their lives, I know what it is to achingly long for something. I know what it is to feel the emptiness of that longing linger and stretch possessively across the abdomen. I know about stomach pits and fervent exhaustive prayer. I know about this aspect of Advent, the sitting with longing and the terse cyclical dance of clinging to hope and loosening the handgrip of resignation.

I am grateful that the first central acting human figures of Advent are courageous women who participate with God's risky mischief. Advent reminds us that the work of God begins in the most mundane corners of life, the kitchens and bedrooms of our homes where our deepest insecurities and most vulnerable desires are laid bare. God honors the seemingly rote business of domesticity, and chooses to visit us when our guard is presumably most down, in the commonplace of our homes.

I wonder if the invitation of Advent is not also that God desires to inhabit us, to make a home within our home, to have a certain space with us in which God's self can let down God's guard and show us the vulnerability of a God who would chose to dwell in the womb of a sixteen-year old girl. Could Advent be a season in which we clear out space for God to move in and linger around the house? Could Advent be a season in which we take turns with God opening up slowly and yet deliberately as we reacquaint ourselves with one another?

Enuma Okoro (M.Div.) is the author of Reluctant Pilgrim: A Moody, Somewhat Self-Indulgent, Introvert's Search for Spiritual Community and co-author of Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. She is also a speaker, consultant and retreat/workshop leader.

English Ministry News and Notes 12-1-13

• Double Your Donation! For one day only, on December 3, 2013, as part of the UMC's Giving Tuesday, gifts made online through The Advance will be matched dollar for dollar. For example, you can support Pastor Joseph Chan, Marilyn Chan, Imagine No Malaria, or Wadi Foquin. See www.umcmission.org for more information.
• Toy Drive for the Asian Mental Health Services. Bring a new, unwrapped toy next week!
• During the month of December, we are collecting used children's books, grades K-4, to send to Kumi Christian Visionary School which opens next year in Uganda. This will form the basis of a small school library which the Mission Team will help establish next May. See Jeffrey Lu for details.
• Next week, Dec. 8th, a special offering will be taken to support our three young people who are going on the mission trip to Uganda next May. During worship, you will hear Jeffrey Lu, Michelle Lu, and Jacinto Obrera share their reasons and hopes for going on the trip as part of the CCUMC team of volunteers.
• Christmas Poinsettias! An annual CCUMC tradition is the decorating of the sanctu-ary with poinsettias for Christmas Sunday and Christmas Eve. If you would like to contribute a plant, please place your order with Laura. Each plant is $10. We will take orders through Dec. 8th.
• Mark your calendars now for Charge Conference - Our annual business meeting will take place on Dec. 8th at 1:00pm in the social hall. All members are strongly encouraged to be a part of this time.

When God Comes Down - James A Harnish

Star-watching began as a hobby for Robert Owen Evans. He grew up in a Methodist family in Sydney, Australia. In 1967, he was an ordained minister in the New South Wales Conference where he served as a pastor and studied the history of evangelical movements. He retired in 1998 and might have drifted in pastoral obscurity except for his talent for spotting supernovae.

A supernova occurs when a giant star at an incomprehensible distance from the Earth explodes in a spectacular burst of light estimated to be equal in energy to 100 billion suns. That’s a lot of light! By the time that light reaches us, it is an unexpected twinkle at a particular spot in the sky that would otherwise be left in darkness.

Pastor Evans began supernova hunting in the 1950’s, but he didn’t make his first official discovery until 1981. It takes a lot of patience to see something most people don’t see. By the end of 2005, he had made forty discoveries. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson records the star-watching pastor saying, “There’s some-thing satisfying, I think, about the idea of light traveling for millions of years through space and just at the right moment as it reaches Earth someone looks at the right bit of sky and sees it. It just seems right that an event of that magnitude should be witnessed.”

Pastor Evans has trained his eyes to watch empty spaces in the sky so that at just the right moment, by looking at just the right place, he observes a burst of light that the rest of us – too busy to wait, too anxious to watch, too immersed in the present to peer into a light come from the past – are unprepared and unable to see. He watches and waits for just the right moment when he can be the witness of that moment when a light that has been coming our way for millions of years finally appears.

The writer of the fourth Gospel – John – could never have imagined what Pastor Evans knows about supernovae. John’s Gospel bears witness to a light that shines in the darkness, which the darkness has never been able to extinguish. It was, in fact, the light that burst forth in an amazing explosion of light hundreds of millions of years ago on the first day of creation. It was the light through which the world and everything in it came into being. Most of the world, preoccupied with the darkness, didn’t recognize the light when it came. But there were some who, like Pastor Evans, became witnesses to that light. They believed it was nothing less than the light of the glory of God in human flesh, leading John to declare, “No one has ever seen God. God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made God known. (John 1:18).

Advent is the season in which we watch, wait, and prepare to bear witness to the coming of the true light of God’s presence in Jesus Christ. Through worship, Scripture, and prayer, we train our eyes to see what the world never sees so that in the hubbub of the holidays, we are prepared to celebrate a “holy day” – the day when God came down among us in human flesh.

Charles Wesley celebrated the coming of Christ in the Christmas carol “Glory Be to God on High.” Lines from the 1st verse of the carol capture the central theme of our Advent season: “Now God comes down…God the invisible appears…And Jesus is His name.”

The stargazing pastor said, “It just seems right that an event of that magnitude should be witnessed.” This Advent season, we will meet some of the people who witnessed the miracle of the Incarnation – God becoming flesh in Jesus. You are invited to enter the season then with expectation that as their stories become our story, we can also become witnesses to the light that the darkness has never been able to overcome. Let’s do some Advent stargazing!