Volunteers in Mission HAITI Team dates

Interested in attending a Mission to Haiti in October? 

The FUMC Pasadena is preparing for our October 22-30, 2012, Mission Trip to Haiti with several key training events in September.

The team’s next Prep Session covering Cultural Sensitivity and Traveling Abroad will be held on Wednesday, September 12, at 7pm in the Church Lounge. If you are interested in how we are preparing for our journey, please join us!

On September 23 at 4pm, ANYONE who is interested in being trained to work with UMVIM, United Methodist Volunteers in Mission, is invited to attend a special training with Heather Wilson, our Western Jurisdiction UMVIM Trainer.  

For more information on any of the activities above or how you can interact with UMVIM, please contact Jessica Ardo, the FUMC Pasadena Missions Peace and Justice Committee Chair by email at jessardo@gmail.com.

What if?

by Rev. N. Adiel A. DePano,
lead pastor FUMC Pasaden

What if, we Rethink Church?
 
What if Church was less about Sunday and more about the other days of the week?

What if Church wasn’t just a place we go but something we do, a menu of adventure, an active verb instead of a noun?

What if Church wasn’t just a building but thousands of doors, each of them opening up to a different concept or experience of Church so that whoever knocks might find a journey to call their own?

What if Church was the way Church was in the beginning – outbound, unbound, active; human beings from completely different worlds united by a common purpose, experience, and belief, creating real solutions for their daily lives?

What if Church looked at itself with seekers’ eyes, recognizing that even the smallest step through one of our doors is an act of courage, a moment of vulnerability?

What if we rethink Church not in terms of what it is but what it could be?

And what if we can convince the world to do the same?

These probing questions are from a Rethink Church video produced by United Methodist Communications (you can see the video at the bottom of this page). They are relevant questions for us at First United Methodist Church of Pasadena. In the almost two months I’ve been among you I sense an anxiety over the church’s present and future. There is concern over declining membership and finances. There are questions as to how the church might arrest the decline and return to vitality.

Many of you who call FUMC of Pasadena home have a memory of when the church was vital, stories of exceptional moments of health, excellence, and energy. It is important that stories of vital ministry be told and retold not for the purpose of returning to a bygone era but to get hold of what makes for vital ministry and build on those stories and current capabilities.

The questions from the Rethink Church video above are in the spirit of appreciative inquiry (or Ai). Ai is an organizational development method which focuses on increasing what an organization does well rather than on eliminating what it does badly. Through an inquiry which appreciates the positive and engages all levels of an organization, it seeks to renew, develop and build on this.

Could we engage in a process of identifying the best of what is to form the basis of dreaming the possibilities of what could be? Can our conversations around the table, in our small groups, at home and/or at work be about the strengths, passions and life-giving forces that are within our church family which may hold potential for inspired, positive change? What are these good news stories that enhance our cultural identity, spirit, and vision? Can we together be selectively attentive to and affirming of the best and highest qualities of First United Methodist Church of Pasadena (that’s you and me and what we’ve done in mission and ministry throughout the years)?

What will Church look like in 80 years? was the focal question of a new General Board of Discipleship video series titled Dreaming of Vital Congregations. Those interviewed voiced the following thoughts:

• The model of church will be around networking and  community; discipling people, sending them in mission, and holding them accountable.
• The challenge before the Church is making a case for why Jesus, why Wesleyan theology, why the Methodist movement?
• The United Methodist Church of the future will be more about the Wesleyan model of the small group; fewer brick and mortar churches and more house churches; a proliferation of family churches, churches that are not contained to buildings.
• A vital church has a rich prayer life.
• The option of not changing because we fear failure is crazy!
• The vital church of tomorrow is committed to be strong partners with other groups/churches where discipleship is happening in a very powerful way.

These voices engaged in something akin to appreciative inquiry by focusing on a desired future or outcome built on strengths and passions of the past and present.

First United Methodist Church of Pasadena is a living organism, it’s a living body. It is evolving. The question is - is it evolving for the better or worse? The Lord Jesus says,

I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me, and I stay joined to you, then you will produce lots of fruit. But you cannot do anything without me.
-John 15:5, CEV

Can we all try to envision what could be by identifying the best of what is? How might God be calling us to stay joined to Jesus and anticipate producing lots of fruit? How might we be guilty of going at it on our own?

Can we all commit to rethink Church together and be expectantly open to be surprised by God on what FUMC of Pasadena could be 5-10 years from now?

California Pacific Annual Conference 2012 Update

The following is a post conference update to the congregation about the 2012 California Pacific Annual Conference, submitted by JP Harris.

     Once again, the University of Redlands was the scene for this annual gathering of United Methodists from throughout the Cal-Pac Annual Conference. Held June 14 through 17, eight members of our congregation attended in various capacities. They were Paul Audley, Barbara Gorton, JP Harris, Garry Hart, Marilynne Kennedy, Melanie McCann, Michael Moore, Wanda Gae Stefansson along with all of our clergy. Annual Conference is a time for renewal, reconnecting with friends, raising your voice loudly in song with other United Methodists, and charting the course for our churches for the next year and beyond. There are 378 churches in our Annual Conference and virtually all were represented in the over 1,200 attendees.

     This Annual Conference was the last to recognize the 7 California Districts. Effective July 1, the Annual Conference is re-aligned into 4 California Districts, the Hawaii District remaining unchanged. We have gone from 8 Districts (7 California plus Hawaii) to 5. First Church is now part of the new North District and our District Superintendent is Rev. Dr. Cedrick Bridgeforth, whom many of you met when he gave our Consecration Sunday sermon two years ago. The North District office has been moved to Chatsworth from its former location at Sierra Madre UMC. (By the way, Sierra Madre UMC is in the new East District.)

     The District Re-alignment, in general, has parts of Pasadena and all of Santa Barbara District rolling into the new North District, the Los Angeles, Long Beach and parts of Santa Ana Districts becoming the West District, parts of Pasadena and all of Riverside District becomes the East District and parts of Santa Ana, Riverside and San Diego districts become the South District. The last time the Districts were re-aligned was in 1984, and this current re-alignment closely follows where we were in 1951.

     The realignment will cause us to re-examine how we as local churches relate to one another. To foster a greater reaching out to other churches, and the communities in which we live, churches are now grouped into Mission Areas. The Mission Areas will push us out of our silos and cause greater collaboration with our neighboring congregations, bringing our strengths to a common table where everyone will benefit. It is hoped it will act as a force multiplier, giving us greater strength, flexibility and availability to shared resources and aid us all in meeting the mission of the church, “To Make Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World.”

     The Pasadena Mission Area consists of 7 UMC congregations: Altadena, Pasadena First, Holliston, Saint James, Scott, South Pasadena, and Immanuel (Highland Park). Our calling has always been to serve the world around us, in partnership with one another. Mission Areas will re-emphasize what has always been our core function.

     Worship is an integral part of Annual Conference. There were numerous worship services held over the 4 day event and on Sunday we all joined for our traditional Sunday Worship Service. Although all the services were moving and gave you a chance to sing loudly with other like-minded Methodists, to me the most moving worship services were the Memorial and Communion Service  and the Ordination Service.

     The Memorial and Communion Service gave us a chance to pay tribute and remember those members of our clergy and their spouses that are “Absent from the body, Present with the Lord.” We learned a lot of church history and other interesting facts. I learned that Rev. David Sharp, the founder and owner of Sharp Seating, the company that provides virtually all of the seating for the Rose Parade, including the seating directly in front of our church, AND who assisted us greatly last year with ticket sales for our New Year’s morning Pancake Breakfast fund raiser, was a former Nazarene and United Methodist minister, serving in Pomona, Northridge, Honolulu and Tustin. He passed away on October 4, 2011 at age 89.

     We also learned that Rev. Don Shelby, who passed away on April 4th of this year at age 81 and is the father of Darla Dyson, was truly a pillar of our church and widely respected by the entire Annual Conference, having spent 45 years in Southern California as a United Methodist pastor and mentor to many of our clergy. His presence will be sorely missed.

     The Ordination Service was equally moving as we watched persons who had formerly been in service to our congregation being granted provisional and full connection status. Rev. Bob Rhodes, formerly our Youth Pastor here at First Church, became a Provisional Elder, on loan to the Nebraska Annual Conference in service as an Associate Pastor at Trinity UMC in Grand Island, Nebraska. Additionally, Rev. Colleen Windham-Hughes, who also previously served our church, became a Deacon in Full Connection, on appointment as a professor at California Lutheran College.

     A large part of each Annual Conference is the consideration of legislation that governs the churches within our Annual Conference. This year was no different and there were many resolutions that were acted upon. Budget is never a small part of the proceedings, and this year it was even larger as the Annual Conference continues to struggle with reduced apportionment monies from local churches. Additionally, a new accounting system was introduced which further complicated the process as existing functions were re-categorized within the five Essential Ministry Teams. After two separate sessions prioritizing where the Annual Conference would spend its resources, the apportioned budget (the only portion voted upon by the Annual Conference) was approved at over $12 million within a Total Conference Budget for 2013 of over $26.8 million. The entire budgetary process re-emphasizes the importance of paying our apportionment so the important work of the Annual Conference can be carried out within our many and varied ministries.

     Starting in 2000, the Cal-Pac Annual Conference has passed, and at each subsequent Annual Conference re-affirmed, our commitment to being specifically inclusive of all persons. As many are aware, every 4 years United Methodists from around the world hold a General Conference. At the 2012 General Conference, a resolution passed stating that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. In response to that resolution, the California-Pacific Annual Conference renounced that statement, declared the statement itself was incompatible with the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Additionally, the Annual Conference affirmed the sacred worth of all persons, including members of the LGBTQ community; committed to continuing to build inclusive Christian communities in our churches, where LGBTQ lay persons and clergy are loved and welcomed; and we invited churches and individuals to adopt this statement, and join in living out its principles.

     Another resolution was passed which was deeply troubling in that it dealt with the discontinuance of St. Mark’s UMC in Anaheim. Last year, Crescent Heights UMC in West Hollywood was also discontinued. Although new ministries are starting within our Annual Conference, a resolution to discontinue reminds all of us that we cannot take for granted the continued existence of any church. We must be energetic in renewing our churches. We must strive to be welcoming to all persons that today are unknown to us. We must be a church that truly lives the mission statement “Open hearts, Open minds, Open doors.” This coming year Pasadena First must renew our commitment to live out our own mission: “Christ is Calling! Come. Worship. Serve.”

     At the conclusion of the conference on Sunday, a celebratory luncheon was held in honor of Bishop Mary Ann Swenson and her husband, Jeff, and her 39 years of ministry as they begin a new chapter in their lives, retirement. Although we are all wondering who will be appointed the new Bishop, we will all just have to wait and see!

     If you want more information, go to www.cal-pac.org and click on the 2012 Annual Conference button within Directories on the left. A complete list of the agenda and all documents associated with all of the various topics discussed and voted on are found there.

Healing Relationships with Indigenous Peoples

A Statement from the UMC Council of Bishops as
We Embark on a Journey Toward
Healing Relationships with Indigenous Peoples

Preamble; Scripture; Native Quotes; Statement of Repentance; the Future.  

Preamble

Today March , as the Council of Bishops on behalf of The United Methodist Church, we stop to listen to our own hearts and our own voices. History is not only a body of information stored in archives for reference and study waiting to be mined by scholars and researchers. It is a living, breathing phenomenon that resides in us and among us framing our understanding of ourselves and each other. The history we recall in this moment continues to weigh upon all of us. Together we grieve the history which still weighs upon indigenous people around the world and Native Americans in the United States.

This is not a romance of discovery and the struggle of pioneer life, settlement and tragedy. This is about the violent history of peoples whose families, communities and sovereign nations were destroyed by aggressive powers lusting for their lands, riches and seeking domination at the expense of their own existence. This is a story about the church’s role in cooperating with and entering into collusive relationships with political forces resulting in the killing of Native women, children and men, the removal of Native nations from their homes, forcing them to march long death-defying distances to live on lands unsuitable for habitation, destroying peaceful villages, massacring helpless innocents, stealing tribal lands and resources, breaking sacred treaty agreements, removing children from their homes to imprison them in schools that would steal their heritage to make them “civilized,” and in tragic intentional and inadvertent ways, sharing in and implementing the goals of Native extermination resulting in genocidal policies, programs and actions designed to vanquish, forever, whole Native and indigenous nations and peoples, communities and families from the earth.

Scripture

“For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
Matthew 9:13

“Therefore I will judge you Oh house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!”
Ezekiel 18:30-31

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 4:17)

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. (Matthew 5:23-24)

Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Acts 2:38

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (Ephesians 2:13-14)

Native Quotes

When one sits in the Hoop of the People, one must be responsible because all of creation is related. And the hurt of one is the hurt of all. And the honor of one is the honor of all. And whatever we do affects everything in the universe.

Modern version from the Lakota White Buffalo Calf Woman

“I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream…the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.

And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell, and I understood more than I was, for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.”
Black Elk, Lakota

“There are many things to be shared with the Four Colors of humanity in our common destiny as one with our Mother the Earth. It is this sharing that must be considered with great care by the Elders and the medicine people who carry the Sacred Trusts, so that no harm may come to people through ignorance and misuse of these powerful forces.”

(Resolution of the Fifth Annual Meetings of the Traditional Elders Circle, 1980)

“How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.”

Black Hawk, Sauk

“I live in sorrow imprisoned; You are my Light, Your glory, my support. Behold not with malevolence the sins of man but forgive and cleanse; and so, O Lord, protect us beneath Your wings and let peace be out portion now and forever more. Amen.”

Queen Lili’uokalani, the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii,
composed as a prayer, March 22, 1895, while she was under house arrest in her palace in Honolulu.

Statement of Repentance

As the Council of Bishops, we are here to repent and express remorse for the church’s past conduct in its relationships with Native and indigenous peoples in all the places where we have extended the mission of the church for over two hundred years. We are here to commit ourselves to addressing the wrong and asking for the forgiveness of those who have been wronged by failing them so profoundly. We confess to God, acknowledging our guilt, resolving to cease the harm, pledging ourselves to live differently, reversing the damage that has been done through our participation in violence, maltreatment and neglect of Native and indigenous peoples so that we may bring about healing and restoration to all.

It is time to free captive Native and indigenous peoples from institutional church oppression and learn from them spiritual values that will see us through our own current spiritual emergencies, save our embattled earth and enable humankind to live as one with creation and all living creatures within it—including ourselves. The question is whether the church is strong enough to bring about change in the United States and around the world where indigenous peoples have been decimated, assimilated, abused, and left victims of dominant Western economies and the imposition of oppressive materialistic cultural values. Our work in healing broken relationships must be specific, actionable and accountable. Morally, it must be part of our denomination’s discourse, programming and policies.

To our Native and indigenous brothers and sisters we say: We have destroyed your way of life, dehumanized your people and degraded your cultures, along with your dreams, your peace and your great love for the land. We acknowledge the pain of your nation peoples and our sinful behavior in these events. We know that past history has been filled with violence against you. We have confiscated your land. We have recklessly destroyed your cultures. Today we acknowledge that all this is not in the past. Assaults continue on your cultures, continuing the historic patterns of abuse, the demeaning of your spirituality, the questioning of your leadership, the neglecting of the critical issues of hunger, health, employment, and sovereignty. We must not yield to historical amnesia. We pray to God to give us a new heart and a new spirit through Jesus Christ, who breaks down the dividing walls of hostility, so that we may truly repent of our grave sins, petition for forgiveness, and work towards healing.

The Future

The Council of Bishops will:

• Affirm commitment to empowering the presence of Native and indigenous people in the life of the denomination.
• Support Native American Ministries Sunday in U.S. annual conferences.
• Strengthen Committees on Native American Ministries (CONAM) in the U.S. and Native ministries in the central conferences.
• Support General Advances and church-wide funding for Native ministries.
• Commit ourselves to the development of new Native and indigenous ministries and strengthen our support for existing community entities.
• Create a theological statement that demonstrates a respect for the diversity of theology and ecclesiology that is found in the context of Native and Indigenous ministries.
• Commit to host Acts of Repentance in annual conferences.
• Commit to developing relationships of mutuality with Native peoples in local contexts.
• Initiate programs of education for non-Native people about why the Act of Repentance is important.
• In partnership with Native ministry leaders and resource people throughout the Connection, the Council of Bishops will support:
• Developing new Native and indigenous leaders across the Connection including an increased number of people nurtured for service in congregational, annual conference, jurisdictional and central conference, and general church ministries, including the episcopacy.
• Initiating a plan of advocacy related to land and treaty rights, support for tribal sovereignty and cultural preservation; better health care and education for Native people and the safety of Native and indigenous women and children.

United Methodist General Conference will meet in April

Once every four years, United Methodist leaders from all over the world come together for worship and policy making.  This highest body of the church makes decisions that then are published in the The Book of Discipline and The Book of Resolutions.  They determine what the priorities, theology, social principles, budgets, and organization of the denomination will look like for the next four years.

In 2012, the General Conference will meet between April 24th and May 4th, in Tampa, Florida.  Of the 988 delegates elected to attend, 606 will be from the United States, 282 will be from Africa, 48 will come from the Philippines, and 42 will come from Europe and Russia.  Half the delegates will be clergy, and the other half will be laity.

One of the big issues that will come before the General Conference this year is a proposal to restructure the denomination.  The hope is that by streamlining our church government, we can make decisions more quickly and with less cost.  The General Council on Finance and Administration will be recommending a budget that is six percent less than the budget for 2009-2012.  This will be the first time a smaller budget has been proposed.

The longest petition that will be reviewed by the General Council has to do with revisions to the clergy retirement program.

The 2012 General Conference will process approximately 1200 petitions.  Each proposal for change originates with a petition sent to General Conference by individual members, local congregations, annual conferences, or general agencies.

The 988 delegates will be divided up into 13 legislative committees.  Each group will work through 70-80 petitions.  The committee’s recommendation on each petition will then be sent to the full assembly for final action.

A majority vote in a plenary (full) session makes most proposals church law.  Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds vote by delegates, followed by a two-thirds affirmative vote of the aggregate members voting in annual conference sessions.

One other item of business will be “An Act of Repentance toward Healing Relationships with Indigenous People”, during which the church will express contrition for harm done to native people in the U.S. and other countries.

Along with our delegates from the Cal-Pac Annual Conference and Western Jurisdiction, both Bishop Beverly Shamana and Rev. Allison Mark will be attending General Conference 2012 in Tampa, Florida in April. As United Methodists, we invite you to be in prayer for the people and polity of the United Methodist Church. Join the Upper Room's "50 Days of Prayer until General Conference": 


More information on the United Methodist Church here.

Sourced from Wesley UMC, Pueblo Colo., Charlene Reichert, and Rev. Allison Mark