Wesley United Methodist Church
Week of October 25th
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Wesley United Methodist Church is a church family that seeks to live into John Wesley's three simple rules- to do good, to do no harm, and to stay in love with God. http://www.wumcsf.org
We meet every Sunday at 10am.
This Sunday: A Church Dreaming in Someone Else's House.
Last Sunday I told you about a van in Chicago. Pastors from all over the country, mostly United Methodist, some from other Methodist churches, singing the whole ride to a meeting. Nobody asked us to. What I couldn't shake: this looked very little like our annual conference. That isn't a flaw. That's the church.
This week the whole denomination is trying to meet itself in one room.
More than 280 United Methodists from four continents are in Calgary for a Leadership Gathering. That's a lot closer to the real church than our annual conference will ever look. Theme: "Imagining a Church Yet to Be." No petitions. No votes. The design team told everyone to leave legislation and Robert's Rules at the door. (I told you on the first Sunday that Robert's Rules is our third sacred text. Watch this space.)
Opening day, the president of the Council of Bishops said something I read twice. Through all of it, we have stayed. "But staying is not the fullness of our calling."
Seven years of proving we could survive. Survival is not a mission. That's the Ferris wheel I asked you about on September 13: slow decline, or go for broke.
Look at who's in the room.
The building is borrowed. Knox United belongs to the United Church of Canada, and earlier this year our bishops signed an interim covenant with them, a first step toward the full communion I preached about last week. A church imagining its future as a guest in someone else's house. Keep your seat, I'll keep mine, we eat together.
At the opening worship, a bishop from the Philippines and a bishop from Texas served communion side by side.
A young adult from Ukraine told the room what the connection means: you are not alone while your country is under attack. That is what a church bigger than a nation sounds like.
And 46 invited leaders couldn't get in the room. Travel restrictions. They joined on a screen. A church dreaming about belonging, and travel restrictions still decided who got a seat. Welcome is a feeling. Making room is a practice. Making space costs somebody something.
This Sunday: 1790s Pennsylvania. A tradesman who has led a few German-speaking households to faith asks a bishop for one thing, a pastor who can baptize and serve communion in German. The bishop says no. He figured German would die out. How the church answered is how the EUB half of our family tree got started, and it raises the question every church faces: what happens when you're told to leave part of yourself at the door? Acts 2. Come as you speak.
Watch it live through Saturday at resourceumc.org/leadershipgathering. I'm watching what I can.
If you know someone who learned to hide their accent, their language, or the way their family prays to fit in at church — this one's for them.
What is Holy Club?
"Holy Club" isn't a new name — it's the old one. In the 1720s, a small group of Oxford students got mocked for how seriously they took their faith: methodically praying, studying Scripture, and caring for the poor and imprisoned on a schedule, like it actually mattered. Their critics called them "the Holy Club" as an insult. One of those students was John Wesley. The insult became a movement. The movement became us.
We're giving that name back to our kids — not as a one-time unit, but as an ongoing shape for kids' ministry at Wesley United: faith that's practiced, not just believed. Content runs series-based, right alongside whatever the grown-ups are working through in worship.
Every week follows the same rhythm: Gather, Story, Bands, Mercy Moment, Send. We open together, hear a Bible story, split into smaller age-group "Bands" to talk it through, do something for someone else in the room or the church, and send each other out with the same three questions the earliest Methodists asked themselves — said the same way, every single week, so kids carry it long after they've forgotten which Sunday was which:
• Be Kind (Do No Harm)
• Do Good
• Love God With Your Whole Heart (Stay in Love with God)
Want in? Sign your family up here at the link below👇 And if you'd love to help lead a week, tell a story, or run a Band — we'd love to have you. Reach out to get plugged in as a volunteer.
WNO is helping out at the Trunk or Treat at Terry Redlin Elementary School on October 30th, starting at 4pm
There are 2 ways to be involved:
1. Volunteer to host your Trunk! You can decorate or not. If you want a game for the kids to play, Mary P has plenty of options to borrow, but otherwise be a friendly face and hand out candy!
2. Donate candy to the cause! Bring a bag to church and we will help distribute to those hosting a trunk.
Family and Friends to hold up in prayer:
Prayers:
Dawn and Don Armstrong
Jeff Anderson
Howard Grinager
Ardith Scott - Hospice
Larry Westall
Beth Stricker
Kolby
Ron Poppenga
Ernie Griner and family
Our Country
October Birthdays
02 Vicki Hanisch
06 Dani Swanson
07 Russ Poppenga
08 Don Wendt
08 Bev Baartman
09 Brad Kolbeck
11 Jonathan Small Bear
12 Karen Renken
22 Ernie Griner
24 Howard Baartman
31 Bob Van Kirk
October Anniversaries
17 Dean and Margie Dewes
17 Ray and Erlene Grimes
26 Richard and Kay Twedt