Newsletter with images in PDF format
BEYOND THE GREEN DOORS
The newsletter of the Peterborough United Methodist Church
43 Concord Street, Peterborough, NH
June 2020
MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
Events:
Sunday Worship streaming on YouTube Sun 10a http://bit.ly/pumcyoutube
and posted online (after Sunday) http://bit.ly/pumcworshipvideo
Online Fellowship Hour Sun 1p https://bit.ly/pumcfellowship
Zoom meeting ending in 8974 *contact church office if you need meeting details
Daily Morning Devotional Daily 7a http://bit.ly/revcardfb
PUMC Book Group online https://bit.ly/pumcbookgroup
Jun 3 C S Lewis Book Study online 10a Zoom meeting
Jun 3 Receive Communion elements 11-1 @PUMC
Jun 3 Special Charge Conference online 6:30p Zoom meeting
Jun 9 Administrative Council meeting online 6:30p Zoom meeting
Jun 10 C S Lewis Book Study online 10a Zoom meeting
Jun 30 July Newsletter submissions due
Jun 30 PUMC Book Group online 1p Zoom meeting
Digital Welcome Card http://bit.ly/pumcwelcomecard
Bulletins http://bit.ly/pumcbulletin
Children’s Bulletins http://bit.ly/pumckidsbulletin
Sunday School To Go https://bit.ly/sundayschooltogo
Offering http://bit.ly/pumcoffering
Online Giving http://bit.ly/pumconlinegiving
Facebook https://bit.ly/pumcfacebook
YouTube http://bit.ly/pumcyoutube
CHURCH FAMILY CELEBRATIONS
Birthdays:
Jeannette Regis 6/21
Angela Molloy 6/29
Didn’t see your birthday?
Let the office know!
Membership Anniversaries:
Vi Banks
Gladys Bugler
Courtney Dunning
Ed Hernandez
Gail Hernandez
Nathan Luscombe
Karen Ravndal-Emery
Michael Robidoux
ONLINE FELLOWSHIP HOUR!
Please join our hosts this Sunday at 1pm for online fellowship with the PUMC church family.
Zoom meeting ending in 8974
*contact the church office for meeting details
COMING ATTRACTIONS by Rev Card
While we research how to reopen, we are still active at PUMC. Every morning at 7 am we have a brief devotion. It is recorded on Facebook if you want to watch later. We will end our session on The Great 50 days of Easter this Sunday and continue through the summer with devotions from the Book Dr. Dianne Martin and I wrote called, Pray. Act. Pray Again, as well as others throughout the Summer, and starting in September we will have an in-depth discussion about the Trinity.
Presently Laura Constantine is conducting a wonderful online class on CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. She does this at 10 am on Wednesday’s. It is awesome. Thank you, Laura.
We are looking for ways to have time with our kids while we stay safe from the virus over the summer. Stay tuned. We are going to be creative.
June 7, we will have communion online. There is more information about that here in this newsletter. Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar has granted Elders permission to officiate online. Email Rev Card if you have any questions.
We are celebrating Worship at 10 every Sunday online. A big thank you to Hiel for quick research to make this possible, and to Jeff Hipp for helping us to get the equipment we needed to make the production better and smoother. I need to thank my husband, too, for his help. Susan Lindquist and Melissa French get all the details of the bulletins together, and Susan makes sure the kids are included with a message and joys and concerns. Amy Clason and Priscilla Crowe make sure we have flowers. We have fellowship at 1 pm by Zoom. Carol Owen and Justine Gaskamp have helped design that. We have meetings with Zoom. I want to thank everyone for adapting well to doing church with electronics.
But this month I want to introduce a new September class so you can be ready in the fall. The book we will use is Delighting in the Trinity, by Michael Reeves. If you want to get a head start, you can order the book on line, or sign up with me, and I will order it for you. Read it at your leisure. Here is a little nugget from the book:
“The Bible tells us that ‘God is love.’ One preacher said that this is the greatest truth of the Bible. It may be. To know that God is love makes God seem warm and accessible to us and someone we want to get to know and be close to.
But when we say that “God is a Trinity” how does that make God seem to us? This statement may make God seem mysterious and maybe somewhat distant.”
The book’s thesis is God is love because God is a Trinity. If we can see how God being The Trinity is the basis of knowing God’s love it will cause us to delight in the Trinity rather than treating the idea as something odd and something that we can never comprehend. Reeves goes on to say the Trinity is a difficult concept to explain. Many theologians down through Church history have tried. The great Church leader, Saint Augustine, spent about 30 years, contemplating the Trinity and he wrote 15 volumes trying to explain the idea of the Trinity.
“The story goes—that one day as Augustine was struggling to understand the doctrine of the Trinity he decided to go for a walk on the beach, where he saw a little boy digging a hole in the sand with a seashell. The boy then ran off to the ocean, filling the shell with water, and rushed back to pour it into the hole he had made. ‘What are you doing, my little man,’ St. Augustine asked. ‘I’m trying to put the ocean into this hole,’ the boy replied.
Augustine suddenly realized that this was precisely what he was trying to do… to fit the great mysteries of God into his mind. Although we can’t ‘fit the great mysteries of God’ into our mind, we still need to seek understanding of the concept of the Trinity because this is how God has revealed Himself to us. To know God as God wants us to know Him we must deal with the Trinity. Augustine’s short definition of the Trinity is: …. the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate [is] a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality; and therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although the Father has begotten the Son, and so He who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and so He who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity”.
Wow—it really does exercise our mind to think about this, so, I propose we can, and we will. Take some time to read this summer. Make a list of your questions and be prepared to do a deep dive in a community of faith that seeks to dwell with God and deepen our relationship with God together. If you want to “know God deep in your soul” and not just “know about God” plan to join us. There will be multiple ways to join so everyone can participate.
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR TAKING COMMUNION – June 7th Sunday Service
Bishop Devadhar and our district leaders have opened a way for each church to plan for communion services. This special spiritual rite will be brought to our congregation on the first Sunday of each month of live stream, albeit remotely. Where there is a will there is a way!
Rev. Card has ordered pre-packaged juice/host packets that will be consecrated in our sanctuary on Wednesday morning, June 3rd. Then, Rev. Card and members of the worship team will bag up the packets and label them by name so they can be picked up between the hours of 11 AM and 1 PM that same day.
If you are able to pick up your communion host, please contact the church at its email: info@peterboroughumc.org
Let Rev Card and Melissa French know how many communion packets you need and they will be ready for pick-up at the side entrance of the church. Just drive in, beep the horn or call ahead and someone will deliver your bag right to your car window. If you are able to pick up for a friend, let us know in your email and we’ll have a separate bag for your friend(s) also! We aim to please!
IMPORTANT: If you are unable to come to the church, but want to take communion, email the above address or call Rev. Card. Your communion packet will be delivered to your door. Don’t be shy! Our church wants you to be included!
Please make your calls or emails prior to Wednesday, June 3rd, so there is time to organize the numbers of host needed and the bagging operation. Many thanks and blessings!
Once you receive your packets, just have them at the ready when the service begins on June 7th. The table will be prepared and Communion will proceed just as it always does. Amen!
MAKING A PLAN FOR FUTURE RE-OPENING OF PUMC
A major topic at the May Ad Council meeting was the need to form a committee to begin planning for the eventual re-opening of our church. The issues surrounding re-opening the church for worship and meetings will need to be reviewed. The building will need to be secure and clean, with the safeguards put in place for continual monitoring of surfaces and equipment. The public health rules concerning re-opening during the pandemic will need to be researched and referenced, as the church makes its plans. It’s very important to note that there are NO plans for re-opening our church right now. It is important to note that there is much research and planning to be done before any definite date for re-opening is decided upon.
To that end, a group of Ad Council members have stepped up to start the process. Current members include: Rev. Kathleene Card, Hiel Lindquist (Ad Council Chair), Bruce Batten (Trustees), Ken Constantine (SPRC), Laura Constantine and Richard Clason (Finance), Jim Poplin (Lay Leader) and Wendy Dunning and Susan Lindquist (Worship). If you would also like to sit on this committee, please contact Rev. Card, Bruce Batten, Ken Constantine, or Susan Lindquist.
The first meeting of the Way to Re-Opening committee will be Monday, June 1st at 6:30 PM via ZOOM. Please check your email for an invite and take note of the meeting number and the meeting password in order to join. In the invite there should also be a link to a related article or document for you to read and be prepared to summarize for the other members of the group. Check it out before meeting day and bring any really important points to the attention of the group in your summary.
All articles or documents with links will be added to a resource file and will be available to all members of the committee, should they want to reference them over the time that the committee is active.
MONADNOCK HUNGER WALK RECAP
The numbers are in and the planning committee for Monadnock Hunger Walk are thrilled. At last count, $19,797 was raised through private, corporate, and non-profit donations. This is almost double what was raised in 2019 and is an amazing testament to the generosity of people in our Monadnock region!
Many thanks to everyone in our church and surrounding communities who supported walkers or simply posted a donation when the publicity for the Virtual Walk was made! Check out the results for the 2020 Monadnock Hunger Walk and save the date for the 2021 Monadnock Hunger Walk! It will be held on Saturday, May 1st, 2021 in Jaffrey!
2020 results Monadnock Hunger Walk (Virtual)
Peterborough Food Pantry $1,675
End 68 Hours $4,017
Greenville/St Vincent $200
Rindge, Got Lunch $3,910
Rindge Food Pantry $1,520
Jaffrey Food Pantry $5,935
Helping Hands (Troy) $870
Greenfield Food Pantry $670
Antrim-Bennington Food Pantry $1,000
2020 total: $19,797
Includes donations of :
$2000 from Jaffrey Rotary,
$500 from Jaffrey-Rindge Lions
$2,000 from the Peterborough Rotary
$250 from Woodbound Inn
$250 from the American Legion Cheney-Armstrong Post 5
PUMC BOOK GROUP – Next Book ZOOM Chat on Tuesday, June 30th @ 1 PM
Book Chats have been pretty good of late! It’s nice to see everyone’s face and to wrap our brains around ideas, characters, author’s messages, social issues, and good plot line. If you’re looking to have a summertime reading experience, think about joining us. This next month’s read is Saints For All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan. This is a family story that revolves around the Flynn sisters, Nora and Theresa. Two more different personalities couldn’t be found, but sisters they are. Their lives unfold over the course of fifty years in Dorchester and surrounding Boston environs. Good Catholic girls make their way and the reader is tugged along for the bumpy family ride.
Published in 2017, this book should be an easy find through our local bookshops, alibis, Amazon, Kindle, Audible or through download from the state library digital collection. If you’re planning to read and join the discussion, send a note to the church at info@peterboroughumc.org. Leave an email contact that you regularly check in on, and you’ll get put in the book group loop! See you on ZOOM!
SUNDAY SCHOOL UPDATE
Sunday School To Go is going strong! We had fun in May with lessons including Tiny Faith the story of the mustard seed, Mother’s Day using 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Psalm 23, Parable of the Sower and Pentecost. We planted bean seeds, made mother’s day cards, paper plate gardens and kites! For June we will do some fun welcome to summer activities and a Father’s Day lesson and craft
PUMC MISSIONS
This month the missions team would like to highlight our support for World’s Children and our sponsorship of Arun Hanmanthu.
Typically, in June we have a “birthday party” for Arun (he was born in India on June 18, 2004), during which we endeavor to raise the $360 sponsorship fee. While we will not be able to gather for a birthday event this year, we hope that you will consider contributing towards the sponsorship for Arun. (Indicate Arun sponsorship on your check or donation and send to the church at 43 Concord Street, Peterborough, NH 03458).
World’s Children supports orphans and vulnerable children who live in an orphanage or children’s home due to a wide variety of circumstances. The children’s homes are like large families. As with any family, it is important that all the children feel equally loved and nurtured. So our donation is pooled with that of other sponsors and used to support ALL the children equitably – both sponsored and unsponsored.
Equally important to the physical help provided to the children are psychological and emotional support. When the children know that someone cares about them and wants them to succeed, they prosper. Sponsored children often do better in school and are more motivated to plan and pursue long-term goals than their unsponsored peers; never underestimate the emotional impact your sponsorship will have on your child.
Arun, who we have been sponsoring for a number of years now, was orphaned by AIDS. Our sponsorship fee is sent directly to the home in which Arun lives, and is used to purchase nutritious food, clothing, medicine, books, supplies, and other necessities. You can send him letters and paper items like stickers and mazes to: World’s Children International, PO Box 2708, Corvallis, OR 97339.
The World’s Children website is www.worldschildren.org
CELEBRATING OUR GRADUATES
both high school and college!
Theo
Angela
Emma
Hayley
William
STAY INVOLVED AT PUMC
Sunday Worship streaming on YouTube Sun 10a http://bit.ly/pumcyoutube
and posted online (after Sunday) http://bit.ly/pumcworshipvideo
Online Fellowship Hour Sun 1p https://bit.ly/pumcfellowship
Zoom meeting ending in 8974 *contact church office if you need meeting details
Daily Morning Devotional Daily 7a http://bit.ly/revcardfb
PUMC Book Group online https://bit.ly/pumcbookgroup
Digital Welcome Card http://bit.ly/pumcwelcomecard
Bulletins http://bit.ly/pumcbulletin
Children’s Bulletins http://bit.ly/pumckidsbulletin
Sunday School To Go https://bit.ly/sundayschooltogo
Offering http://bit.ly/pumcoffering
Online Giving http://bit.ly/pumconlinegiving
Facebook https://bit.ly/pumcfacebook
YouTube http://bit.ly/pumcyoutube
Want to contact someone and don’t see their info listed? They should be in the church directory, or contact the church office at 924-4294 or email info@PeterboroughUMC.org and we’ll point you in the right direction.
Everyone is invited to contribute to the newsletter! Send in your thank yous, birthdays, photos, events, testimonials, prayer submissions…
Please submit all materials for the next newsletter (July) to our editors by the LAST TUESDAY June 30. This is the newsletter that will be released July 5 and cover until Sunday August 2. Send to Melissa French at 924-4294 or email info@peterboroughumc.org, with the subject “Newsletter submission.” Thanks!
Want to subscribe? You can email or call the office (above) to get a print copy of the newsletter, or visit http://bit.ly/subscribepumc to get it in your email.
PETERBOROUGH UMC COMMUNICATIONS
In addition to “Beyond the Green Doors,” Peterborough UMC offers the following ways you can keep in touch.
We are on the web: https://www.PeterboroughUMC.org
We are on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pumcnh/
This newsletter was compiled by Melissa French. Any concerns with content can be addressed with Reverend Card.