Saturday, February 3, 2024

Pie Dough

January 30, 2024

Happy weirdly spring-like midwinter, church family and friends!

Things are buzzing around church this week. The Pantry has been extra busy, neighbors and regular guests have been calling and stopping in to say hello, folks are jumping in to help with all sorts of things and bringing their new ideas, and it is all very, very good.

Because it is always impossible to do any writing in such a wonderfully busy place, I’m sitting here at home writing this letter in the dark early morning, with a snoring puppy next to me, and thinking about how blessed we are to be the church together in such a sweet and good place. I’m also thinking about pie dough. And 1 Corinthians 12.

Pie dough is my nemesis. I don’t know what I am doing wrong, but it *never* comes out right. So I gave up long ago, and rely instead on Marie Calendar’s frozen pie crusts. I mean, why put out the effort when there is a perfectly good option made by experts, in the freezer section at Raleys? Except…Raley’s was out, and I want to make a chocolate pie for the Bonus Son’s birthday this week, so I had to give it another try.

As I was reading the recipe and putting the ingredients together and using the supposedly foolproof technique just before sitting down to write this letter, it reminded me of a lesson the youth group and I did a few years ago, where we replaced Paul’s metaphor of the body in 1 Corinthians 12 with the metaphor of a cake, and baked a cake together.

“For just as a cake is one and has many ingredients, and all the ingredients of the cake, though many, are one cake, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all formed into one cake —Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

If the egg would say, “Because I am not the sugar, I do not belong to the cake,” that would not make it any less a part of the cake…”

and so forth.

Have you wondered how on earth someone thought to put eggs and sugar and flour and milk and stuff together, and heat it up, and make a cake? It’s a kind of miracle. Every ingredient, and even the process of mixing and baking, has an essential purpose. So as I put the dough together and prayed it would work, it made me think of all of us humans, the people of Corinth and Fallon and elsewhere, and how and why God mixes us together. How, though my own hands might be clumsy and mistake-prone, even with the best of intentions, God’s are not. God put each of us in this mix because the recipe needs exactly these ingredients, and in God’s masterful hands we can be made into something wonderful.

Let’s revel in that, friends. Let’s celebrate the way God has put all of us unique humans together in these families, this community, this church. Each of us as different as eggs and sugar and flour and milk, and yet each absolutely essential ingredients to make the recipe come out right. As humans, we might make mistakes in the mixing, but in the hands of the Master we can become something wonderful.

Pastor Dawn

Worship This Week

Lord, Teach Us to Pray

This week, part 2 of our worship series about the Lord’s prayer. This week, we’ll consider more together about who God is, and why we pray at all, and what happens when we do. We’ll talk about how our trust in God is rooted in a certainty that God wants to give us everything we could possibly need, and delight us with good things, while also being too wise and too good to give us anything destructive to us, no matter how badly we think we want it. And more than that, how God always gives the best answer to our prayers, even when we want a different answer. And much more. You might like to read and pray with Jesus and his disciples in Matthew 6:5-14 as you prepare your heart for worship.

Remember to find us on YouTube so that you can watch live from home, or join us on KVLV radio on AM980 every Sunday beginning at 9:30am. If you have ideas or questions, or if we can be in prayer for you in any way, please call the church at 775-423-4714, or call Pastor Dawn directly at 775-671-5553. We’d love to hear from you.

Wednesday Night Prayer with Lectio Divina

Friday Evening Prayer has become Wednesday Evening Prayer, and will be held on the first Wednesday of every month at 7:00pm on YouTube Live. Lectio Divina is an ancient, special way of reading and praying with Scripture. Most people who try it find it deeply meaningful. Hope you’ll join us.

News and Fun Stuff

Church Family Game Day THIS WEEK!

This time, lunch will be pizza from Papa Murphy’s, and there is PLENTY for everyone. Feel free to bring snacks and side dishes, especially if you are eating gluten free or have other dietary needs that might not be compatible with pizza. We’ve made invitations for our Fallon Daily Bread guests, and our neighbors, so hopefully we’ll have some new people to eat and play with! Bring your favorite game, or join a table to learn a new one. See you there.

No Pizza with the Pastor This Month 

Because of the Superbowl and Pastor Dawn’s meeting in Yerington after worship on Feb 11, and Princess Bride the following week, we’ll have to skip our monthly Pizza lunch and conversation this month. See you in March!

Ash Wednesday on February 14 @7:00pm

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday on Valentine’s Day this year. If you’ve never been to a service like this before, let this year be the first time. It is a sweet, prayerful, reflective, hopeful time of being wrapped in the amazing grace of God. And a day that celebrates love of one another is a great way to begin our 40 day period of introspection, and sacrifice, andhumility before the joy of Easter.

Sunday Brunch and Messy Church on Sun Feb 18!

We hope you enjoyed the very first Messy Church last month. This month, we’ve sent invitations to our neighbors and our lesson is “Putting On Love” based on Colossians 3:12-17. It’s a new kind Sunday School-slash-worship, especially designed for people of all ages to actively participate together. We’d love your participation, your ideas for improvements, and your leadership! Reach out to Ashlee McGarity or Pastor Dawn at the church office, office@eumcfallon.org, 775-423-4714.

And it all starts with a pot luck brunch! Bring something to share if you’re able, stay and enjoy food and friendship with your church, and stay for songs, games, crafts, and our Messy Church lesson. See you there.

Princess Bride on Sunday February 18 @1:00pm

It's that time of year again! Friends, there is a terrible lack of silliness in the world today, and ONLY YOU CAN HELP. Join us for a Very Silly Interactive Screening of "The Princess Bride" at the historic downtown Fallon Theatre on Sunday February 18 at 1pm! Feel free to dress in costume (or not), bring props (or not), invite everyone you know, and let's spend an afternoon being ridiculous together for no reason whatsoever. Admission is FREE!! Props including glow sticks, kazoos, marshmallows, and other assorted nonsense will be provided. As a bonus, any delicious snacks or lunch you buy at the snack bar supports the Theater!

Believe Big

January 24, 2024

Hello from Livermore, church family and friends!

Every January, clergy in our Conference are required to attend what is known as the Gathering of the Orders, usually somewhere on the coast. Sometimes it is restful, sometimes it’s packed with workshops, worship is always wonderful, and it is so nice to connect with peers and colleagues we only see twice a year. It’s often been at a retreat center, but this year it’s being held at Asbury UMC in Livermore, CA. It’s a gorgeous church, not humongous but with a beautiful pine ceiling and a pipe organ and a big community garden in the back. I don’t know much about the church itself, but I did notice that they offer free showers to their community, just like we do, which is awfully cool. Until today, I hadn’t known of another church besides us who did that, and it is such a tremendous gift to folks.

I am sitting here in my hotel room now, after a very full day of training and worship, and the sermon our guest preacher gave an hour ago was SO GOOD. Her name is Bishop Delores Williamston, from the Louisiana Conference, and she preached on the theme of this week, “Hope for the Future.” She quoted a friend of hers who told her in a time of struggle, “sister, hope lives in the dark.”

Not in the light, where we can see and go about our business just fine. In the dark is where hope is needed, and where hope lives. Isn’t that so true?

Then she quoted Howard Thurman:

“Howard Thurman says this about raising the ceiling of our hope, he said:
It is easier to believe little than to believe big!
He says…
Our immediate demand is often so urgent, the immediate problem is often so acute or so insoluble that the ceiling of hope is lowered, leaving little room even for breathing…. And at such a moment, life seems not only to close in around us, but it also seems to close down upon us.
He said:

I will lift on high the ceiling of thy hopes!
In other words: I will lift on high the ceiling of my hope! Or,

We are called to lift on high today the ceiling of our hope!”

As she was speaking, and rousing us to AMENs and GOD IS GOOD, ALL THE TIMEs, I was thinking of small, dark spaces where it’s hard to breathe. I thought of a story about a sweet little abandoned pup who had been hiding in a storm drain, trying to keep himself safe. But he wasn’t safe at all, he was lonely and cold and scared and starving. It wasn’t until hope entered that dark place in the form of kind human rescuers that he was able to see what real life could be like. I’m sure the sweet little thing was terrified at first, out in the light, in the wide open. But eventually, the love and care of his rescuers won him over, and life became much better than it could ever have been in that storm drain.

It is easier to believe little sometimes. Easier to close ourselves in, and survive (barely) on crumbs, too afraid to hope for something better. But God wants much better for us. Ours is the God who saves, who wants to take the whole roof off and bring us from dark and cold and empty places into the wide open air of new life. Believe big, church! GOD IS GOOD, all the time.

Pastor Dawn

Worship This Week

Lord, Teach Us to Pray

This week, we are beginning a worship series we have been looking forward to, on the Lord’s Prayer. We will take it a section at a time, and talk togther about prayer in general, the purpose and the benefit and the miracle of it. This week, we’ll begin with the very first part, that reminds us who it is we are praying to, and why: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You might like to read and pray with Jesus and his disciples in Matthew 6:5-14, and in Luke 11:1-4, as you prepare your heart for worship.

Wednesday Night Prayer with Lectio Divina

News and Fun Stuff

Ash Wednesday on February 14 @7:00pm

Princess Bride on Sunday February 18 @1:00pm