Arch Street United Methodist Church A Reconciling Congregation 55 North Broad Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107 (S.E. corner of Broad & Arch Streets) Telephone: 215.568.6250 | Fax: 215.568-2256 www.archstreetumc.org April 29, 2018 8:30 AM Service Senior Pastor, Reverend Robin Hynicka Deacons, Reverend Nikki Kelley Kleinberg, Reverend David Krueger, Deaconess, Darlene DiDomineck US2, Carmen Francesco Music Director, Adam Haines Administrative Assistants, Charlie J. Meyers & Olivia Bauer Building Supervisor, Frank Jones Sextons, Devon Goodwin, Russell Whaley, John Buzby, Toni McIlwaine, Joe Kalil Musician: James Dell’Orefice Worship Leader: Cathy Simpson Nursery Attendant: Guy McNeill “From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you, I will fulfill my vows.” Psalm 22:25 SUNDAY WORSHIP 8:30 AM April 29, 2018 5th Sunday of Easter PRELUDE Instrumental PRAISE SINGING #2076 “O Blessed Spring” #2123 “Loving Spirit” #2246 “Deep in the Shadows of the Past” OPENING PRAYER WELCOME TO ARCH STREET & PASSING OF THE PEACE JOYS & CONCERNS SILENT PRAYER REGISTRATION & ANNOUNCEMENTS OFFERING OF TITHES & OFFERINGS OFFERTORY SCRIPTURE READING Russ Alexander Acts 8:26-40 1 John 4:7-21 SPECIAL SONG “Lean on Me” Bill Withers *GOSPEL LESSON John 15:1-8 SERMON “Get Up and Go” Rev. Robin Hynicka CLOSING SONG “When You Believe” BENEDICTION POSTLUDE “When You Believe” Reprise Calendar of Events April 29th to May 6th SUN 4/29 8:30 Worship, Chapel 9:45 Adult Sunday school, Chapel 9:45 Choir Rehearsal, Choir Loft 11:00 Worship, Sanctuary 12:20-3 Deaconess Darlene 12:30 Get Acquainted Time 5:30 Grace Café Devotions 6:00 Grace Café MON 4/30 1:00 Tea & Talk, Chapel 5:30 AA Nichols Hall 7:00 Band Rehearsal, Chapel TUES 5/1 12:00 Hour of Power 6:30 Unity Bible Study, Chapel WED 5/2 6:00 AA, Nichols Hall THUR 5/3 5:00 Diversity, Chapel 5:30 AA, Nichols Hall SUN 5/6 8:30 Worship, Chapel 9:45 Adult Sunday school, Chapel 9:45 Choir Rehearsal, Choir Loft 11:00 Worship, Sanctuary 12:20-3 Deaconess Darlene 12:30 Get Acquainted Time 5:30 Grace Café Devotions 6:00 Grace Café Please see the events page on our web site: www.archstreetumc.org for the full calendar of happenings. WHAT’S HAPPENING Special GAT Today to Honor Don and Warren Don Caskey and Warren Cederholm, will very soon share in providing pastoral care and leadership to a church in Coudersport, PA. Don and Warren have served our congregation in so many ways during their years at Arch Street--with the Worship Committee, the Finance Committee, the sanctuary choir, and as the vision and hands behind the inspiring and beautiful decorating for special times, especially Christmas and Easter at Arch Street. Can anyone forget their feeling of awe the first Easter they walked into the sanctuary and saw butterflies floating overhead? Although they will be back to visit from time to time, today is their last regular Sunday at Arch Street and there will be a special Get Acquainted Time in their honor after the 11:00 service. Please come to thank them for everything they have done for our church and wish them all the best in their new appointment. Welcome to Grace Café Grace Café (ASUMC’s outreach to folks currently without homes) is open every Sunday through the end of June. After a brief period of faith sharing, those gathered will enjoy a home-cooked meal hosted by volunteer groups. 175 people attended last week’s Grace Café. Eastern Mainline Mission and volunteers provide today’s dinner. There are still openings for hosts to bring food and prepare a meal for about 200 people. If you know of a group that would like to assist in this important mission, please have them contact the church office at 215-568-6250 or Darlene DiDomineck and Carmen Francesco at [email protected] Greeters, servers and clean-up crew are needed and always welcome. Local Support Team Meeting for the Carnival de Resistance The Carnival de Resistance is a wild ride where faith, activism, and art become one. We live together for two weeks in a sustainable eco-village and host weekly theater performances that set the prophetic voices of biblical characters within modern day issues of social justice. From July 24-August 7, the Carnival will be in residence at Arch Street UMC. Join the Local Support Team Meeting this Wednesday, May 2 at 9:00 am to learn more about the project and opportunities to serve! www.carnivalderesistance.com Arch St. United Methodist Women’s 2018 Calendar We meet on the second-floor conference room of Arch Street UM Church on the second Sunday of the month, but there are several exceptions to this schedule so please check the calendar below to be sure of the dates. Everyone is welcome. 2018 DATES OF UMW Meetings: Sunday, May 6, a week early to miss Mother’s Day Sunday, June 10 Sunday school All those interested in reading, reflecting on and discussing the Bible passages used in each week’s sermon are invited to meet in the Chapel every Sunday at 9:45am. The scripture readings for today’s class are Acts 10:44-48, 1 John 5:1-6, and John 15:9-17. Readings for NEXT week are Acts 1:15-17, 21-26, 1 John 5:9-13, and John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15. A Look at Our Faithfulness Combined attendance for last Sunday April 22nd was 120. Your tithes, gifts, and offerings help ASUMC make a difference in our community. Let us rejoice in our United Methodist heritage United Methodist Heritage Sunday this year falls on May 20. That is also Pentecost Sunday, giving the day a double-heritage significance, since that is when we celebrate the birth of Christ’s church. Speaking of births, however, I invite us all to begin our United Methodist heritage celebration a month early, on Sunday, April 22, in order to commemorate the birth of our denomination from merger and reorganization 50 years ago. That labor-intensive birth happened on April 23, 1968. But it came after nearly a decade of prayerful negotiations, General Conference legislation and prevenient mergers of racially segregated annual conferences—like ours—until the glorious day of delivery when we finally became The United Methodist Church. The Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church— both denominations being offspring of earlier mergers themselves. The new denomination abolished Methodism’s Central Jurisdiction, created in 1939 to unify and segregate annual conferences with predominantly black churches and members across the nation, like our former Delaware Annual Conference. So, in 1968 and in the years that followed, after a history of divisions and dubious mergers, we finally got it right, for the most part. Getting it right meant reorganizing churchwide agencies and creating legislation and special commissions to monitor our still-unfinished journey toward racial and gender equity and denominational inclusiveness. For that same journey and others, it also meant creating special programs and funds, Special Sunday offerings and eventually, missional priorities. It meant—and it still means—living into our divine call to manifest integrity, generosity, grace and other bedrock Christian values, as we strive to become what our own annual conference approved as its vision statement in 2017: United in Christ, Committed to Transformation. We are 50 years old as a denomination this year, and we have made much progress. But there is much more to be done. I pray that our life expectancy, our arc in history, is long, with no end in sight, and that it will forever bend toward justice, in James Russell Lowell’s famous words. The year 1968 was one of emergent change, not only in our church, but across our nation and throughout society. There was turbulent racial conflict, violence in our streets, war, protests and questions about the relevancy of the church. The Rev. Dr. Albert C. Outler, a prominent theologian at the time, cast a vision for the Uniting Conference in his address on the morning of our merger ceremony. He called for the new church to be steadfast in unity and committed to ecumenism and evangelism in word and deed. He also stressed the need for the church to reform itself from being an insulated institution to actively demonstrating the presence of the living Christ. In order to reform, he said, we needed to be “…a church united in order to be uniting, a church repentant in order to be a church redemptive, a church ‘cruciform’ in order to manifest God’s triumphant agony for mankind (sic).” When he finished, the 10,000 people at Dallas Memorial Auditorium gave him a prolonged standing ovation. Dr. Outler’s call is still with us today as we celebrate 50 years of United Methodism. If each one of us would take to heart these principles of unity, ecumenism, evangelism and reform, we could become the church that our founders envisioned many years ago, as they sought to spread “scriptural holiness” across the land. “This is the day the Lord has made,” said Outler. “Let us really rejoice and be glad in it—glad for the new chance God now gives us. “Indeed, for the next month, from April 22 through May 20, and for months and years to come, let us really rejoice and be glad in this faithful, if not faultless, heritage we share as United Methodists. Let us clothe ourselves in love, seeking always to be transformed as those redeemed through grace. And let us be glad for our unity in a Christ who “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:14).