Peakland UMC

From Pastor Joe:

For today’s devotion I’m using This Day, A Wesleyan Way of Prayer.

From Pastor Dave:

Over the past few weeks I have been sharing some of the foundational beliefs of the United Methodist Church. I have referenced the Twenty-five Articles of Religion which John Wesley described as the doctrinal standards for the people called Methodist. In addition, the Constitution of the United Methodist Church states that the Articles of Religion shall not be revoked, altered, or changed.

Note: These Articles were first composed by the Church of England which wanted to distinguish itself from the Roman Catholic Church.

Today, I will present Articles 20-25, so let’s begin.

All Saints Day is approaching. This is the day that the church honors the lives of those folks who have died. Some saints have their own special day: St. Patrick who shared the Christian faith in Ireland has March 17. Saint Valentine’s Day, February 14 actually does honor a real person or possibly a couple of people both named Valentine for his or their Christian work. St Nicholas Day is not Christmas but Tuesday, December 6.

All Saints Day is for us to honor all of the believers who have died.

I am remembering an important saint in my life: Rev. Dr. Kirk Mariner, who was the senior pastor of Mount Olivet in the 1980s and 1990s. I was a seminary intern for two years at Mount Olivet and worked with Kirk there. In 1997, he was appointed to be the pastor of Williamsburg United Methodist Church and I was appointed with him as the associate pastor of the church. We worked together for five years at Williamsburg.

From Linwood:

A few weeks back I shared my arrangement with you of Goodbye World Goodbye. A lot of you enjoyed it, and now I have the updated version with my friend Lynn Nash adding his flugelhorn. And of course I have tweaked it a little bit, so here’s the final version of the song.

It starts slow but takes off in the middle! Creating this arrangement was not something I wanted to do, given the circumstances, but I will say, Lynn and I have had a lot of fun in the process

Here’s our take on Goodbye World, Goodbye!

Grace and peace to you, welcome to Sunday morning worship for October 30, 2022. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor at Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia.

Today’s Gospel passage from Luke also features a tree, a tall sycamore tree. A small man named Zacchaeus climbs the tree to see Jesus. Zacchaeus sees Jesus and Jesus sees him and Jesus offers Zacchaeus, peace, harmony and forgiveness for his sins. Jesus offers us that to all of us as well.

From Pastor Joe:

In our time together now we’re going to do three things. Hold up three fingers. We’re going to sing our song with our mouths. We’re going to listen to a story from the Bible with our ears, and we’re going to pray the action prayer with using our words and our actions to pray and talk to God..

Let’s begin with our song, He’s got the whole world in his hands.

Andrew shares a story of someone who had a major impact on his life and faith. His name was Nader, and he was muslim, yet his faith and the way he lived his life made Andrew rethink what it meant to care for others.

From Pastor Joe:

For today’s devotion I’m using This Day, A Wesleyan Way of Prayer.

From Pastor Dave:

For those familiar with John Wesley you know that he placed great emphasis on what he called “the means of grace”. Among these ordinary means by which God conveyed His love and grace to believers were prayer, reading, hearing, and meditating on the scriptures, participating in worship and receiving the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.

Of the Twenty-five Articles of Religion which are our Doctrinal Standards of Theology and Faith, four specifically address the Sacraments of Baptism and The Lord’s Supper. They are:

#16 Of the Sacraments in general

#17 Of Baptism

#18 Of the Lords Supper

#19 Of Both the Bread and the Cup

Signifying their importance is that the combination of these four Articles are longer than any other subject. I will highlight the key points. . . . .

From Pastor Joe:

For today’s devotion I’m using This Day, A Wesleyan Way of Prayer, created by Rev Larry Stookey, a United Methodist pastor and worship professor at Wesley Theological seminary. This is the prayer book that I have used for years. Each day offers a blend of scriptures and guided prayers.