News for July 17th, 2024
Dear Beloved Community,
I missed all of you this past Sunday, while I was away for a friend's wedding in LA. I know it was a great worship service. You got to hear from Caje who spoke on legacy, and how for him legacy is based on service. In particular the service he and Janice do for providing scholarships for students of color, in order for them to finish college. Finally, David Hooper became College Heights Church's newest member. I was so sad to have not been part of the ritual, but what a blessing that he is officially a member of this beautiful faith community.
Now this Sunday, we will be blessed once again by our guest preacher Meg Given, who will continue her summer sermon series with “In the Wilderness with Elijah, Part II.” Meg is from Boulder Creek and studies at Earlham School of Religion, a Quaker seminary in Indiana. She found College Heights Church on Google Maps while researching possible sites for a new Quaker worship group almost fifteen years ago. The worship group rented elsewhere, but Meg stayed in touch with us through the Taizé service.
She says, “This is the second leg of a three-stage journey in the wilderness with the prophet Elijah, as told in 1 Kings 19. I’ll begin by orienting us to the series and this week’s text. Then we'll slow down together and ponder some questions prompted by Elijah's experience in the middle portion of this chapter.”
I am looking forward to seeing all of you this Sunday. May each one of you have a great week.
Peace and blessings!
Jorge
July's Giving Sunday offering is for "Catherine Center". Thanks for always being so generous with your gifts in life. Below is their programs video.
Recent sermons
Check out our YouTube page to see recent sermons. Go to our archive of slides to see bulletins and slides used during recent services.
Recordings of our Taize services are also on the YouTube page.
Upcoming services and events
UCC Family Camp: July 19-21st, Monte Toyon Retreat Center, Aptos, CA. Save the date to join Belmont UCC like last year!
Church Council: Sunday, July 21 after worship.
Borg Discussion Group: Thursday, July 25th, 7pm on Zoom. We are moving on to ch 5 for more discussion of Jesus and wisdom, in Borg's "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time."
Book Group: Sunday, July 28, 7pm, on Zoom. We’re going to try again with “Catastrophe Ethics” by Travis Rieder. (The gathering last time was very small!). Al recently led a 20-person discussion of this book at Enso so he’s totally into it. The question it deals with is ‘How to make choices when every action has so many ripple consequences, many of them unintended and unknown? It’s tempting to conclude that individual actions don’t matter, but that logic is flawed too.’
Worship & Arts: Sunday, August 4 after worship. Join us and help plan worship for the early fall.
Annual Women’s Retreat: Labor Day Weekend (Aug 30 - Sept 1) at Polly’s house in Pacific Grove. All church women invited; details to come. Save the date!
Celebration of Life for Jim Mathews: Saturday, September 7 at 2 pm.
Annual Men's Retreat: October 4-6 at Polly’s house in Pacific Grove. RSVP to Roy Gesley if you are interested.
Links and resources
Last Sunday, Caje and Janice shared with us their project to provide non-tuition assistance to college-bound kids from the Visitacion Valley/Sunnydale projects, operated by Mercy Housing in San Francisco. To make it easy for you to contribute to this project, it will be our Giving Sunday recipient for the month of August. In the meantime, check out the amazing things the Mercy sisters have been doing to create affordable housing (all over the country), at Mercyhousing.org
Sound of the stars, credit NASA and ESA (and thanks to Susanne Croft for sharing).
There will be a celebration of life for Rev. Kristi Denham at Congregational Church of the Peninsula, Saturday, August 10 at 2pm.
Quote of the week
“The dominant religion on the planet is not Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or Judaism, but the pervasive faith in violence.” — Walter Wink
Weekly events
• Meditation group: Wednesdays at 7:30 am
In person at the church building.
• Sunday worship: 10 am
In person at the church building.
Image: Meg Given
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