Here at Mt Paul

Mt Paul – YARD SALE Virtualized

The in-person Yard Sale for this year has been cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns.  However, we have are planning to share your items virtually in our online worship service this coming Sunday!  Send Nazli a picture of your yard sale treasures and suggested prices for each product today! Don’t forget to include your first and last name, your telephone number or email to Nazli (see announcements bulletin)

Mt Paul – OFFERINGS

Thank you to all who have kept their PAR ongoing, and sent in cheques and E transfers.  You can help contribute to the ministries of Mount Paul by making a donation via:

Our website – mtpauluc.ca
Send an E transfer for Mt Paul to edlentz5255@gmail.com
A cheque made payable to Mt Paul United Church can be mailed to Don L (see announcements bulletin)

Mt Paul – FEDERAL WAGE SUBSIDIES

Mt Paul UC has received Federal Wage Subsidies  from March 15^th to May 9^th.  The 75% Federal Wage Subsidy has been extended to August 29^th, and we will apply for the subsidies each month, providing that we qualify to do so. 

  Upcoming Worship Services Online-

June 7^th we will celebrate both communion and share yard sale ‘treasures’ virtually.

June 14^th, Rev. Liz says her final farewells…

Online Summer Worship Services are coming together!  Thanks everyone for your input.  Watch for a schedule to be posted soon…

Our Wider World…

 Posting Prayers Weekly

This week we are praying for the ministry congregation at Oliver Pastoral Charge in Oliver, BC and their leader Kenneth Jones. As participants in the World Council of Churches, we are invited to remember and pray for the peoples of Botswana and Zimbabwe.

Life & Ministry of Mt Paul United Church
Week of May 31, 2020 – June 7, 2020

Mt Paul –  Virtual YARD SALE Scheduled  June 7th
The Yard Sale for this year has been cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns. We would like to include in the June 7th worship service   Anyone who would like to participate in the Yard Sale, please send Nazli a good picture of their products and briefly explain what it is and a price for each product. Nazli also needs your contact information such as your First and Last Name, your telephone number or email (telephone number is easier).  See Nazli’s email in announcements or forward to Margaret who will forward)

Mt Paul – FEDERAL WAGE SUBSIDIES

Mt Paul UC has received Federal Wage Subsidies in our bank totalling $7, 699.10 from March 15th to May 9th. The 75% Federal Wage Subsidy has been extended to August 29th, and we will apply for the subsidies each month, providing that we qualify to do so.

Mt Paul – MANAGEMENT MEETING
The Management Team will be having their monthly meeting on June 3, 2020 from 11 AM to 1 PM. This meeting will be held by using ZOOM.

Mt Paul-Many hands do make for light work! Thanks also everyone for your feedback as regards summer worship service planning. As we enter into Phase 2 of COVID-19, our church family prevails…

June 14th, Rev. Liz says her final farewells…

Our Wider World…

Posting Prayers Weekly
This week we are praying for the ministry congregation at Union Bay Pastoral Charge in Union Bay, BC and their leaders. As participants in the World Council of Churches, we are invited to remember and pray for the peoples of Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland (Eswatini).

We are here to serve you. Please contact us if you want to learn more about Mt Paul or
If you have any special questions or requests or just need a warm and cheerful greeting:
Rev. Liz Bowyer email: (see announcements)
Secretary: Margaret Pel email: mtpauloffice@gmail.com
Telephone: 250 376-2261 website: www.mtpauluc.ca
Pastoral Care Needs: Merle 
Prayers Requests: Karen 

Here at Mt Paul

Mt Paul – PASTORAL CARE TEAM
Your Pastoral Care Team members are missing our Sunday morning worship experience and sending blessings and prayers for good health for all of you, in this time of isolating due to community health concerns. Remember if you have any Prayer needs, concerns, or just want to chat, please contact one of our team members as follows:
Prayers – Karen M, Services or Concerns – Merle B, Donalda J 2, Betty G  (as per email announcements)

Mt Paul – THE UCW STRAWBERRY TEA & SALE
As you know, the Strawberry Tea had to be cancelled. Also, the April, May and June meetings for the UCW members have been formally cancelled. They have been asked to stay in prayer with one another and with Mt. Paul

Mt Paul – TAKE AWAY MEALS – ICS
Take away meals are offered in the parking lot on Mon, Wed, and Thurs by ICS as the building is closed. The meal is prepackaged and served from 12 pm -1pm. There is often a frozen soup take away as well.

Mt Paul – CHURCH STAFF AND MINISTRIES OF ADMINISTRATION
Please hold in prayer our staff members, Margaret, Liz, and Nazly who are learning to do their work ‘remotely’. Also, we pray particularly for out Joint Search Team Members working with other leaders from Plura Hills United Church and also our Mt. Paul Management Team which will meet by Zoom teleconference this Wednesday, April 15th at 11am.

Mt Paul – WORSHIP SERVICES
Many churches are livestreaming their services so take advantage of the opportunity. Mt. Paul Worship Services are also happening online! Please join with us and folk from Plura Hills as we worship together online this coming Friday at 10am and on Easter Sunday also at 10am. Rev. Liz will send dial in details for the services under separate e-mails.

Our Wider World…

KUC: Events of note:

• Join Rev. Dr. Michael Caveney daily at 10 AM
Join Rev. Dr. Michael Caveney at KUC each morning at 10 AM via You Tube. (Google KUC click on main heading KUC/making all thing new. Then find article titled Today’s YouTube Message March 18. Inside the article click on KUC You Tube link).

• Posting Prayers Weekly
This week we are praying for the shared ministry congregation at Hope-Trinity in MacKenzie, BC and their leader Henry Dunbar. As participants in the World Council of Churches, we are invited to remember and pray for the peoples of Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania.

We are here to serve you. Please contact us if you want to learn more about Mt Paul or
If you have any special questions or requests or just need a warm and cheerful greeting:
Rev. Liz Bowyer email: elizabethbowyer2007@gmail.com
Secretary: Margaret Pel email: mtpauloffice@gmail.com
Telephone: 250 376-2261 website: www.mtpauluc.ca
Pastoral Care Needs: Merle B
Prayers Requests: Karen M

Message for Palm Passion Sunday, April 5, 2020

Beyond Denial & Despair                                                        March 29^th 2020

Based on John 11:1-44

Greetings dear children of God, of Mount Paul United Church, in diaspora!

(displaced/spread about!)  

Peace be with you on this last Sunday of Lent.  Oh, so many changes since we last met on March 1^st on the first Sunday of Lent!  I hope you are all keeping healthy in the midst of this health care crisis.   I’m sure it is difficult to be distanced from people who love you and whom you love.  I encourage you to use this time to reach out with your hearts in prayer, when you cannot reach out your hands.   There are those (though fewer now) who are still in denial about the seriousness of the pandemic, and others who are feeling a sense of despair.  There is place beyond those seeming opposites – a creative, spirit-centered place.  As we go into these next few weeks approaching the Easter season, I invite you to that place.  I offer this reflection from a few years ago, and I hope some of it will resonate with you.  The story of the raising of Lazarus is rich with contemplative opportunities.  I invite you to read the gospel passage now, if you haven’t already…              

Several years ago, I sat in a hospital room with the parents of a young boy who had accidentally drown.  The child’s body lay on a stretcher beside us. I asked the father if there was anything I could do to help.  He looked at me and said, “Go wake him up.” Wow!  My heart sank.  Talk about having to face my humanity, my finitude.  I am not God.  I cannot do that.

We can resuscitate sometimes, but no matter how fervent our prayers, how heartfelt our pleas, eventually everyone dies, even in our death-defying, death-denying culture.  That is still hard to accept. 

So what do we do with this story?  Does it give a sense of ultimate comfort, or a sense of failure?  What does it mean to believe in `the resurrection and the life’?

Resurrection literally means to restore to life, but as we near the apex of the Christian year, the celebration of Easter, we do well to remember that Jesus was experienced in a new way, a different way than before his death.  So resurrection carries a sense of transformation with it. 

In this story there is a three-fold process for new life for Lazarus.  It involves the Divine – Jesus prays, calling on God, the Divine mystery, `the Resurrection and the Life’.  It involves a willingness on the part of the one `entombed’ Lazarus to respond to the call, and it involves the community to help unbind and set free. 

Coming Forth, a lovely poem by Joy Cowley of New Zealand, expresses well the response from the one entombed.  She writes:

Jesus, I don’t know how many times you’ve called me out of my tomb.

My life has been full of deaths, some small, some not so little

and before I knew it, I was wrapped in a shroud

and buried deep in a cave, no strength to roll away the stone.

Each time, I thought, “This is it.  The sun will not rise tomorrow.”

And hope died in the darkness.  Then always, you came by.

First, there was your voice, the way you said my name

as though you’ve always known it, and then, as the stone was moved,

there was the light that warmed my heart.

“Come forth!” you called. “Come forth!”

And I was up on my feet, and out of there, as wobbly as a newborn child

but filled to the brim with life.

How do you do it, Lord? How do you always know?

Your smile lights up the morning. “I know all about tombs,” you say.

“You forget, dear one, that this is why I was born.”

Come and See by Joy Cowley. (Pleroma Press, New Zealand). Used by permission.

In the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, he calls Lazarus to live again, but he also calls the community to unbind him and let him go.  Because of this, I believe the story is not about showing a neat trick that God can do.  It is a story, as are all of Jesus teaching, to show us what we can do. 

In all our humanity, frailty and doubt, we have a part to play in unbinding those who need new life, including ourselves. 

Sometimes this happens by speaking an affirmation and sometimes by issuing a challenge – showing someone where their own strength lies, showing them how they have bound themselves. 

Often the most restrictive grave bindings are one’s we cannot see.  Several years ago, I had a wonderful conversation with my son Aaron, who was living in Halifax at the time.  Aaron has no formal training as a counselor, but he has a keen mind and a big heart.  He told me about some work he was doing with a young woman whose mother told her she wasn’t good at anything.  `So now’, said Aaron, `even when she succeeds at something she feels like she’s betraying her mother, because her mother told her she was no good.’  `Her mom was her god, the one person who would give her attention, safety and nourishment as a little child.  But what a price to pay.’  

This is a young woman that needs to be unbound; someone who needs to know that she is loved and worthy, successful or not.   She needs to let go of the stinkin’ thinkin’ that has kept her trapped.  I am glad for her that Aaron was there, unbinding those grave clothes.

As I said, unbinding sometimes means giving someone a helping hand, and sometimes it means reminding them, as my dad would say, that the helping hand is at the end of their own arm.

One day when I was in ministry at Sicamous United Church, I got a phone call from a young man with a complex tale of woe.  Ultimately, he wanted `the church’ to pay for a hotel room for himself and his girlfriend for the night.  He also mentioned they were hungry and trying to get home to Quebec, after a failed job offer at the coast.  I let him know that the church did not have the means to offer hotel rooms, but I would willingly give him some food vouchers to the local grocery story.  That wasn’t’ good enough for him.  I told him that unfortunately Sicamous did not have a free shelter, but Salmon Arm did. 

He was adamant that he was not going back to Salmon Arm to a shelter full of losers, creeps and drug-addicts.  He’d been raised right.  I assured him, he would be perfectly safe there, and if his girlfriend was uncomfortable, the women’s shelter in town would take very good care of her. 

The man got increasingly angry, and tried to use shame and guilt to get what he wanted.  I stood my ground, and again offered the options I’d earlier suggested.   Apparently someone else gave him funds for a hotel for the night, and he got the food vouchers the next day when he came to the Thrift Shop.  I went home feeling shaky inside.  Indeed I want to be compassionate, but I surely am not obligated to finance a stranger because I’m at a church.  I went home and sent a message to my son, who has hitch-hiked across the country a couple times.  Aaron wrote back:

“You have to accept that some people have a horrific sense of entitlement. And that you have tried to give everything reasonably possible. Some people will always want the upgraded accommodations, and for free to boot, Momma. Your compassion is commendable but try not to let it harm you when others are making bad decisions.

Your son was raised pretty good and doesn’t think he’s too good for the shelters. Did Jesus go (complain) to the temple for not putting him up in nice digs?” 

(Thanks Aaron!) 

I encourage you this week to keep your eyes and your heart open for an opportunity to collaborate with God, to help unbind the grave cloths of someone (maybe even yourself) who has been entombed for too long.  Amen.

Blessings from Juanita & Jim

Mount Paul United Church

Covid 19 Pandemic

Congregational Update

Dear Fellow Congregants:

This pandemic has caused us at Mt Paul to suspend church services, until the all clear is given by BC’s Health Officer to resume our normal activities and to allow us to gather in groups again.  Until then please be assured the leadership at Mt Paul has been meeting by Zoom and telephone to make sure we come through this health crisis as strong as we were in February.

Rev. Liz has been working from her home in Naramata to keep in touch with her colleagues, and to receive guidance from the Pacific Mountain Region on how to best handle this situation.  Margaret has been working from home, checking emails, producing the weekly announcements, and doing what she can to keep us all informed of latest developments.  Nazli helped Rev. Liz put together a service for Sunday March 29, and we can expect more musical offerings in the future, hopefully posted to our website.

The Management Team is meeting by Zoom on Wednesday, April 1.  Bev has been diligently making sure our bills are paid, mostly by online banking so we are staying current with our financial obligations.  Don has been working to have us signed up with Canada Helps, a non-profit organization that receives donations earmarked for a specific charity, and then passes the donation on directly to that charity.  Don also participated in a Webinar on March 25 with Eric Mathieson and David Armour of the United Church financial branch in Toronto to keep all congregations up to date on how the United Church is dealing with this pandemic.

Once the Government of Canada has clarified the process to apply for the Federal Temporary Wage Subsidy program, we will definitely be taking advantage of it.  Originally announced to be a subsidy of 10% of wages for employees kept working, it was further announced on Friday March 27 to be a 75% subsidy starting March 15.  Once the process is clear, ADP, The United Church, and I will ensure that Mt Paul will apply for the funds, as we do not have plans to lay off any staff during this pandemic.

To those of you who are on PAR (Pre Authorized Remittance) your donations will continue to come in to Mt Paul and Tim will make sure your donations are logged so you get the correct income tax receipt next February.  To those of you who are not on PAR, we have several ways for you to continue to make your donations to keep the finances at Mount Paul solvent:

• You can mail a cheque made payable to Mount Paul United Church to:

Don Lentz

3963 Yellowhead Hwy.

Kamloops, BC

V2H 1K6

• You can make a donation by visiting our website (mtpauluc.ca) and clicking on the “Donate” button. You will then be able to put your donation on your credit card, and the donation will come to us at Mt Paul.
• If you are familiar with E transfers, you can send an E transfer to Mount Paul United Church, at my email address (Edlentz5255@gmail.com) and I will make sure it gets deposited to the church account.

I have deposit slips and night deposit bags at home for the church, and can make sure any of your donations I receive by regular mail are deposited to the church account, without actually having to go inside the Royal Bank.  Your continued financial support will be appreciated.  Your continued support will help us minimize the amount of funds we need to transfer from our Trust Funds in order to keep our church up to date with its obligations.

If you need to make changes to your PAR donations, Margaret is still able to process those.  Just send her an email at mtpauloffice@gmail.com, and she will make sure to follow your instructions.

Trusting that you all will be safe and healthy, and by placing our trust in the Heavenly Spirit, I am sure we will all get through this pandemic, and emerge a more United Church!

Don Lentz

Co-treasurer

COMPOSED BY
RABBI DR. REUVEN P. BULKA & ARCHBISHOP TERRENCE PRENDERGAST

O God,
We gather together separated by life-saving distancing, but united more than ever in spirit;
We know we are in a war against COVID – 19 together, and the more together we are, the better and
stronger we will emerge:
We know the challenges are enormous, yet so are the opportunities;
That whether we are in isolation with loved ones, or alone, we will have abundance of time;
We commit to using that time to the max, to help those in greater need in whatever way we can;
We know we all have the opportunity, and time, to be life savers and life enhancers;
We give thanks for those who are on the front line taking care of those who are not well;
We give thanks for the researchers who are working at breakneck speed to find cure and vaccine;
We give thanks for our leaders, federal, provincial and local, for their dedication to all of us;
We give thanks for the providers of our daily needs who go to work in spite of the risk;
We give thanks for those who have ramped up their ability to produce life-saving supplies.
We pray for the well-being of all our life savers; For those who are not well, that they recover fully;
For those enduring difficulty, that they may overcome their challenges.
We pray that a cure and vaccine will soon be available,
And that we all – family, friends, all Canadians, the entire world may be healed in body and spirit.
We ask you, O God, to bless our leaders, our front line care givers, our life savers and life enhancers.
We ask you, O God, to bless Canada, to bless the world, to bless everyone.
Amen

          National Prayer for Canada in The Week of COVID-19

COMPOS ED BY
RABBI DR. REUVEN P. BULKA & ARCHBISHOP TERRENCE PRENDERGAST

O God,
We gather together separated by life-saving distancing, but united more than ever in spirit;
We know we are in a war against COVID – 19 together, and the more together we are, the better and
stronger we will emerge:
We know the challenges are enormous, yet so are the opportunities;
That whether we are in isolation with loved ones, or alone, we will have abundance of time;
We commit to using that time to the max, to help those in greater need in whatever way we can;
We know we all have the opportunity, and time, to be life savers and life enhancers;
We give thanks for those who are on the front line taking care of those who are not well;
We give thanks for the researchers who are working at breakneck speed to find cure and vaccine;
We give thanks for our leaders, federal, provincial and local, for their dedication to all of us;
We give thanks for the providers of our daily needs who go to work in spite of the risk;
We give thanks for those who have ramped up their ability to produce life-saving supplies.
We pray for the well-being of all our life savers; For those who are not well, that they recover fully;
For those enduring difficulty, that they may overcome their challenges.
We pray that a cure and vaccine will soon be available,
And that we all – family, friends, all Canadians, the entire world may be healed in body and spirit.
We ask you, O God, to bless our leaders, our front line care givers, our life savers and life enhancers.
We ask you, O God, to bless Canada, to bless the world, to bless everyone.
Amen.