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Meditation from Scott Medina, Director of Community Table:
Your gifts grew us...full bellies and healthy bodies, with care and
compassion. For the past decade Mountain View United Methodist
has been the host of the weekly Community Table dinner, which feeds
the homeless and low-income here in our community. Literally tens of
thousands of meals have been served at the church during that time.
They provide not only nourishment for our guests' bodies but lift up
their morale and sense of community and belonging as well. Community Table is the dinner program of the Bridge House, a day shelter for
homeless and working poor which has extensive case management
and a jobs programs available at our downtown location, along with
many other services.
A dedicated team of volunteers from Mountain View's congregation
hosts one of these dinners at your church each month -- on fourth
Tuesdays from 3:45 - 6:30pm. If you are interested in joining them, to
experience serving the homeless and to learn more about this population, please contact Kay Laythrop. Kay has tirelessly been supporting
our program each and every Tuesday all of these years, by acting as
greeter and serving in many ways. We are so grateful for her dedication, and for the support of all of Mountain View. More importantly,
our guests thank you for being there for them week after week. For
more information on volunteering at the Bridge House or Community
Table, you can contact Scott Medina at
Scott@BoulderBridgeHouse.org.
Meditation from Phil Youngren:
When I first came to Mountain View about 10 years ago, I was angry
and bitter and dependent on alcohol. I was a tough nut to plant in this
church!
Even though I was not sober, people in the church somehow just kept
loving me. This love forever changed how I look at life. The protection
of Christian love showered on me here at Mountain View truly gave
me a whole new life, a rebirth. I was so nurtured that it finally dawned
on me that the alcohol thing was just not right. So now, that dependence is gone.
This church is a real loving place--a place of radical love, radical
change. And Christ was the biggest radical there ever was! Radical
nurturing and radical love of my neighbor has changed my life. Praying, for my friends and for my neighbors and for my enemies, has
changed my life. I practice every day. Sometimes I pray for an hour at
a time.....often I do this. It is a strange thing, but a wonderful
thing. This change in me is all due to the nurturing of the people of
this church. They have helped me become a member. They have
helped me become a better person. They have helped me do things I
have never done before. Now I don't worry. I can live and JUST DO
IT....even enduring an amputation. That's the way my life is today. I
am blessed! My life is full of abundant joy.
Meditation from Hugh Evans on Tending and Nurturing
Meditation from Max Coppom on
I was born in San Francisco in 1924 into a non-church attending family. My
father’s parents played a vital role in the Episcopalian Church of San Rafael, CA, but my
Mother, 16 years younger than my Dad, was an agnostic. They both believed that a
good education was the best thing they could give their children and I was sent to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, a five-day train trip, for my high school education. There I sang in the glee club and school’s nondenominational church choir and
found that attending church inspired me.
Growing our Vital Christian Ministries and Outreach in the New Year
On graduating from Exeter I was called into the Army and served for two and a
half years with the 10th Mountain Division. We fought in northern Italy. The night of
February 19, 1945, when under heavy artillery fire, while fighting to take Monte Gorgolesco, I prayed to God saying if he would save me I would try to do his work. He did and
since then I have been the one member of my family that has always looked for a
church for comfort and peace. Ann has supported me in this throughout our 64 years of
marriage and 29 moves. We have always found a church home in different Protestant
denominations wherever we lived and, until I lost my voice, I sang in or directed the
choir. We have four married children all of whom have excellent principles. We tended
and nurtured their faith all through their growing up years. Two are church going and
two are not. We like a church that challenges our thinking.
I believe there is one God and that there are many different paths to Him. All
people need a Superior Being to find peace and comfort and to pray to for help in this
difficult and complicated World of ours. Jesus Christ set the standards that I try to follow. A good attitude is the key to a happy and successful life.
There are many ways to give. We can give: our time and effort to good causes;
being kind, considerate and helpful in all we do and trying to understand others and
being supportive of their needs. Yes, love your neighbor and do unto others as you
would have them do unto you. As for the things and wealth we possess these should be
given in an openhearted and sensible way to support our church and others. Peace and
comfort do come through growing our spiritual garden and giving to others as we can.
Although I have been a Methodist most of my life, my spiritual life was in
need of lots of nourishment when I became part of this faith community
fourteen years ago. I’m grateful for the love that has surrounded me here at
Mountain View and for those who are walking with me on my renewed spiritual journey.
Just as the light from the sun and the rains from the sky are important for
all living creatures to grow and flourish, the light of God’s love, and our faith
in Him, are essential for our personal spiritual and emotional growth.
Basic to growing our faith is regular worship attendance where we learn
more about God’s word that helps us cope with the challenges of life. But
it’s beyond worship where I have found resources where my faith has grown
the greatest. It’s by being involved in the life and ministry of Mtn. View. It’s
interacting with and learning from others, loving and being loved, that have
been keys to my own spiritual growth.
We are endowed with a tremendous capacity to grow. All life is growth.
The minute we put a seed in the ground it begins to grow. Unless we grow
we die. We who have a conscious desire to grow can do so by drawing upon
our faith in God and upon our own unused strength.
Let the challenge of your aspirations to grow personally and for Mtn.
View rouse your slumbering and often unused powers into action. Go out
today with the thought that an inner light is shining out of you. If we did all
the things we, through God, are capable of doing we would literally astonish
ourselves. Astonish yourself!
Meditation from Jeannine Malmsbury on Planting—Straight Rows:
Meditation from Sue McGrath on Preparing the Soil:
For many of us, the motivation to raise a child in the knowledge of God inspires
us to find a church family where our children will learn to recognize God’s love and
learn what it means to “walk in love, just as Christ also loved you . . .” In many ways
we as parents are like the sower in the parable, casting seeds in good soil and
straight rows that will bring a good harvest or, in some cases, casting seeds along
the road, in the rocks or among the weeds.
The soil makes all the difference…
I came to Mountain View more than a dozen years ago in search of a nurturing
place that would guide my daughter, and me, as a parent. I was looking for the
“straight rows” of Christian faith, and guidance for living a purposeful life, though I
would not have explained it that way at the time. Like many parents drawn to
Mountain View, I wanted my daughter to learn the lessons of Christ’s love and to
experience it through Sunday School teachings, Children’s Choir, the Christmas pageant and all the many ways that shape a child’s understanding of God and what it
means to be a Christian. For that to happen I needed to reconnect with a caring
congregation, having let it lapse in adulthood, and Mountain View provided that
connection.
As parents, and especially parents of teenagers, we may sometimes feel we’ve
failed to adequately “tend to” our children, just as the sower worries about the
weeds, the soil and the pests. But the “straight rows” that a caring congregation
provides can support us as parents, and in all our relationships. I believe that support helps to broaden us and compensates, at times, for our personal shortcomings.
The prayers and advice of a caring church friend or prayer pal, another member’s
parent, or the pastor or youth leader can help to maintain the “straight rows” of
love and nurturing that guided my child as she grew and learned to lead a fruitful
life of faith in God.
Working at Mt. View Preschool for over 20 years, I’m still working on
my soil! I feel that working with small children and young families
helps me be mindful of God and His presence every day. The first day I
walked into our church building, I knew this was the place! Steve and
I, starting our family by ourselves, away from family, we missed the
hometown feel and we wanted our children to have the grounding of
a church and church family to build their growth. This is preparing the
soil.
We are thankful to God for this church, with beautiful mountain views,
and this “soil” that God and His people have turned. We have discovered something so nurturing that children of all ages can feel His love!
This is preparing the soil.
It takes resources to prepare the soil. We contribute to Mountain
View United Methodist Church through our time and money because
our church helps families new and old (children, young and old) develop in God’s loving care. This is preparing the soil.
Steve and I invite you to join us in supporting what God is doing here,
through Mountain View United Methodist Church. This is preparing
the soil.