"Midweek and Time to Say Thanks and Goodbye" Pastor Cindy's Devotion 06/16/2021

 

Hello friends,

This is the last issue of the Midweek Devotion.  Thanks so much for listening for the last four years!

Sunday is the day we generally think about church and faith. That has faded a bit in our current culture where we will fill every day to the brim and Sunday Sabbath has been doubled booked with sports and shopping.  Even so, Sunday is still church day, even if that is more of a whisper than a shout. 

The Midweek Devotion generally came out on Wednesday, smack dap in the middle of the week.  Wednesday.  A work day.  Hump day.  Right in the middle of the hectic.  Sunday’s sanctuary prayers are long forgotten.  Wednesday, the day we set out our garbage in my neighborhood. Catch our breath and press on to Friday. 

The Midweek was my way of pausing and listening for what God might be saying in the middle of the week while I was wrapped up in practical work tasks.  It was a way of encountering God in my work, the morning after a committee meeting and the day before the bulletin was printed.   It was a way of opening my six-day-work-week life to my Sunday Sabbath God. 

In these last four years, God was always faithful.  There always seemed to be some message of grace waiting to be heard.  Patient God waiting while we do what seems so important.  Waiting while we complain that we are so busy and so tired. Offering calm and rest. If we just had the time. 

So thank you for joining with me and giving God a bit of our Wednesdays. I know that I can’t speak for God, I am oddly confident that God liked being in our thoughts right in the middle of the week.

God of the everyday. God looking over our shoulder when there are dishes in the sink. God watching while I scratch something off my to-do list. God present while we look for a child’s backpack on the way out the door to school. God in skipped meals. God standing nearby when our head hits the pillow.  Ever-present God in a too often too busy world.  

So on Wednesdays, we paused just for a few moments to breathe and notice.  God in it all.  Thank you for sharing in this.  

And thanks be to our every day, every moment, God. 

Blessings,

Pastor Cindy

Pastor Cindy Hickman

West Des Moines United Methodist Church
720 Grand Avenue
West Des Moines Iowa 50265
515-279-0826

Like us on Facebook or visit us at wdmumc.org. 

We worship all week long—but we worship together on Sunday at 9 am in person and Livestream.  At 9:30 we worship in a special online service. 

Happenings at WDMUMC

Remembering Gary    The memorial service for Gary Norton will be held on Saturday, June 19th at 11 am here at West Des Moines United Methodist Church.  The visitation will be held Friday night from 5-7 pm at Resthaven Funeral Home.  The burial will take place on Saturday before the memorial service for immediate family members only.  A luncheon will be held here at the church following the memorial service.  Please surround Barb and her family with your prayers of comfort and peace. 

STATE FAIR!  August in Iowa means the Iowa State Fair and it is time to sign up to work at the wdmumc state fair food stand!  We will need more volunteers than we have at our church. It is also time for all of us to do some creative recruiting!   Who can you recruit? 

• Are you on Facebook?  Post the link on your Facebook page and encourage friends to sign up!
• Nonprofit groups who serve at the state fair stand can earn money for their mission!  What about that board you serve on?  Would they like to earn money, do a little teamwork AND earn money for their mission?  
•  Your daughter’s dance troop? The 4-H Club?  The soccer team? 
• Your cousins?  Your gal pals?  Your fishing buddies? 
• Those friends who love the fair and want to see it from another point of view. 

Everyone who serves gets free admission to the fair.  Four-hour or eight-hour shifts available. 

Here’s the link to fun at the fair!  https://wdmumc.org/group-pages/state-fair-stand/

Have fun!  

 

"Midweek and a Prayer in Changing Times" Pastor Cindy's Devotion 05/12/2021

 

Friends,

Is it safe to come out?  What’s your assessment of the pandemic?  I asked someone yesterday if he thought the pandemic was over.   He thought it was beginning to shift from a pandemic (an acute worldwide disease) to an endemic (a disease that is common among the people).  An endemic is more manageable.  It is still serious, but the medical community is better equipped to address it, and we have greater immunity.  We have vaccines. 

But even as this shift is beginning to happen, we are being told to be cautious. 

Throughout this last year, we have been vigilant, trying to respond to the pandemic responsibly.  In some ways, the year has felt like a time-out.  

And yet while we have been taking this time out, life continued.  Babies have been born.  Children have gotten taller.  Students have graduated from high school and college.  Couples have fallen in love.  The elderly have gotten older.  Loved ones have died. 

Life seems to insist on going on. 

Throughout the year, we have had to adapt, and now we adapt yet again to a new reality.  Pandemics aren’t the only thing that presents us with a new reality.  A new baby, a new job, graduation, retirement, an injury or illness that changes our physical capabilities, the death of a loved one.  They can all bring us to a new reality.  When I hit a new reality time, it feels like a soul shift, a change in thinking.  How do I live into this new reality? 

Lately, I have been thinking about a particular prayer.  It happens to be “The Covenant Prayer in the in the Wesleyan Tradition in contemporary language.”  Don’t let the long title overwhelm you.  It is just a prayer. 

This prayer is like a parachute drop.  When I read it, I feel as if I am saying to God “ok, drop me into this new reality.  This is the life you have surrounded me with, drop me in—and go with me.” 

So here is the prayer. 

God of all,

I am no longer my own, but yours.

Put me to what you will, place me with whom you will.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering,

Let me be put to work for you, or set aside for you,

Praised for you, or criticized for you.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and fully surrender all things to your glory and service.

And now, O wonderful and holy God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer,

you are mine, and I am yours. 

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

Let it also be made in heaven.

Amen

I think it is safe to come out. 

Blessings,

Pastor Cindy

Pastor Cindy Hickman

West Des Moines United Methodist Church
720 Grand Ave
West Des Moines Iowa 50265
515-279-0826

Like us on Facebook or visit us at WDMUMC.org.

And join in for worship!

In-person at 8:30 in the sanctuary.  Please wear a mask!  This service is Livestreamed!

And, our On-Line Worship premieres at 9:30 on our Facebook page.  Worship in the way that is right for you!

This Week at WDMUMC

All Church Picnic Tonight!  5:30 at Raccoon River Park in the shelters.  Sue W and Liz F have prepared supper for us!  Come and bring your lawn chair!  Great time to see people you haven’t seen in a while! 

Baptism!  This Saturday Isaiah James Hardman, son of Libby (Stoffer) and Zachery Hardman will be baptized.  Congratulations to everyone!  Including proud grandparents, Dick and Peggy Stoffer! 

In Memorial

A memorial service will be held for Kathy Hunzelman on Monday, May 17th at 11 am.  Kathy and her family have been members of WDMUMC since 1973.  Kathy is the mother of Lindsey Sheeder.  A visitation will be held on Sunday, May 16th from 2-4 at Hamilton’s on Westown Parkway.  Our prayers go out to the Hunzelman family in the loss of their mother and grandmother.

 

An Easter Prayer

Risen Lord, we come today to celebrate

to lift up our praises for what you did for us,
for the love that you've shown us and for the hope that it gives us for the future.

God we might not all feel like celebrating this morning,
we might not all be to that resurrection in our own lives, 
but regardless, we join together today because we believe. 
We believe that you lived, you suffered and died and that your rose again and that your story, the story of resurrection and redemption and restoration will be our story too.

This morning as we stand in awe of the ways that you redeem us, we remember the journey that we took to get here. 
We remember how you came to us, 
you came and you were like us, 
you met us where we were, 
on our own terms. 
You lived and walked among us and taught us about God's desire for this world, 
what it looks like for God to be among us, 
how things would be different.
We remember our excitement just last Sunday that you were with us, Hosanna!
that God did indeed have a plan to save us. 
We remember the confusion, the sin that separated us from you on Good Friday, 
the hopelessness and shame and heaviness that we felt in that day. 
The waiting, the suspense the uncertainty of Saturday, 
the fear that maybe, just maybe you had abandoned us.
All of that, all of those parts of your story that we live out in our lives too, 
all of that to find ourselves here in this place today.
God we fall before you with relief, with joy that Friday was not the end, that Saturday didn't last too long and that all along, your plans was better than we could have imagined. 
We bask in the light of Jesus resurrected, 
we bask in the hope that evil, that sin, that pain and death do not have the last word, 
that there is more for us. 
Thank you God, thank you for this time to remember all of those things, to open ourselves up once again to the mystery and the power and the awe of Easter.

We claim this story this morning, 
we say that yes, we believe, evil does not have the last word. 
We claim that promise for us here today, we claim it for those in our lives who are experiencing suffering, pain, addiction, loneliness, hopelessness, death. 
We pray for all those who need to know that those things are not the end, 
we pray that you send your Holy Spirit to remind them of that today, that they would feel your presence and know that this is true.

We pray for our church, for our community that we will remember that we are an Easter people, that evil does not win here and that we are a part of your redemption. 
Show us the way to be your church, 
a church that lives in hope,
 that gives others hope, 
that makes the world around us look more like your kingdom. 
God we want others to know that joy of Easter too, we want to be part of the work that you're doing in and through and around us.

This morning God we know that you meet us where we are, 
whether we're still on Friday or fully present to your resurrection today. 
Meet us where we are God and continue to guide us, 
to be a part of our story,
 to weave the resurrection through our lives.
 And as we claim your promises of hope and new life and resurrection we remember those disciples that went before us, 
the ones that got to ask Jesus face to face, "how are we supposed to pray?" So we join together as God's family in that prayer saying:

Our Father
Who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom 
And the power
And the glory forever
Amen. 

Pastor Jen Hibben