Breakfast, Best Friends and Bibles

 

Today we worshiped with the great folks of Stratmoor Hills United Methodist Church, situated across from the World Arena, a popular major performance venue, and home to the local Ice Skating and Hockey Olympic Training Centers here in Colorado Springs, CO.

We watched the cars arrive for the 9:15 am traditional worship service from our breakfast table in the coach and walked over to join folk from that, and the 11 am Contemporary Service at their 10:00 am Fellowship Time. Every Sunday the fare is different, depending on what the bringers decide to bring.  Today there were scrambled eggs, pastries and fruit. Sound familiar Verna R?

PS: Every good breakfast deserves 

                                                      dessert.

Mona got to meet an almost-a-cousin!  Sherry Sheehan grew up in Brockway, Pa as a Youngdahl, about 30 minutes from Mona's home, Brookville, Pa.  AND it turns out Sherry's brother once rented his home from a close friend of ours in Reynoldsville, another suburb of the metropolis of  Brookville, Dorothy Reed.

This world is always astounding us with its size.  Its getting smaller and smaller every day we travel.

The worship was great and Pastor Dave McGee's sermon was inspiring and challenging as he encouraged us all to live our lives for Christ by living them for others. I was happy to learn that once again we had traveled to a UMC with a Licensed                                                         Pastor, as I was until becoming a
                                                      Clergy Associate Member of my conference.


 At the conclusion of the service there was a children's message and Pastor Dave handed out rhythm instruments to all of us who wanted them and the Children's Sunday School came up from their downstairs class.

Well, Mackensie came up.  Last week the class had 18 kids.  Today just one.  Sound familiar Jen C??


The 100 or so attenders of this congregation are very involved in several ministries to the local families and persons in needs of all kinds.  But this June some of them, along with 600 other United Methodists from around the Rocky Mountain Conference, traveled east to almost the Colorado-Kansas border where in 1864 a former Methodist preacher and Indian hater, Colorado Militia Colonel Chivington led 700 of his volunteers south from Denver to an Arapaho camp of about 200 mostly women and children under the leadership of Chief Black Kettle and spent the morning killing every person in camp who could not hide along the Sand Creek banks.

The United Methodist Church nationwide has led many ministries which meet American Indian needs from improved education to adult job training and new church starts as a result of its desire to atone for the Sand Creek Massacre, though no one has ever found reason to consider 19th century Methodists or Methodism ever innately opposed to Native American freedoms.

 After lunch at a local Village Inn (um-um GOOD!) we returned to church for the 2:00 pm Bible Study led by Pastor Dave.


And as evening draws near we got a glimpse of Pike's Peak between cloud coverings throughout the day from our parking spot.  That's the lighter mountain in the distance between the two closer, darker peaks.

Scrabble (yes, Mona is winning) and supper on board just about concludes the most 'average' Sunday we've had since departing June 8. If living every day with new views out the coach windows and new people to meet is at all average.

-Ken