Who will call religiosity fully to life in our men,
invigorate it, and nurture it?
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“We believe that healthy growing congregations have a balance of masculine and feminine spirit, reflecting our triune God. We envision female and male believers, lay and clergy, serving Christ as co-laborers and partners in Christ. This is a unity issue, not a gender issue. We must become ONE in Christ.”
“Women and men must stand side-by-side as co-laborers in Christ. The difficult challenges facing ministry to men must be enjoined by men and women in genuine partnership. We need each other, more than ever.”
~ from UMC Men’s Ministries Guidelines
“The alienation of many men from the femininity of Christian spirituality has created grounds for an enormous misunderstanding about men and religion that every pastoral caregiver must recognize and confront. The absence of so many men from so many churches, their lack of involvement, their diffidence and even hostility to Christian piety, has created a mostly unconscious assumption in our culture that men are not naturally religious. It is widely assumed that prayer and spirituality are basically female enterprises and that all but a few unusual men can relate to religion in only a peripheral way.
“A trip outside the bounds of American Christian culture, a journey into the temples, monasteries, and shrines of the world’s religions, would quickly shatter such a misandrist illusion”
“Our religion-alienated American men represent neither a wave of the future nor a rational advance over centuries of superstition. They are an anomaly, a quirk, an oddity in the community of all the men who ever lived, who ever wondered at the Unspeakable Mystery, sought alignment with the Eternal Tao, burned with affection for the Great Holy, or trembled before the Totally Other. And all of this ancient affinity for God – every bit of it – still lies buried deep in their unconscious, waiting to be called forth into a spiritual life that will make them a little less mad and a little more human. It waits there, this penchant for the Holy, drowned out by Muzak and numbed by the dreariness of shopping malls, paralyzed by stress and enervated by neglect, until something wakes it. Who will call religiosity fully to life in men, invigorate it, and nurture it in the face of the death-dealing boredom of modern secularity? That is the task of the church in its care of souls.”
~ from “The Crisis of Men and the Church” in Masculine Spirituality and the Bible, by Patrick M. Arnold
Dear Brothers in Christ,
“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants too.” – Psalm 24:1
CALENDAR
Monday 6pm Guiding Eyes for the Blind – Fellowship Hall
7pm Gloria Ringers – Music Suite
Tuesday 9:45am Bible Study – Room 126
11am Angel Gang – Zoom
7pm Bible Study – Zoom
Wednesday 8am Men’s Breakfast – Rip’s Country Inn
7pm Simple Prayer Service – Sanctuary
7:30pm Missions Committee – Zoom
Thursday 7pm Chancel Choir – Music Suite
Saturday 10:30am Altar Guild Workday -Sanctuary
6:30pm Belair Square Cats – Fellowship Hall
Sunday 10am Traditional Worship Service– Sanctuary and Online
11am Coffee Fellowship – Fellowship Hall
11am Adult Sunday School – Parlor
11am Children’s Sunday School – Room 126
5pm Youth Group
CONNECTING IN CHRIST
Acts 7:30-33
30 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. 31 When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look. 33 “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
Daily Scripture Readings.
Monday: Jeremiah 23
Tuesday: 1 Peter 5:1-11
Wednesday: Ezekiel 34:11-16
Thursday: Isaiah 40:9-11
Friday: 1 Timothy 3:1-13
Saturday: 2 Corinthians
Opportunities to Study and Worship in April
- Tuesday Morning Bible Study meets at 945 am in the Parlor.
- Tuesday Evening Bible Study meets 7pm on ZOOM.
- Wednesday Evening Simple Prayer – Join us in the Sanctuary at 7pm.
- Adult Sunday School meets at 11am in the Parlor.
- Children’s Sunday School will meet at 11am in Room 126.
- Youth Group Sunday evenings from 5-7pm. All Middle and High School age youth are welcome!
- Christian Book Club – Meets on ZOOM the 3rd Tuesday of each month at 7pm.
- God & Guinness – Meets the 2nd Sunday of each month at 12pm.
- Coffee with the Pastor – Meets at 1130 on the 3rd Sunday of each month.
Morning Prayer Call: Monday-Saturday, 6:30-6:45am. Dial 267-807-9601 and enter access code: 111-576-270 #. Prayer Leader for April 22-27: Diane Waldo
Christian Book Club – Tuesday, May 21st at 7pm – ZOOM. The book this time is Gregory S. Clapper’s “As If the Heart Mattered: A Wesleyan Spirituality.” As always, all are welcome to join us!
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Acolyte Ministry News. St. Matthews has a New Acolyte Ministry Director! Please help us welcome Joanna Gilbert who will begin on Sunday, May 5, 2024.
We would like to thank Bee Scott for her gracious leadership in serving as Acolyte Ministry Director during the pandemic and leading the Acolytes in a new direction during the past 4 years and 5months. Your service will be missed!
Christmas in April – Saturday, April 27th from 7am – 2pm. It is that time of year again and volunteers are needed. We will be painting, mending fences, and performing a number of other tasks, big and small, for the homeowner. This is a great opportunity for youth to get service hours! No special skills are necessary, just a willingness to pitch in and help a family in need. If you are able to volunteer, please contact me, Scott Lee, at 301.526.4673 or scotthlee.mail@gmail.com.
Save the date for CROP Walk to Ed Hunger – Sunday, May 5th, from 1-4pm. St. Matthew’s will again participate in the Hyattsville Area CROP Hunger Walk. We will meet at the Linsom Pool and walk around Lake Artemesia. Contact Angela Cockrell (angela.g.cockrell@gmail.com) for more information.
Little Free Pantry Update. The LFP needs are boxed canned meat, jelly, canned fruit, mashed potatoes, and dental items.
Bowie Food Pantry Needs. At this time, the Pantry is most in need of canned tomato products (diced, stewed, etc.) and low-sugar cereal. Leave donations in the shopping cart in the coatroom.
Your Church Needs You! We are looking for people to volunteer a few hours a month to help us grow. We need greeters, ushers, coffee hour hosts, help with youth events/activities, and people to make phone calls, put labels on envelopes, etc. We can help you find a volunteer opportunity that will take advantage of your talents and fit within your busy schedule. Contact Pat Clunies at 301-910-2698 or clunies@verizon.net to volunteer or ask questions. Pat Clunies, Outreach Chair.
Help a Church Member: If you know of any church member who has not attended worship services lately, or who may be sick and in need of prayers, please contact the church office at (301) 262-1408. You can make a difference in a person’s life by letting us know about anyone’s absence. Their absence could be due to illness.
Help a Church Member 2. If you know of a church member who needs a ride to church services, please offer to give them a ride.
INCLUSIVENESS
Missing Children’s Fidget Toys. Please be sure the toys from the Worship Activity Bags are placed back in their bag before returning them. We are missing quite a few and will not be able to replenish them until the missing toys are returned.
Join Our Email Distribution List and Invite Your Friends. If you meet a visitor to St. Matthew’s, please encourage them to sign-in on the attendance sheets at the Welcome Desk and provide information so we can contact them and put them on our distribution list. If you or your friends would like to receive St. Matthew’s announcements and in-house publications via email, please call the church office at 301-262-1408 or send an email to admin@stmatthews-bowie.org with your contact information.
Requesting Announcements. If you need to request an announcement to be included in the Sunday Bulletin, please email your announcement to announcements@stmatthews-bowie.org no later than 12pm on the Wednesday before the Sunday service when it should appear. Requests received after this time may not be included in that week’s Bulletin.
Spring Cleanup – May 4th from 8am to 2pm. Plan to help with our Spring Cleanup around the church’s exterior. The last cleanup was 1-1/2 years ago and about 40 people turned out. As we get closer to the date, we’ll publish a list of tools and other items we’ll need people to bring, if available. Please RSVP to trustees@stmatthews-bowie.org.
The Pillars of Our Community 2024 Centenarian Celebration – Friday, May 17th. M-NCPPC, Department of Parks and Recreation is hosting a luncheon for Prince George’s County residents who were born in 1924 or before to celebrate centenarians. The luncheon will be at the Laurel-Beltsville Senior Activity Center. Registration Link is in this week’s Midweek Messenger. For registration assistance call 301-206-3351/3350 or send an email to Seniors@pgparks.com.
Maryland Program for Senior Safety. Maryland offers a free, automated phone call to check in on Seniors, aged 65 or older, who have a landline or cell phone (TTY is available). Each day (except six holidays), each participant receives a phone call between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM, timed as closely as possible to the one-hour block the participant selects during enrollment. If the participant does not answer any of three successive calls, the program calls the alternate phone number of the adult child, close relative, neighbor, or other contact the participant specifies during enrollment.
To register for the program, receive a paper application via mail, or find out more information, call the program toll-free at 1-866-50-CHECK (1-866-502-0560) or check the program website at Senior Call Check (https://aging.maryland.gov/pages/senior-call-check.aspx).
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St. Matthew’s UMC is an inclusive church, connected to our community, and committed to welcoming all persons in every phase of church life. We choose to live by Christ’s example, affirming that all people are created in the image of God.
We celebrate our diversity of sexual orientation, gender identity, race, age, marital status, nationality, physical abilities, mental abilities, and economic position.
Through the Spirit we commit to live in the words of John Wesley to
“love alike though we may not always think alike.”
Wherever you are in your faith journey, you are welcome here.
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Ray Denmark
St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church
14900 Annapolis Road
Bowie, MD 20715
raydenmark@stmatthews-bowie.org
(301) 651-3643