Los Altos United Methodist Church (Long Beach, CA)

Advent Week Four. LOVE. Each week we light the candles to mark our journey to Christmas. #Advent #WhereLoveLivesUMC

Merry Christmas! The LAUMC Carillon Ringers have recorded a few favorite Christmas Carols as a.gift to brighten your holidays. We wish the joy of our Savior’s birth and the hope for a blessed new year. Please feel free to share this musical offering with friends and family to help celebrate the season! https://youtu.be/Pjsj06mt-wc

Tonight @ 6pm, we are walking laps - masked, in households and well-distanced! Get some mileage tallied and your HEART for Jesus a'pumping! https://losaltosumc.churchcenter.com/registra/events/603622

This Sunday @ 10am, Pastor Mark will lead Los Altos UMC Zoom worship while Pastor Melinda will lead Yip! Yip! (Yoga in the Park) with the Being the Church Movement, Long Beach. Find out more and sign up for YiP! here... https://losaltosumc.churchcenter.com/registra/events/664359

Advent Week Three. JOY is Where Love Lives. Each week we light the candles to mark our journey to Christmas. #Advent #WhereLoveLivesUMC

Happy First Day to all families, students, teachers & staff in Los Alamitos Unified School District! AND! Happy Day Prior to the First Day for all families, students, teachers & staff in Long Beach Unified School District! The Los Altos UMC is praying for you and with you as we embark together on a new school year!

Happy 100th Birthday to Carol Wood, which we celebrated with a drive-by on Sunday, November 8! Many happy returns!

I came across this prayer from one of my go-to resources. I've shared it already on the Instagram account for followers of the "Being the Church Movement, Long Beach." But, it is so needed, so here it is on my blog as well. We all need this prayer. We all need a whole lotta prayer right now. Gracious God, our holy and life-giving Spirit, today on this Election Day 2020 and the close of this election season, we pray that you would move upon every human heart of this nation to remove barriers that divide us, that walls of separation and suspicions may disappear, and all hatred and prejudice, which blocks us from the light of your love, would cease. [ 276 more words ] http://my-open-heart.org///a-prayer-for-election-day-2020/

There probably isn't a day that goes by that I don't ask myself: is this really all worth it? And similarly, I ask: is there a better way to be the people of God than the church today? For me, as an ordained elder int he Untied Methodist Church, these questions are intertwined, enmeshed, forever fused. For most folks, these are two different questions. [ 900 more words ] http://my-open-heart.org/2020/08/31/the-role-of-the-church/

"Yet, in our humanity, no people, or family, no single person in their beginning is all good or all evil. This binary thinking or dualism is one of the false patterns which undergirds human prejudice; dehumanizing the other, it ends in violence. Dismantling racism requires thinking more carefully about the way we think."

A Word about Pandemic Worship. Friends, I have had a number of conversations these last couple of weeks regarding decisions made about worship. Enough conversation that a few comments are in order about my intentionality in leading, as well as the challenges and potential before us. As we remember, the urgency of the pandemic hit quickly. Congregations had less than a week to adjust to a dramatically changed reality that has gone on longer than any anticipated in the begi...Continue reading

As an ordained elder in the church, as a leader of younger generations and a few suburban Southern California churches, I trust that this era that we are in is different. I want to and I need to trust that the Holy Spirit she is moving amongst us all right now and change is here.

Let the WILD Rumpus Start! Groundlings Camp Day One! We are OPEN! Be sure to visit and "like" the Groundlings Summer Camp Facebook page (Groundlings Summer Day Camp) & Instagram page (@groundlings_daycamp) for more fun! and more photos all summer long. Because friends? This is JUST the beginning and God is so good. #ISeeaNewChurch Carole Moore Florence Barker-Ferguson Cynthia Navarrette Ellie Wilson

Tomorrow, June 30 Tuesday @ 2 seminar. June 30th @ 2PM CSULB law scholar, Dr. Jason Whitehead, will join me for a discussion regarding the recent landmark Supreme Court decision affirming LGBTQ rights. He will discuss the grounds for the decision and the implication for future cases. Jason and I have had a long running conversation on interpretive theory and the nature of meaning in texts. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to discuss this with him. Email me directly if you are interested in attending this one time zoom seminar.

Affirming that Black Lives Matter does not jeopardize the conviction that All Lives Matter. Biblically, this dispute is nonsense. If in their distress we cannot affirm unequivocally to black Americans that Black Lives Matter, period, there is little hope for a kind of justice where all lives matter, equally. This is a truth deeply imbedded in the narratives of our faith.

Happy End of the School Year for all you LBUSD students! We hope everyone had a great school year and has lots planned this summer. Despite the COVID-19 Pandemic, we will still be having Groundlings 2020 this summer, albeit with a few changes. We have been working with the CDC and ACA standards to construct a plan for how to lead a camp that can provide a valuable camp experience while also ensuring that we can reduce the spread of this virus. Some of the modifications we wil...l make to camp this year include alternative "family group" sizing, new arrival & departure protocols, plans for activities that focus on "individual within-group" work, and daily health screenings of campers and staff. In addition, we are not able to offer afternoon care this summer. We have morning care from 7-10am, and the camp day will run 10am - 4pm with staggered arrival and departure times for camp and family safety. You can get more information online at https://losaltosumc.churchcenter.com/registra/events/362008. We hope to see you all there! See more

A moment repeated in any kind of gathering particularly churches immediately brings home the challenge and promise of coming face to face with racism or any of our prejudices. Invariably someone shows up assuming their experience and response is valid for everyone else. This is always a poor assumption. Basic step: Do not make your felt experience a law for others. Breathe, listen to understand, evaluate what you think is true in light of what you hear. Try as best you ...can to put yourself in the shoes of the Other before you speak. This one, daunting, transformative change in ourselves, in our churches, would have the capacity to open us to real systemic change. It sounds simplistic, but change can only begin at home: in your heart in the way your way of being impacts others: it begins there or nothing ever changes. The United Methodist Church was founded in 1968. We participated in the social unrest of 60’s. We founded a church in which the tyranny of the majority and the hierarchy of status prevailed just the same. Perhaps we need to begin again. -- Pastor Mark Sturgess See more