Evangelical United Methodist Church
Good News for Middletown
Evangelical UMC will be hosting an indoor yard sale on July 15 from 7:30 AM to 11 AM in our fellowship hall. Our fellowship hall is located in the basement of our educational wing. Please use the door closest to the parking lot. Funds raised will be go to our HVAC project. Contact us for more information.
Vacation Bible School starts this Sunday, June 18. We have a fun week planned around our theme of “Exercising Our Faith!” Participants will both exercise physically, but also spiritually as we learn about what it means love God and love our neighbor. This year features a unique opportunities to serve. The children will help serve a meal to raise funds for the Humane society. On our last night we will actually meet at the Humane society as we learn what it means to serve our animal friends. Check out our registration information and our VBS page for more information.
“We live in a secular age, a world dominated by science and technology. Increasing numbers of us don’t believe in God anymore. We don’t expect miracles. We’ve grown up and left those fairy tails behind, culturally and personally.
Yet five hundred years ago the world was very much enchanted. It was a world where God existed and the devil was real. It was a world full of angels and demons. It was a world of holy wells and magic eels. But since the Protestant Reformation and the beginning of the Enlightenment, the world, in the West, at least, has become increasingly disenchanted.
While this might be taken as evidence of a crisis of belief, Richard Beck argues it’s actually a crisis of attention. God hasn’t gone anywhere, but we’ve lost our capacity to see God.
The rising tide of disenchantment has profoundly changed our religious imaginations and led to a loss of the holy expectation that we can be interrupted by the sacred and divine. But it doesn’t have to be this way. With attention and an intentional and cultivated capacity to experience God as living, vital presence in our lives, Hunting Magic Eels shows us, we can cultivate an enchanted faith in a skeptical age.”
From the book cover
Pastor Andrew will be leading a Sunday School class this summer in exploring Richard Beck’s book Hunting Magic Eels. How do we attune our eyes to seeing God and God’s work? How can we solve our attention problem? The class will meet at 9 AM in room 3 in our educational room and will also be on Zoom.
Participants should pick up a copy of Richard Beck’s Hunting Magic Eels (paperback edition). If you would like the church to order a copy of the book for you, please contact the church office. The cost of the book is $15. If the cost of the book will be a problem, please talk to Pastor Andrew. If you would like to order through the church, please let us know by Sunday, June 18.
Contact us for Zoom information or to order book
During our VBS celebration, the children will be serving a Chicken Parmesan dinner, with the proceeds of a free will donations going to the Humane Society. The meal starts at 5 PM and goes through 6:45 PM. All are welcome!
