Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! We welcomed many familiar and new faces to our church on Sunday, to celebrate the rising of Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, on Easter morning! What a joy to have everyone together for joy-filled music with old and new rhythms, wonderful prayers, Holy Communion and an uplifting message from Pastor John Blossom. Our thanks to Jeanne King for her service as the Easter Bunny this year, both on Saturday for our pancake breakfast, and before worship in our fellowship hall as children scrambled for treats in our Easter egg hunt.

​Thanks also to everyone who contributed to our powerful Good Friday service, with readings, and scene-setting. We are a church who loves to grow in discipleship! Easter and Good Friday podcasts are below, texts for Easter Sunday's message is here and below, for and for Good Friday's reflections here and below. Celebrate hope! Celebrate love! Celebrate the risen Jesus!

Jesus Christ is risen! Our Lord is risen, indeed! We celebrate the source of our Christian hope this Sunday, April 21st, with a joy-filled Easter that we hope will inspire you. First, it's fun for the family at 9.20AM, as people young at heart go looking for Easter eggs on our front lawn - with a special visit from the Easter bunny! Then at 10AM, join us in our beautiful New England-style church, with music, prayers, and a message that will inspire you to bring your faith alive joyfully. 

As you prepare for Easter, please consider joining us for our Good Friday service, at 7PM on April 19th, which will feature dramatic readings, a handmade cross crafted by a Meriden welder, and a moving message. The church will be open all day on Friday for prayer. We hope and pray that your Holy Week is moving, and one to remember.

Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest! We had many loud shouts of "Hosanna" in today's Palm Sunday worship service, as we laid down palm branches before the cross of the one who came to save us all.

Pastor John's message "Don't Stop!" reminded us how we can be like the disciples of Jesus, who ignored the Pharisees and shouted for joy at the mighty works of Jesus. Pastor John's message included a story about Pastor Stephen Dhairawa in Uganda, whose ministries have founded many churches and brought much real benefit to people in need.
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Photos of Stephen's ministries to the right, Pastor John's sermon podcast below, text here and below the podcast. Have a blessed Holy Week!

No one could stop the shouts of joy from the crowds in Jerusalem when Jesus entered that ancient city a week before his death and resurrection. This Sunday, we celebrate this event as Palm Sunday, with great joy, for the God who came to us as Jesus. Our service will conclude with a special devotion to prepare us for Holy Week, the days leading up to Easter Sunday, April 21st. Easter worship will begin at 10AM, with a special Easter egg hunt out front before the service with the Easter bunny at 9.20AM.

Please join us on Thursday night, April 18th,  at 7PM for a joint Maundy Thursday service at Yalesville UMC, and for Good Friday in our own church at 7PM, on Friday, April 19th.  Our Good Friday service will be very memorable, with candlelight readings, and a special way of honoring the loving gift of Jesus on the cross. Please join us on Thursday and Friday evenings, and prepare for a wonder-filled and joy-filled Easter Sunday!

Don't forget our great Pancake Breakfast on Saturday morning, 8-11AM, photos with the Easter Bunny available! Details at: https://www.facebook.com/events/354627148480716/

We had joyful worship on Sunday, rejoicing in the new things that God is doing in us, with us, and for us, as God's church in this city. A new thing! Impossible impossibilities! Pastor John's sermon is in the podcast below, text is here and below the podcast. If that wasn't great enough, we had holy conferencing during worship, during which our church members voted unanimously as a church conference to approve leading our bell tower to Verizon Communications for cell phone equipment that will provide better communications to our community. Our thanks to Rev. Alden Barnes, who presided over our holy conferencing, and co-celebrated our communion. Our thanks to everyone who is rejoicing in the next new thing in them for God!

This Sunday is a very special Sunday for our church, and you're invited to share it with us! We'll start off at 10AM in our beautiful church sanctuary with joyful worship, and then move into our fellowship hall to continue worship, with time for "holy conferencing" in response to God's word. Our holy conferencing this week will invite church members to vote as a church conference on approving a leasing of our bell tower for mobile phone communications equipment. Everyone is welcome to hear this discussion, and to ask questions! We'll then close our worship with a special Holy Communion at our tables, and joyful music. Pastor John's message "A New Thing" will help us to see the impossible possibilities that God is preparing for us as a church. It's sprouts up! Come and see it! See you Sunday at 10AM!

When people around the word experience major disasters, the United Methodist Committee on Relief is the first to arrive, and the last to leave - often years later - again and again. It is one of the most widely respected and effective relief organizations in the world. 100% - every penny - of funds donated for relief efforts goes to actual relief work! This Sunday, our once-a-year special collection around the world makes this possible, by funding all administrative functions of UMCOR. Special envelopes will be available for use, or you can donate online now to help more people around the world feel God's healing touch. Thank you!

In a world that gives us more and more choices that aren't good for us, what a blessing to choose the way that is always good for us - Jesus! Our joyful worship highlighted one of the choices being added possibly to lives of people in Connecticut - legal retail marijuana sales, being proposed by our CT legislature. Pastor John's letter on this topic to our state delegation is here and at the bottom of this post.

After worship, our mission team leader Daryl Fitzgibbons led our members in mission to assemble twenty health kits, which will be used by local outreach missions to those in dire need of basic human dignity. We thank Daryl and everyone for their efforts - these kits have been blessed by Pastor John, and blessed by our people in mission.

Our worship podcast with Pastor John's sermon, prayers and sending is below, text of his sermon is here and below the podcast. Have a blessed week being led by Jesus to the next right thing in God's love!

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Our uplifting worship this Sunday featured beautiful choir singing, a moving sermon by Pastor John on our shielding God, and the UM Women Five-Star award to Patti Juhase, our current Board of Trustees chair, for her outstanding lifetime  service to our church. Our thanks to Patti for your heartfelt service to our family of faith, and her devotion to excellence in Christian service!

We also celebrated St. Patrick's Day with a great feast afterwards, and, afterwards, had a prayer service at noon for Christchurch New Zealand innocents slain while worshiping at mosques. Podcast with sermon, prayers, and sending below, sermon text here and below the podcast. Have a blessed and faith-filled week!