Winter 2021: Luminous Darkness

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Nourishing Faith

Welcoming All

Doing Good

BEing Church

Epworth Echoes is a newsmagazine published 4 times a year by

Pastor: Steve Reiser

Editorial Board: Shirley Durr, Cynthia Lillquist, Mary Ellen Reetz-Pegues, Brian Lillquist, Saundra Johnson

Photographs: Aaron Jones (cover photo), Nan Rice, Nancy Meisel-Youngman, Cynthia Lillquist, Steve Reiser

Image Attributions:

· aurora borealis photo: (favim.com)

· Year of Justice logo: Steve Reiser

· Boundaries photo: “The Beginning is Near” (imgur.com)

· Warnock/Ossof photo: (Epiphany article) Brynn Anderson/AP Photo

· Devotional photo: “In the Wilderness of Sinai” by Igor Ulanovsky

If you would like an electronic version of this and future issues of Epworth Echoes, email. epworthechoes@gmail. com.

Share your story with us even if you don’t think you have anything to tell. You are living history that the future needs to know. Send to epworthechoes@gmail.com

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Epworth Lenten Devotional 2021: Join the wilderness journey

By Saundra Johnson After some discussion with Epworth lay leaders, Pastor Steve proposed creating an Epworth Lenten Devotional like the ones Epworthians created in the past. As she did for the 2019 Epworth Devotional ( Faith, Hope, Love: These Three ), Shirley Durr hopes to be involved with putting together the 2021 Devotional. “Considering we spent most of 2020 physically apart from each other,” she said, “and the trauma of COVID in our world, political turmoil in our country, and racial unrest in our neighborhood – I think people must have lots to share.” Pastor Steve is ready to accept whatever personal reflection people want to send for Devotional 2021 and other church leaders, like Judy Ayers, agreed. Shirley said people were especially moved by the words and art from the children and youth that appeared in the 2019 Devotional. These received the most meaningful. attention and comment during Lenten Study time that year. But without Children’s Class and Youth Group ga

Power of music to illuminate the darkness

By Mary Ellen Reetz-Pegues Even while recovering from knee replacement surgeries, Mary Ellen Reetz-Pegues continued teaching her Adult Sunday Class via email. She missed only one class -- January 10 – two days after her second surgery. She was back teaching on January 17 with a lesson about one of her favorite things – music! We’re sharing that lesson below and asking that you respond to one or more of the questions Mary Ellen poses in this lesson and email your response to us for the next Echoes. As I’ve been reading the lessons, I've found many that were meaningful and pertinent. However, I’m going to mention a couple that dealt with music, and in particular, the songs we sing. We so need our songs in this trying age! From Our Daily Bread , January 13, “What’s Your Song?” with a reading from Deuteronomy 31: 15-22. “So Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites.” Deuteronomy. 31:22 Hymn singing is part of our faith tradition, a very bi

MNUMW, MNIPL collaborate for creation care, climate justice

By Susan Mullin and Cindy Saufferer “Don’t desecrate the land in which you live. I live here, too— I, God, live in the same neighborhood … .” ~ Numbers 35:34 ( The Message ) Minnesota Conference United Methodist Women (MNUMW) and Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light (MNIPL) received a Justice 4 All Grant from the National United Methodist Women to collaborate in two different campaigns, seeking an equitable and speedy transition to a renewable energy economy for the people of Minnesota while demonstrating the breadth of the climate justice movement in Minnesota and the groundswell of demand for strong action on climate justice. 100% Renewable Energy One campaign is MNIPL’s 100% Renewable Energy Campaign which embraces a vision of a Minnesota run on 100% renewable energy, with 100% access to the benefits of renewable energy. MNIPL plans to amplify this work in 2021 by working with congregations in Minnesota to help them craft their climate stories, and then join together in mee

Epworth Echoes: Winter 2021

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