Upcoming Virtual Worship Service
First United Methodist Church of Naples
Sunday Service 10:15 am (Online)
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Pentecost Sunday
Healing Sunday & Children's Home Sunday
May 31, 2020
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From the Pastor
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I look forward to being with you in worship this Sunday, even if it is still virtual, online worship. We are still together. I think about each of you and pray for you. I thank you for the many nice notes I have received in the mail or by email. I know that Vanessa Fletcher, our Director of Discipleship, also enjoys corresponding and talking with many of you each week.
I want to remind you that this Sunday will include an “Anointing & Healing” service. It is our custom to do anointing and healing on the fourth Sunday of the month, but this month we moved it to the 5
th
Sunday. See my notes on that below if you want to know more about it and how to be prepared.
We do not yet have a date when we will reopen in-person worship, but can tell you that it will still be after June 15, as requested by our Florida Conference. There is a lot to consider and much to prepare to make this happen. Our task force is working on the re-open plan. We would
all
love to re-open the sanctuary tomorrow, if we did not have safety to consider. We hope you will understand. I know that many people disagree on wearing a mask or not wearing a mask, opening up or not opening up. I hope that you will consider the Florida Conference Bishop’s comments (below) in determining how you feel about these important issues.
See you Sunday. Bring oil for anointing!
Love and Blessings,
Pastor Nancy
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A Note from Bishop Ken Carter
Preference, Purpose and Pandemic
In these weeks we are learning to distinguish between preference and purpose. My preference would be to preach from a pulpit, to greet those present, to thank a local church for who they are in the community, to publicly praise the pastor, to name our connections. I have had the privilege of doing this in hundreds of churches in Florida over the past eight years. Afterward I would share a meal with the pastors and their families, and get to know them better. It would usually include some really good seafood. All of that is my preference.
But right now, it is not about my preference. It is about purpose.
Our purpose is to love God and our neighbor. Our purpose is to do no harm, to do all the good we can and to stay in love with God. For United Methodists, that is our bedrock scripture and tradition, the great commandment and the general rules.
We are also people who love God with our minds, and that is reason. Faith seeks understanding. God created us in his image, and so we honor God by honoring life. It is no historical accident that Christians invented the first hospitals in the ancient world (see Kavin Rowe, “Christianity’s Surprise”). Every church in which I served as a pastor included nurses, physicians, and health care professionals.
We connect all of this with our experience. God is in the suffering. God is in the lament. God is in the resistance to inequity. God is in the grief. God is in the loneliness. God is in the exile and wilderness. And God will be in the homecoming.
God will reassemble us, when we know it is safe. This requires our trust, assurance, maturity, civility. It requires that we know how to think, as a church, and that we know how to distinguish between preference and purpose. And that we have the strength to lay aside our preferences for a season, and allow God to teach us what he wants us to learn.
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Sunday's Worship Service
Our worship service will be recorded and available to you online by Sunday morning at our regular worship time of 10:15 am, so you'll be able to worship online together with others, or you can click and watch on your own time. Every Saturday night, you will receive an eBlast with the link for Sunday's worship service, or you can go to our web page at:
fumcnaples.org
and click on the link there for Sunday's service.
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Life & Faith Lesson
Rev. Nancy Mayeux
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Extraordinary Power!
You Have It!
In his last days with his disciples, Jesus told them that he would not be with them always but that he would not leave them orphaned. He would send them the Spirit. They should not yet try to go out into the world spreading the Good News. They could not do it on their own. They’d need the counselor. They’d need the power of the Holy Spirit. He told them not to go anywhere but to wait in Jerusalem. The disciples obediently waited and at Pentecost, they were rewarded for the wait. The Holy Spirit came in a mighty way, empowering the disciples and bringing 3,000 new people into the fold of believers! It was the birthday of the church- a moment that could not have
happened without this extraordinary “power”.
Did you know that you have that same power! How do you know you have it? How can that power impact your life? How well do you know the Holy Spirit? Tune in Sunday at 10:15 to find out! You’ll receive a separate eblast tomorrow night with a link to connect you to our complete Pentecost Sunday worship service.
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Wear Red
this Sunday for Pentecost!
This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday where we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles while they were in Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit descended upon them in the form of tongues of fire. The main sign of Pentecost in Western churches today is the color red, symbolizing joy and the fire of the Holy Spirit. It has been our tradition to wear red on Pentecost Sunday. Even though we will not be
physically worshiping together in the sanctuary, it would be great if everyone could wear red anyway, while watching the service on this special Sunday. Take a picture and send it to me! We will publish it next week in the Eblast. Send to: Pastor@FUMCnaples.org
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Virtual Anointing & Healing
This Sunday, our service includes a time of anointing and healing. Normally everyone comes forward to receive anointing with oil (sign of the cross on the forehead) and laying on of hands, along with a prayer and blessing. It is a special time for all of us to pray for each other, and loved ones who need healing from brokenness (spiritual, physical, emotional, economic, relationships, memory and grief). I can’t physically anoint your foreheads with oil, but we can still do a virtual anointing and God will find you where you are for that blessing and healing. You can bring your own oil (olive oil, cooking oil, suntan oil or baby oil) and your spouse or family members can anoint each other or you can anoint yourself while I do the liturgy. To make your participation even more interactive, you may want to read from the liturgy we normally use by clicking on this link below, and printing it out to use on Sunday morning. If you don’t have a printer, you can still participate by listening.
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Tithes and Offerings
Please remember that your tithes and offerings are a form of worship, and that your church really needs you during this time, to continue paying our bills and keeping our faithful staff on the payroll. We pray you will donate at least what you would have given, had you been sitting in the sanctuary as the offering plate was passed. Donations can be mailed to:
First United Methodist Church of Naples, 388 First Avenue S, Naples, FL 34102
. OR you can click on the box below to make an online donation. If you’ve never done this before, when you click on the box for the first time, you will be asked to create your online profile before you can donate.
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Last Week’s Sermon & Music
Did you miss worship last week? Click on the link below to view the video of last week's complete online service, with a sermon entitled
Upside Down and Backwards
based on
Matthew 5:1-12.
Also enjoy the solo by Ivy Peden singing
Upon This Rock
.
Just click on the box below.
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PLEASE PRAY!
Are you praying? God is listening. Prayer is powerful! Please be in prayer this week for our church family and their loved ones (names listed below). Pray also for all those impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic and for the healthcare workers, and other essential workers, who are working on the front lines to keep us safe.
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Urgent Prayer Requests
From our FUMC Church Family
We want to remind you that
this section is for “urgent” prayer concerns only
: (in the hospital, on Hospice, recovering from a surgery, receiving radiation or chemotherapy, etc.) If you have a private prayer that you do not want published below, just email me and I will pray for that person and that need:
pastor@fumcnaples.org.
Please pray for the family of Bill Hellegas, especially his wife, Jean.
Bill passed away on May 25. His obituary can be found if you scroll down. A white rose will be placed on the altar in his memory this Sunday (a custom we are reinstituting this week).
- Pam Little (Member)
- Joanne Richards (Member)
- Margaret Lofgren (Member)
- Tim Vincent (Member)
- Sheila Strenkert (Karen Carr’s cousin)
- Jess Rynders (Ashley Garner’s friend)
- Sean Black (Pat Schanke’s friend)
- Heather Pratt Mohler (Bea Mohler's daughter-in-law)
- Bill Burkett (Pat Schanke's family)
- FUMC Families and friends who recently lost loved ones
- All the unspoken requests and needs of our congregation and their loved ones
Also, Please Pray for…
Our pastor, our church, our bishop, our district superintendent, the community, our country and its leaders; first responders, the sick, our homebound, our sister church in Cuba, our MDS preschool children, teachers and parents, Wesley Kids & Youth, and those in military service.
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Would You Like to Dedicate
Altar Flowers?
If you would like to dedicate our altar flowers on an upcoming Sunday, please send us an email letting us know if the dedication is in memory of someone who has passed away or in honor of someone special who is still living. Let us know the wording you would like (a birthday, anniversary, etc.) and the Sunday you choose. Right now, the only Sunday already taken is June 14
th
. The cost is $30 for the arrangement, which you can mail in or pay online. We will coordinate so you can come pick up the arrangement to take home during the week. Please email your request to:
Pastor@fumcnaples.org
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This Sunday is Children's Home Sunday
“A Message from the Children’s Home”
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"
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11
At the Florida United Methodist Children's Home, this verse from Jeremiah serves as the foundational promise that guides the work we do. The children and youth in our care come to us in the midst of chaos, struggling to navigate the broken pieces of their lives. Your Children's Home Sunday Offering helps provide Florida's most vulnerable children and youth a safe place to call home and the tools they need to turn those broken pieces into a beautiful mosaic that reflects the treasured person God has created.
Last year we served over 700 children and families through your support. But we continue to have children who urgently need our care. With your help, we can work to give them a hope and a future. Please support this important United Methodist ministry with your gifts this Sunday.
From your pastor
: When you send in your donations to the church, please include something extra for the Children’s Home and designate that this is what it is for. We take this collection every time we have a 5
th
Sunday in one month. We will forward to the Home.
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William Burton Hellegas
Obituary
William Burton Hellegas, 84, of Naples, FL, passed away peacefully on Monday, May 25, 2020. He had been a Naples resident for the last 26 years. He was born November 15, 1935 in Montclair, NJ, the son of Carl Eugene and Florence Delta (née Finnimore) Hellegas.
William earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Michigan State University where he was a member of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity.
William's remarkable career took him and his wife Jean, to seven states and Australia. He began his career with 5 years at Beechnut - Lifesavers before accepting a position with Mars Incorporated. He concluded his 33 years at Mars Incorporated as President of M&M/Mars in Hackettstown, NJ. He and his wife then retired to Naples, FL in 1994.
Throughout his life William enjoyed keeping active and being involved. He was an avid skier late into his 70's and continued to visit Vail multiple times per year where he and Jean have had a home for the last 30 years. His other passions were family, travel, fishing, rebuilding MGs, gardening, carpentry, golfing and attending live theater. He was a member of 3 MG Car Clubs, Naples Botanical Garden, Patron Society of the Vilar Performing Arts Center, Beaver Creek, Florida Sheriffs Association, Classics Country Club, First United Methodist Church in Naples, FL, and Covenant Presbyterian Chapel in Vail, CO.
As successful as he was, William will be remembered mostly for his wisdom, integrity, generosity, humility and love of family.
Mr. Hellegas is survived by his loving wife of 61 years, Shelvey Jean (née Johnson) Hellegas; his three beloved children, Susan Hellegas (Andrew) Voss of Tuscon, AZ, Brad Carl (Teena) Hellegas of Sydney, Australia and Tamlynn Rae (Paul) Einarsson of Las Vegas, NV; and six cherished grandchildren, Amy Voss, Rachel and Preston Einarsson, and Henry, Jack and William Hellegas.
A graveside service will take place in MI. The family requests that memorial contributions be made to Grace Place For Children and Families, Inc. (
graceplacenaples.org
) or Ronald McDonald Care Mobile of Collier County, (
rmhcswfl.org
).
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Help for Domestic Violence & Abuse
(911 Calls increased by 30% during the pandemic)
People are stressed and confined in tight quarters for long periods of time. This results in explosive situations. Please let anyone you know, who may be in this situation, that the Shelter for Abused Women and Children has space for women, children and pets, and is consistently open. They should call the hotline: 239-775-1109
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David Lawrence Center in Naples Offers Help and Hope
Anxiety, stress, depression and substance abuse are at an all-time high due to the recent Coronavirus lock-down, lost jobs, and life turned upside down. The David Lawrence Center remains committed to serving our community, including “Telehealth services.” If you need help, please call them at: 239-304-3055.
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OFFICE HOURS
The church office is closed until further notice. The staff is working from home. Please call and leave a message. We are checking voice mail regularly. Your call will be returned.
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First United Methodist Church of Naples
388 1st Avenue S
Naples, FL 34102
(239) 262-1033
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