PASTOR JEREMIAH’S MARCH 2024 MESSAGE
I write a column each month and usually try to build these columns around the themes of each month in our life together as a church. Most of this month will be made up of the season of Lent, our time of preparing for Easter. Lent is a time of repentance, spiritual discipline, and the season where we remember the passion of Jesus, the fact that Jesus was unjustly arrested, falsely tried, and horribly executed due to selfishness, greed, and the lust for power of people and an oppressive empire. Lent is important, but it’s not the most joyful season in the Christian Calendar. However, the final day of this month turns all that around! While Lent is hard and a time of sadness, Easter is the most important, most joyful, most wonderful day of the Christian year. On Easter we remember that God’s love is more powerful than human cruelty and injustice. On Easter we see that life, love, joy, hope, peace, community, and more blessings too are able to turn lives and even all existence around. Easter is the time of celebration, with joyful music, smiling faces, even delicious treats. So how do we reconcile this month that has both sadness and joy. Well I offer this, we need to feel the sadness, and we need to do the hard work of remembering that there is sin and brokenness in this world, and we need to look deep within ourselves and see how God is calling on us to stop any brokenness we are part of, and also work to transform the world. However, we are people of love, and we need to live the love of Easter. I pray that we can live out the love God shows us, live out the joy and hope in knowing that God’s love overcomes. Let us do our needed work, but also remember the joy! Let’s get ready to celebrate the hope we have in Jesus, not just hope for eternal life, which we do, but the hope for a world that can be remade in love in Jesus’ Name. May we be both Lenten and Easter People this month, and may we through it all share love, for as the children’s song goes “that’s what it’s all about!”
Peace, Pastor Jeremiah
Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, is one Christianity’s most ancient Holy Days. On March 28th , Thursday before Easter this year, we celebrate Jesus’ instructions to remember him through communion, and to love each other as the true the sign of Christian community. We will celebrate this Holy Day with our sister church at Grace UMC, 506 Willow Street in Maple Park. Our Service will be at 7:00 PM on March 28th, and will consist of scripture, song, and communion. I hope you and your loved ones can join us at Grace UMC.
Good Friday is one of the hardest days of the Christian year, as we remember how due to the selfishness, greed, injustice, and violence that so often plague this world, Jesus, God’s Word in the Flesh among us, was killed. It’s a solemn day, but an important one this Holy Day each Year reminds us of the things God sent Jesus to save us from. We remember that so much did Jesus love us that Jesus faced terrible danger, pain, and even death to demonstrate to the need for transformation in this world and even more so the depth of God’s love for us. Our Good Friday worship service will be at 7:00 PM on Good Friday, and take the form of a service “of gathering darkness.” We will worship with our sister church Grace UMC of Maple Park, but the service will be here at Malta UMC. We will, through the scriptures and the music inspired by them, remember the events of that terrible day long ago. We will be invited to ponder what happened to Jesus, and be challenged to consider what we can do to help this world change in Jesus’ Name. Join us for this time of worship and reflection, and invite your family and friends to join us on Good Friday, March 29th at Malta UMC. at 7:00 p.m
Blessings and Peace,
Pastor Jeremiah
| Greetings from our District Superintendent, Brian GilbertMarcia Hueber, Chair of SPRC, received a call from our Dist. Superintendent on Friday, April 21st and Brian asked her to make this announcement in church on Sunday, April 23rd.As of July 1, 2023, Malta will become a 2-point charge for Pastor Jeremiah Thompson. He has accepted the position as half-time Pastor with Maple Park Grace United Methodist Church (16 miles from Malta). Pastor Jeremiah will continue to live in the Malta U.M.C. Parsonage. Maple Park U.M.C. will pay half the housing cost, half the utility expenses and half the health insurance. Malta’s Treasurer will pay the total amounts and then bill Maple Park U.M.C. for their half.Both churches have 9:00 a.m. Worship Services. Bishop Schwerin and the Cabinet asked Malta U.M.C. to move their Worship Service time to 11:00 a.m. Malta’s Administrative Council will be working out several of these changes. Their next Church Council Meeting is Monday, June 5th.We are praying this transition will be a Blessing for Everyone. Our first 11:00 a.m. Worship Service will be Sunday, July 2, 2023.Marcia Staff Parish Chair |
Other changes may be less noticeable, but will include the following. Two days a week I will be at the office at Grace Church in Maple Park during the day, and I will work from here in Malta 2 days a week, and I plan to continue to have my Sabbath on Fridays. As for Saturdays I expect both churches will sometimes have activities on that day and I will seek to split my time between. I won’t be able to teach our Adult Sunday School as I did before, so we will be moving towards a lay leader for adult Sunday School. I will miss that time with you all, and hope we can still do occasional short term small groups together. We hope that our two churches can have some activities together to get to know each other. We also hope that our youth, children, and families can do some joint events. Long term, perhaps we could even have a joint mission trip, but we will have to see if that’s feasible.
You may have questions, concerns, or other feelings about all this. I ask you to please be in communication with me and our Staff Parish Committee, ask your questions please, share your feelings, and let’s talk. I can’t promise you that we can do what you might want, but I promise to listen! I believe long term, this will strengthen our congregation. Over a full year this new situation will save us about $35,000. That will be a great ease to our budget, and that will free up some money that I hope and pray we can use to do good ministry sharing the Love of Jesus with Malta, and with our world.
In Christ,
Pastor Jeremiah