The Fellowship Newsletter for May 2020 Friends and family of CVUMC, here is what is happening in our church community.

From The Pastor

May 2020 “Live by the Spirit…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If we live by the Spirit, let us be guided by the Spirit.” Galatians 5:16, 23-25 “Love is patient and kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, 13     Over the course of the past six weeks, we have joined our families, friends, and neighbors in working together as we practice social distancing and home lockdown to keep us safe from this pandemic we are experiencing. In the process, we have been learning a new way to live our lives apart from the familiar physical interaction we have known with the people with whom we love and work. It is definitely a new normal and one that calls us to be more attentive and diligent to care for our physical, relational and spiritual needs as well as to the needs of others.     This is a difficult time. Reading through Scripture during my daily devotion, the passages from Galatians and 1 Corinthians have helped to keep me focused on a positive and caring way of living during this time of being physically apart from each one of you as well as my family. May each of you continue to remain strong in the faith, but also know that each member of our church family can stay connected by a text, phone call, Facetime, Zoom or email.     I am so grateful and thankful for our Church Leadership Team who continue to guide the administrative work of our Church. Our Worship Team is sharing and providing us with a wonderful worship service to celebrate each Sunday morning. Please remain physically well and strong in the faith, and may the peace of God be with you now and always. Keep the faith! With our love and aloha, Pastor Paul and Connie

If you would like to share in an offering or your pledge, you are welcome to mail offering to the church using this address: Crescenta Valley UMC 2700 Montrose Ave. Montrose, CA 91020

Important Dates Every Sunday : Worship service on our church Facebook page at 10 a.m. By noon it will be posted on our website www.cvumc.org . And it is available continuously on the church Facebook page starting right after the “Live” worship service. Every Sunday : Youth Group will meet via Zoom, 3 pm Alternate Saturdays : May 2, May 16, and May 30 you can bring donations to church for the Bailey Center . (See the article below)

Bailey Center     We would like to keep collecting goods for them as the need is great. Debi Bois took over the goods we had in the Thee Room on Wednesday, April 22. They need canned goods, soups, pasta, cereal and peanut butter - anything non-perishable and please, nothing that will melt such as Chocolate.     So on Saturday May 2nd from 8:00 AM until 12:00 (noon) you can drop off your donations in the bin that will be on the picnic table outside of Fellowship Hall at the Church. Debi will pick them up and take them to the Bailey Center that week. We will do this every other Saturday (May 2, May 16, and May 30).     They really need the goods and the Post Office food drive has been cancelled for now. I talked to them and they say people are so grateful for this as many haven't had to go a food bank before. They are open for walk ups or drive ups on Wednesdays from 11:00 AM to 1 PM.     This is an opportunity to give back for all that we have especially during this difficult time. Jesus asks us to be disciples and help out those in need.   Thank you and Blessings to all. Janice & Debi

Youth Group:   We will meet every Sunday at 3:00 on Zoom. I will send out an invite with the access code to everyone on the Youth Group email on Sunday after church. Please join us and again, siblings are invited.   Peace and Hope, Janice

Foundation The Foundation Board members are President Debi Bois, Becky Castano, Norma Ellis, Henry Garrett, Bettie Hull, and Chris Ruygrok

The Foundation celebrates generous contributions which have been made in honor of Dan Griffin. We have received enough to commission a leaf on the Tree of Life in the Narthex.  Dan has graciously shared his gifts with the CVUMC Family and the Cal-Pac Conference, and we hope you join us in acknowledging his contribution.  It may be a couple of months before the leaf is ready, but we will be sure to let you know. In the meantime, we leave you with this inspiring verse: “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me.....” Philippians 3:13-14.

·         Zoom! We are planning a Zoom (on-line) get-together for the first week of May ( Thursday May 7 @ 10 a.m .). It will be a joyful reconnecting and wonderful conversation. We’ll also share in an abbreviated adaptation of a program from the UMW Program Book.      The program will highlight how Jesus’ ministry and resurrection demonstrated how He reached out to all people. Jesus deeply loved everyone: rich or poor, Jew or Gentile, male or female. He emphasized inclusion of those who are marginalized: because of mental illness, ethnicity/country of origin, occupation, gender (remember that women were rarely mentioned in the Bible, and were expected to be unheard and rarely seen?)     The “script” and other information will be either mailed to the women of the church or it will be delivered to your front porch by Linda (wearing her mask and gloves!). For additional information and access code, contact Linda @ lindaleeneate@gmail.com or at her (818) 818-**** phone number.

Music Notes     I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy during these times. Ricky, Tim, Alexis and I have been trying to adapt to making music via phone and computer applications. While it's not the same, we will come out of this with much better technology skills…..always a plus in the music world. Our weekly online videos have been my new skill. I assemble the videos in a program called iMovie then upload that to our Facebook page. It has limitations, so I am upgrading to a better film making program called Final Cut Pro.     Perhaps you've seen some of the clever video montages musicians, choirs and orchestras have been doing while sequestered? This is my goal for our choir! The exciting news for May is I'm going to try to assemble our first online choir tune to add to our weekly service offering. The Global UMC already beat us to it.      The UMC did a fantastic project with choir members from around the world on Easter Sunday. It was amazing - please click on the link below to hear their worldwide version of, "Christ the Lord Has Risen Today."  https://www.umc.org/en/content/global-united-methodist-virtual-choir-brings-easter-anthem Here's a picture of what they did - all individual videos merged together.

So choir, please start your warm ups!     Be well and of good spirit, everyone. Be sure to sing lustily and with good courage (as John Wesley instructed us in 1761!) while at home. Barb and the Band

Wednesday Prayer Group     The Prayer Team will be meeting “virtually” every Wednesday evening at 6:45 p.m.      If you have a prayer request, you may call Pastor Paul, Jeanne Lavieri, Diane Lewis, Debi Bois, Janice Burke, or the Church Office (818-249-6173).

We are not meeting during this time of physical social distancing. We’ll get back together again when the State directive is lifted. Praying for health and healing for all, for discovery of new medical treatments that work well, and for recovery for all those who have become ill. Amen!

We are living through a very unusual time. Our normal routines have been profoundly altered. Our connections with others have been impacted by “Stay At Home” instructions. Huge and heartfelt thanks to the many “Quiet Disciples” of our church who have helped to keep our church functional, inspirational, and a blessing to the community.

Please keep in your prayers and lift up your thanks to: 1.     Pastor Paul and his wife Connie 2.    Our dedicated, hard-working Leadership and Worship Teams: Pastor Paul, Janice Burke, Jeanne Lavieri, Barb Catlin-Bergeron, Becky Castano, Dan Griffin, Debi Bois, Kathy Midgley, Connie Horton, Linda Neate 3.    Our Musicians Barb Catlin-Bergeron, Tim Kobza, Alexis Sklarevski, Ricky Cosentino 4.    Our Office Manager Kathy Garren, along with Bettie Hull and Cathy Wacker 5.    Our Preschool Director Linda Taylor-Bell 6.    Our church facility “troubleshooter” Marv Wacker 7.    Our financial team Dan Griffin, Becky Castano, Janice Burke 8.    Our Tech Team Barb Catlin-Bergeron, Kim Mawhinney, Molly Burke, Edmond Hambarsumian Over the past two months, they have spent many, many hours to prepare for and implement the “Safer at Home” directive. They’ve figured out how to create weekly streamed worship services, handle upkeep on the church property, how to keep connections alive for our church family, and so much more. They are keeping our church vital, alive, involved, healthy and busy during this unusual time.

Birthdays and Anniversaries Birthdays 6 Cathy Del Castillo 6 Dan Griffin 7 Andrew Brooks 8 Lisa Castaneda 8 Diane Lewis 19 Barb Catlin-Bergeron 21 Andy Marrero 20 Dee Ann Paiz 23 Hector Castaneda 24 Susan Lockhart 24 Bill Snow 27 Arden Daniels Anniversaries 6 Ted & Alma Swanson 23 Hank & Kathy Garrett 28 Alan & Cathy Del Castillo 31 Andrew & Kathy Midgley  Check out our church website @ www.cvumc.org for up-to-date news!