In a letter to the Kansas Legislature, eight bishops of the Episcopal Church, Roman Catholic Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church and United Methodist Church in Kansas signed a letter asking for reconsideration and repeal of the Kansas death penalty.
“As bishops leading the Episcopal Church, Roman Catholic Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church and United Methodist Church in Kansas, we write to share our deep concern about the continuing practice of condemning persons to death in Kansas,” the letter said.
In the book Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, N. T. Wright makes a point that has been made before but always bears making again:
The theological equivalent of supposing that the sun goes around the earth is the belief that the whole of Christian truth is all about me and my salvation. … Do not misunderstand me. Hold the angry or fearful reaction. Salvation is hugely important. Of course it is! Knowing God for oneself, as opposed to merely knowing or thinking about him, is at the heart of Christian living. Discovering that God is gracious, rather than a distant bureaucrat or a dangerous tyrant, is the good news that constantly surprises and refreshes us. But we are not the center of the universe. God is not circling around us. We are circling around him.
Jenny’s preaching this Sunday (probably to the relief of many). Her text will be Luke 5.1-11, in which Jesus calls Peter, James, and John to leave everything behind and fish for people. Her sermon title is “Do Not Be Afraid.”
Update: I just read Jenny’s sermon and it looks very good.
Beached Boat by flickr.com user JeanMI. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License.
According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, Feeding America (a charity previously known as America’s Second Harvest) estimates “that 37 million Americans—or one in eight people—turned to food pantries and soup kitchens during the 2009 recession. It’s a shocking statistic. I’m thankful that we as a church have been able to respond through our own food pantry and our support of Genesis and The Salvation Army. It also brings to mind that this coming Sunday is Food Pantry Sunday, when we focus on restocking our pantry shelves.
Residents of Mellier, Haiti, leave an aid distribution sponsored by the United Methodist Committee on Relief carrying food parcels on their heads. UMNS photos by Mike DuBose.
From United Methodist News Service:
“Good brothers and sisters, thank you so much for this food.”
Louis and Madame Felix, 74 and 76, were the first to receive a white plastic bag containing 18 pounds of rice, three pounds of beans, a quart of cooking oil and a one-pound bag of salt from the United Methodist Committee on Relief Jan. 29.
“We were married here and baptized here,” said Mr. Felix, standing in the yard of Mellier Methodist Church. The church and school were both destroyed in the Jan. 12 earthquake. So were the homes of the people sitting quietly on pews and benches under the shade of trees waiting to get their allotment of food.
Ten church members organized the food distribution and kept order.
Household representatives waited until their names were called to receive food and Aquatab water purification tablets.
Madame Louis Felix, 74, is first in line to receive a food package from UMCOR.
A few days before UMCOR arrived with the food, church leaders canvassed the community and decided which families would receive the distribution. Families were chosen based on the greatest need; many were members of the church but not all.
Stories of humanitarian aid workers being mobbed by frantic crowds were a far cry from the peaceful, respectful distribution handled by church volunteers and UMCOR.
The rest of the story can be found at: www.umc.org
You are invited to bring your lunch and come to the church on Mondays during Lent to discuss the devotional book, “Get Over Yourself; God Is Here”. We will meet in room 102 (right across the hall from the church office) at 12:00 pm, beginning Monday, February 22, 2010. Please feel free to come and join us over your lunch hour, even if you can’t stay very long. Books are available in the church office, with a suggested donation of $12.
Jenny recently finished filling out the annual end-of-year reports for the annual conference. This year those reports included a number of new questions including the following: “Number of persons served by community ministries for outreach, justice, and mercy.” Our number for that question was 1,324. This is an estimate, but a conservative one. It includes all the kids we gave toothbrushes and/or backpacks to, all the people we helped through the food pantry, Christmas baskets, and lice kits. It is a large number. We know that our membership and attendance are not what they were in the past, we’re concerned about those numbers and spend quite a bit of time thinking about them, but we want to celebrate this number. It’s a large number, it’s an impressive number, it’s a number that indicates that the Holy Spirit is active and at work in our church. And the movement of the Holy Spirit is always cause for celebration.
Welcome to the professional blog of Revs. John and Jennifer Collins. We are ordained clergy members of the Kansas East Conference of the United Methodist Church and are currently appointed as pastors of Coffeyville First. The views and opinions expressed here are our own.
According to 
The February 2010 edition of The Parish Visitor, the church’s newsletter, is available on the 
