SERMONS

We broadcast our Sunday Services via Zoom. You can find our recorded sermons on our YouTube Channel.

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October 2025 Newsletter
 

From Pastor Mark:

The aspen are glowing in the hills, but an incoming front tells me that winter winds are right around the corner. Yet at St. Paul’s, the turn in the season brings us back together for a wide variety of activities! From Homecoming, to our hosting a movie during The Shepard Symposium week, to The Big Event, to Transgender Day of Remembrance, we are active in ministry to one another and our community. Details on those and more are below.

On a personal note, many of you are aware that I’ve been having some medical issues of late. I had a round of pneumonia in August that crimped my style at Ring Lake Ranch and at Rendezvous. More serious, I’ve had ongoing cardiac stuff that I’ve been dealing with my whole life but has slowly worsened. This has given me bouts of arrhythmia, short breath, dizziness, and the occasional shock from my implanted defibrillator. So to help deal with this, I’m having an outpatient heart procedure on Oct. 16, an atrial ablation. This procedure is pretty common for afib, and is a far simpler procedure than the ventricular ablation I had 6 years ago, which really helped me a lot. The worst part of it is showing up at MCR in Loveland at 5:30 am!! I expect to be in church the following Sunday, and have farmed out my stand-up work to a guest preacher, Erik/a Boss and the after-church class reframed for a congregational sharing and listening session with reps from the Conference (more on which below). Basically, I should be pretty much fine after this, and then we’ll see what the heart valve people have to say when I meet with them the following week. 

I share this not as a play for sympathy (sympathy is always nice – but prayers are better), but so you all hear what is going on directly from me rather than the rumor mill. If you have questions, I’m willing to talk to you.  As a church community, we always deal with one-another’s frailties, part of being honest about our mortal condition. Myself, I lean into the reality that God’s work here and in the world uses and transcends our weaknesses: 

“For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’s sake. For it is the God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

“ But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.” (2 Corinthians 4:5-10) 
 

Christian nationalism class

After church each Sunday through November 23

What is Christian Nationalism and how can we respond to it?  It is a political ideology, tribal identity and misuse of religion to centralize political power in certain hands who claim to be chosen by God. It rejects representative democracy and the principle of separation of powers and checks-and-balances in service of a certain image of a righteous society. We will focus on “Christian” nationalism, but kindred movements use other religions, such as Islam in Iran or Buddhism in Myanmar. 

For this class, we are using two books:  Disarming Leviathan by Caleb Campbell, https://www.ivpress.com/disarming-leviathan and Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracy by N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird https://zondervanacademic.com/jesus-and-the-powers . (Both are also available through Amazon.) Campbell’s book is an easier read and more narrowly and practically addresses current political issues, Wright’s digs deep into the historical and theological backgrounds and works on larger issues of the Christian’s and the church’s relationship with political power and the state.

You may join the class at any point. A loose syllabus is: 10/5 Introduction, 10/12 Wright ch. 2-3, 10/19 RMC listening (different topic entirely, see below), 10/26 Campbell ch. 2-3, 11/2 Campbell ch. 4, 11/9 Wright ch. 6, 11/16 Wright ch. 7, 11/23 Campbell ch. 6-7.  We will do a simple lunch each week to nourish our bodies as we nourish our minds.

 

Welcoming New Members
October 12 in worship
For the first time in quite a while, we will welcome new members into St Paul’s UCC!

1946 The Movie

Monday, October 13, 6:00 pm at St. Paul’s|
Part of The Shepard Symposium week

The public is invited to attend a special screening of “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture”, a feature documentary that follows the story of researchers who trace the origins of the anti-gay movement among Christians to a grave mistranslation of the Bible in 1946. It chronicles the discovery of never-before-seen archives at Yale University which unveil astonishing new revelations, and casts significant doubt on any biblical basis for LGBTQIA+ prejudice. Featuring commentary from prominent scholars as well as opposing pastors, including the personal stories of the film’s creators, 1946 is at once challenging, enlightening, and inspiring. The Screening will be Monday, October 13, at 6 pm at St, Paul’s UCC, 602 Garfield. Refreshments and discussion will follow the screening. The screening is sponsored by St. Paul’s, the Shepard Symposium on Social Justice and PFLAG Laramie. 

You can watch the movie trailer here: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00QOkOE49qM&t=100s

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The Big Event
Saturday, August 18, starts 10 am

The Big Event connects volunteers from the University with groups in town that need some extra hands and muscle for maintenance, yard work and clean up. We have a group of these young people coming to St. Paul’s to work with us. We need church folk to help supervise, manage, and work alongside them. This is a stellar opportunity to get a lot of overdue yard and other work done, as well as build interpersonal relationships with some UW students. As of this writing, we still need some advance work, and the ability to borrow a pickup truck to haul junk to the dump .See Ginny Vincenti for the best way to plug in.
 

Conference listening

October 19, After Church

The Rocky Mountain Conference is in a time of transition and discernment as we start preparing the process to call a new Conference Minister. St. Paul's voice is an important piece of that! Conference leaders are working to visit every one of our churches (that's almost 70 churches in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah!) to hear about what makes the ministry of each of our churches unique. What are you doing as church? How are you connected to your community? What do you love about your church? Please join us on Sunday, October 19 after church, lend your voice to the conversation and spend some time bragging on St. Paul's to the Conference! 
 

Totenfest

Sunday, November 2

Our annual ritual of remembrance in worship for those who have passed away in the last year. Come and lift up the name(s) of those lost, and we will hold and support one-another through the grief. The term “totenfest” comes from our Evangelical Synod heritage, where when begun in the early 19th century it was a memorial for fallen Prussian solders. It has changed over the years away from the military memorial day, and interacted with other traditions such as All Saints Day and Day of the Dead to now offering an opportunity for us to hold one another in many forms of sorrow.  There is a good article on the UCC website: 

 https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/worship_worship-ways_year-c_p_pentecost-totenfest/

Save the Date!
Transgender Day of Remembrance

November 20, Time TBD, at St. Paul’s

Gluten Free Communion

Many thanks to Mark Holder for baking vegan and gluten free bread for our communion! (Thanks also to Tara Mattimoe who baked the gluten free bread we used in September.) Just as we serve unfermented fruit of the vine for communion, serving gluten free bread is a little and practical way we take care of one another.