Beloved Community,    These final weeks of the school year feel a bit frantic! Hope you are enjoying final concerts, sporting events, celebrations and graduations! Our Holy Covenant family is honoring our high school graduate Ava Leppert on Sunday. We will visit with her during worship about accomplishments, dreams and her future. Please bring a card to share with her!   This Sunday is a favorite one for me! The HC Youth will be leading worship. They want to share their passion, their talents, and their stories with all of us. They have planned a very special worship celebration! Hope you will join us!   We will have a Taize service on Wednesday, May 15 at 5:30 pm with prayer, silence, and communion in the sanctuary.   I look forward to greeting you on Sunday!   Shalom Blessings, Pastor Cheryl Murphy       This Sunday in worship we will be … Read More

          Beloved Community,    What a week it is!!!! Our General Conference is continuing to do holy conferencing and making faithful choices that will lead our global United Methodist Church to the place where Holy Covenant has lived for years. So welcome to our siblings from around the world to a place of welcome, compassion and a hopeful future!   This Sunday we will gather for worship to reflect on faithful doubt and celebrate Holy Communion around the open table of Jesus Christ. We will have an open Sunday School class beginning at 9:30 in the sanctuary to review some of the decisions the General Conference has made and how they may impact our churches.     Today is the National Day of Prayer. I wanted to share a blessing about bearing the light, because we need to continue to be carrying and sharing the light.   Blessed Are You … Read More

          Beloved Community,    This weekend we have many ways you can engage with each other. ~ Game Night on Friday evening in the Covenant Center from 6-9 pm. All are welcome! ~ Bring boxes of paper to the drive through shredding event on Saturday morning 8:30 am – 12 noon. The cost is $5 per box of paper to be shredded. There will also be a bin for electronics that need to be recycled! See you then! ~ Worship on Sunday morning will be very special. We will worship in the sanctuary from 10:30 to 11 am and then Holy Covenant will BE the church! So dress in work clothes and be ready to impact our neighborhood! (Details below) Not too late to sign up!   As written in the Epistle of James: Faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity.   So we are putting ourselves into action … Read More

            Beloved Community,    The 50th Anniversary weekend was AMAZING!  Thank you one and all for the many ways you participated!   This Sunday we will gather to honor God’s Creation! Hope you will join us as we celebrate the beauty of Earth and reflect on the responsibility we each have as caretakers!   Please take note of some very important General Conference information below.   I look forward to greeting you on Sunday!   Shalom Blessings, Pastor Cheryl Murphy         GENERAL CONFERENCE DETAILS This global holy conferencing begins in Charlotte, NC on April 23rd. If you are new to the United Methodist family and would like to have a clearer understanding of what the General Conference is, please join me in the Shalom Center this Sunday at 9:30 am. We will not be discussing the issues, but reviewing the importance of conferencing in … Read More

          HCUMC 50th Anniversary Celebration Weekend April 13 and 14   Celebrate with us as we honor 50 years of Holy Covenant!   Saturday, April 13 -6 pm Dinner in the Covenant Center followed by Anniversary Program in the Sanctuary Guest speakers include HCUMC’s first pastor, Rev. Jack Soper and Rev. Andy Lewis, Assistant to Bishop Saenz. Sunday, April 14 – 10:30 am Worship in the Sanctuary Honor the past, present, and future of Holy Covenant in worship. – 11:30 am Reception in the Covenant Center Join previous and current members and staff as we celebrate being a part of this beloved church family.   10:30 am Sunday Morning Worship In-person and Livestreamed   Join us either in-person, or for online worship on Facebook Live. We are on Facebook Sundays at 10:30 am. If you have missed any of the services, or do not use Facebook, … Read More

          Beloved Community,   The 50th Anniversary Celebration is upon us! We need YOU here to join the parties. Over the next week there are lots of events for fellowship, memories, yummy food, stories, and praising God for all the blessings of these past years.   Sunday, April 7 – The laity will share the Holy Covenant story! You have seen some of the pictures posted, now it is time to hear from current members about the faith-filled journey of creating this wonderful beloved community!  Join us at 10:30 am for worship in the sanctuary and livestreaming.  A Block Party will follow with games, crafts, music, and food until 2:00 pm. Everyone is welcome – Hoping our neighbors and friends will join us! WEAR YOUR HCUMC T-SHIRT!   Wednesday, April 10 – 5:30 pm: Join us for the Taize Prayer Service in the sanctuary with the Praise Team & … Read More

          Beloved Community,   Holy Week is upon us, and our most treasured worship services of the year will be in our sanctuary over the next four days. Maundy Thursday – 7:00 PM tonight. Good Friday – 7:00 PM tomorrow night. Easter morning – 7:00 AM Sunrise & 10:30 AM Sanctuary. They will all be livestreamed on our website and Facebook. Hope you will join us for each of them.   Please park far leaving the spots in front of the church for guests who may struggle with walking. I will have the doors in the back unlocked. Please sit close to the front, leaving the last rows for late arriving guests.    Thank you to all volunteers who stepped in to clean the inside and the outside of Holy Covenant preparing it for this Easter Weekend celebration and the anniversary events over the next two weeks!   We would love to have … Read More

          Beloved Community,   We have lots of exciting and inspiring activities at Holy Covenant over the next few weeks! The theme is to Be Alert and Pay Attention! Perhaps, I need to add – and BE PRESENT!   Saturday morning, we need your help! It is a workday at the church with something to do for everyone! There are several jobs that need many hands: preparing the second floor of the Education Building for new flooring on Monday morning, steam cleaning the sanctuary chairs, and a deep clean in the kitchen. Some of the smaller jobs will be changing light bulbs, hanging TVs, outside chores and other “honey-do” activities on the Trustees’ list.   On Sunday, we will gather for one of my favorite worship services – PALM SUNDAY PARADE. Our children will lead us! And yes, there will be palms for everyone!    Following worship, we will have a Shalom … Read More

         Beloved Community,   Hope you are enjoying this week!    Everyone is welcome to join me in the Shalom Center for coffee at 9:30 AM on Sunday for conversation about Holy Covenant or if you are interested in joining the church.    We will have our final Lent Sunday before moving into Holy Week next weekend. Hope you will find some green to wear on St Patrick’s Day. This week we will fast from resentment. Patrick’s story will help us in our reflections.   We will have an Ad Council meeting following worship on Sunday. We will give a brief review of ministries, plans for our 50th Celebration and opportunities for the spring & summer. If you want to know more about Holy Covenant, please join us. Everyone is welcome!   I look forward to greeting you on Sunday!   St. Patrick’s Blessing May your days be many and your troubles be … Read More

          Beloved Community,   We are beyond midway through Lent. My hope is that we are continuing to focus on praying, fasting and thriving. Perhaps we will be able to find time for those disciplines during this next week of Spring Break. I hope everyone can find some time to relax, pause from the rhythm of the school year and rest!    We will gather this Sunday to continue our journey through Lent. Our focus will be fasting from apathy. I have struggled with this theme, feeling apathic about it; sort of ironic. I will be sharing from James 2 as the scripture.    Hope you will join us for Sunday School and worship.  There is always coffee available in the Shalom Center!   I will leave you with a quote I found for the week:    Leo Buscaglia ~ I have a very strong feeling the opposite of love is not … Read More