No February 16, 2025 Service
February 27, 2025
Our Church in the Winter
Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich
02-27-2025
Church was cancelled this past Sunday due to weather! Brrr! So I thought we could look at some of the missions of Bluff Point United Methodist Church! We do many other things through the years, but here’s a short list of some of our many mission activities.
We have a very active prayer shawl ministry. Kent and Nancy Wilmott moved back east from California many years ago. Nancy brought with her an idea from her prior church to make prayer shawls to give to people that needed healing or encouragement. Since then we’ve given 627 prayer shawls to friends and family as well as members of our own congregation who are in need of prayer. Several people have credited those prayer shawls to the grace of their healing. Blanche Fingar, Leah Dibble and many others have crocheted these prayer shawls over the years. Many are full-size, that people can wrap around them for warmth and comfort. The prayer shawls are passed around the congregation, where people can individually place their hands and say prayers for the person who will receive the shawl. These have really been a blessing for people in need.
One endeavor in Yates County which we participate in is support of the Yates County Christmas mission started by Floyd Tillman, who was a member of our church for many years until his passing. Our church always rings the bell in front of Tops grocery in Penn Yan on the day before Thanksgiving. The distribution of items purchased by raising this money for children and families is before Christmas and many of us help out with this process as well. All of the funds stay locally to benefit Yates county families.
We always put a tree up at Christmas just for mittens, scarves, and hats. These items go to support Yates County Christmas along with the Living Well Mission. Many of our congregation bake and help out with the lunch distributions at the Living Well for the Living Well. In addition, we get a name from Penn Yan school district of a family in need and provide gifts at Christmas time for the family and children.
Our church members support Grandma’s Kitchen, which provides meals and snacks to school children. Many children do not get a warm meal after school and this helps both their spirits and nutrition.
When Lee Wiedrich passed, his sister set up a scholarship fund for students in college or those attending trade school or a post high school educational program. The students receive monies every semester they are in their undergraduate programs.
Another mission is to support Eric Detar’s program of alternate spring break where Keuka college students go on a mission trip to serve others here in America, or any foreign country. The students and their leaders often build or repair items in the area they visit, or aid the underserved in other ways.
We like to help keep the nearby roadways clean and tidy. We have a 2 mile Adopt-a-Highway stretch on 54-A and usually about a dozen of us pick up the trash along the roadways twice a year.
Prior to Covid, we enjoyed going to nursing homes and singing to the residents. Hopefully we will pick up that mission and tradition again.
We help send money to UMCOR when disasters strike, passing the bucket in church!
Everyone can participate with us in these activities, working with nonprofits or helping others in need. It makes one feel good to do little things to help our community and our world. Come join us and come worship with us!
The Sunday School kids were busy! Becki Whitford had Rory, Meridyn, Charlotte and Remi make boxes for Jesus where they could write ideas in the boxes of how they could give their best to Jesus. Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich 04-17-2025 Pastor Jeannine related the story from John 12: 1-8, of how Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived. Jesus had recently raised Lazarus from the dead. Martha was working in the kitchen preparing a meal while Jesus was their guest. She was somewhat annoyed at Mary because Mary was not helping her but was spending time with Jesus and was anointing his feet with expensive perfume. Martha then served the dinner. Judas was mad because he wondered why the perfume was not sold at the market rather than being used on Jesus. The story shows that Mary’s time was most importantly spent with Jesus. Jesus defended Mary saying they would not always have him with them. Jesus knew what was coming next. The kids made beautiful boxes in Sunday school and placed ideas of how they could best serve Jesus, by things that they could do or just by praying. This is a lesson to all of us to be quiet and pray with God. We welcome our snow birds, beginning to come back from the sunny south. Norm and Sherri Hunt and Blanche Fingar have returned, and it was so good to see them all in church this past Sunday. Only if they had brought warmer weather with them!!! This is Easter week. There are many activities locally that people can join to remember the events of this week- including its sadness with the last supper on Maundy Thursday, the crucifixion of Jesus on Good Friday , and then Jesus’s triumphant resurrection on Easter Sunday. Our Easter service will be at the regular time at 9 AM at church. Please feel free to come and join us for a beautiful service.
The kids sang their hearts out for music Sunday Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich 04-10-2025 We enjoyed Music Sunday this past Sunday, with lots of familiar hymns, including three choir selections from our adult choir and three adorable selections from our kids. In addition, Meriden Whitford sang a triumphant solo, God is Good! We are glad many friends and relatives could join for our special Sunday. Marguerite Miller has been working over the past month with our children for their musical presentations. They knew their lines and the songs by heart. Ron Miller picked out special music for choir to sing for music Sunday. Thank you, Ron and Marguerite for tedious work making music Sunday a terrific success, and our organist Elly Stempien for always choosing the hymn selections for us to sing every week. Our next 5th Sunday musical Sunday will be in June. Pastor Jeannine shared with the kids how exciting it is to find things. Sometimes we may feel lost, but when we come back to Jesus, he is always so excited. We are always welcome into Jesus‘s loving arms. Pastor Jeannine had a big box labeled, lost and found, including a ring, a sock and various objects. Our nurture committee has decided that on fifth Sundays we will also pass the buckets for a donation to a charity. This month we chose Care Net as our charity. They do so much locally in our Penn Yan area, and spoke with us earlier in the year about their goals and programs. We love to get together for fellowship! This past Saturday we had a taco dinner where everyone brought fixings for the tacos. Were they ever tasty! There were over 30 people in attendance. Thanks also to Jean Murdock and Marilyn James for Sunday snacks. We welcome our visitors! Come join us at 9 AM Sunday for our weekly service and Bible Study Mondays at noon.
Welcome Carol and Jerry Warren and Megan Reay to our congregation. They joined our fold this past Sunday. We enjoy worshiping and sharing with you! Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich 04-03-2025 Pastor Jeannine shared with us today that faith is like mustard seed. If we have belief and have faith, we will grow like the tiny mustard seed that is planted. Pastor Jeannine gave the children little packages of mustard seeds and placed one in each of their palms, so they could see how tiny and mighty the seed actually is. Pastor Jeannine explained that there is a difference between being sure in your faith versus being mature in your faith. We want to be grounded in our faith. Faith is like weightlifting. You need to exercise your muscles so as not to have them get weak. Our faith needs to be exercised and shared as well. Faith needs to be moving. In First Corinthians 10: 1-13, Paul reminded us that God is faithful. We want to shout our faith from the mountain tops. God helps us grow our faith like that little mustard seed if we allow it to be planted and thrive. Pastor Jeannine shared with us the lighting and extinguishing of the altar candles. We bring the light of Christ to the beginning of the service. As we extinguish the candles, we take back the light into the world. We are the light of Jesus. We welcome our new members. Carol Warren, Jerry Warren and Megan Reay joined our BPUMC this past Sunday. Welcome again! We are so happy to have you all join us. We also welcome visitors and remind them that we have nursery and Sunday school services for the children during church time.
Mama hens look after their chicks! Jesus looks after us! Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich 03-27-2025 Our church Taco Dinner is 3/29. We will set up a taco bar. Yummy! We are also welcome to attend a community pass dish dinner at Dresden UMC at 6 PM on March 26. We Methodists like our dinners and social events! Pastor Jeannine asked the kids if they ever lost anything that they could not find. We often start out in a room and go to look for something in another room, and have to go back to the first room to remember what we were looking for! Pastor Jeannine told that one of her daughters was upset once because of loosing her favorite socks. She had to clean her room to find them! Jesus is always here for us. He is happy to help us find our way. The kids learned and shared how mother chicks protect their babies and look after them, during the Sunday School lesson. Meridyn shared that her family has many hens and chickens, but they don’t keep them together! She keeps busy, feeding the animals and collecting eggs. Pastor Jeannine’s message shared that the Pharisees warned Jesus that they wanted to kill him. It’s a little confusing that the Pharisees were the ones pretending to be concerned about Jesus’s safety, but they would eventually be the ones behind his crucifixion. Jesus began to move closer to Jerusalem during this time. Jesus likened himself to a hand in the scripture lesson from today from Luke 13: 31-35. Like a hand, Jesus tried to gather his chicks under his wings to protect them, even when they weren’t always willing. Today, Pastor Jeannine shares that we are called to be the hands, feet and wings of Jesus and the Christ to our community. We must try to do all we can to bring shelter to those who are hurting, lost or confused and lead people to our savior, as the hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Music Sunday is March 30! The kids and various groups are practicing! Ron and Murray Miller have been working tirelessly!! Please bring your friends to church to listen to our beautiful singing arrangements.
Meridyn and Charlotte learned that Jesus loves us all, no matter what country we are from, or what color our skin or features. Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich 03-20-2025 Pastor Jeannine did an experiment for the kids in church today. She had her husband blindly eat various colors of M&M’s and ask him if he could tell the difference of the color. Of course he couldn’t. People may look different outside the same as M&M’s, but no matter who we are we are all the same inside, and Jesus loves us all. Pastor Jeannine asked us if we feel our feet are beautiful? Most people don’t consider feet a thing of beauty, however, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news. Our mainstream news today seems to focus on crimes, wars, and all the bad going on in the world. Likely there is no more bad news than there ever was. These days we continuously get our news 24/7 and are bombarded with constant news clips. Pastor Jeannine challenged us to walk by faith and not to be selfish with how Christ is in our lives. We need to walk, live and show the love of Christ. We need to be more intentional and put our faith into action, and share what Christ has done in our lives. Sincere condolences to the family of Skip Burnham. His service was this past week at our church. Skip and Shirl have been faithful members of our church, and we will miss Skip’s faithfulness and humor. Please feel free to join our Monday Bible studies at noon at church. The study for the next few weeks is about the grave robber. This will be a journey to the Holy Land, where Jesus revealed his miracles- we will also discuss our own miracles that we take for granted every day. Music Sunday is coming up again on March 30. Please let Ron Miller know if you have a talent that would like to perform in church on that day!
Laurie Prinzivalli helps with our pancake Shrove Tuesday church dinner. Yummy!!! Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich 03-13-2025 This past Sunday we celebrated Transfiguration Sunday. We begin Lent this week with our Shrove Tuesday Fat Tuesday pancake and sausage supper! Pastor Jeannine spoke to the children telling them how Jesus went up to a mountain to see Moses and Elijah, taking some of the disciples with him. Jesus then took Peter, James and John up the mountain to pray. Peter did not want the day to end! Jesus’s face was transformed. Everyone was excited! Jesus however had to go down from the mountain as he knew he had to die for us on the cross, and the day had to end. The adults learned that transfiguration was God’s answer to suffering. God cannot passively look back while we suffer. Jesus was forced to carry his own cross and die an horrific death. He was laughed at and mocked. Jesus suffered for us. When we hurt, God hurts. Through all of this, Jesus has given us faith and hope! God told us to hear the voice of his son, his chosen, and to listen to him! Did you pick up any of our kindness cards? Take some and do a small favor for someone and leave the card. Then that person can do the same and pay it forward. See you Sundays at 9:00 am!
Meridyn is writing to her colorful teddybear Strawberry what she will do to show how she grows with grace of Jesus, planting a flower bulb and learning how it needs water, sun and carbon dioxide to grow. Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich 03-06-2025 Pastor Jeannine asked the kids if they play follow the leader. She asked them to touch their nose, lift their left arm, and march in place. She noted that Meridyn was a good example to lead her cousin and little brother. Pastor Jeannine shared that Jesus told us to follow him and is the best example! She challenged the kids to always be nice and try to do something that Jesus would do. The adult sermon concentrated on Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Mount, from Luke 6: 17-26. Pastor Jeannine recalled that Paul was speaking to the Corinthians about the resurrection of Jesus. Some believers did not believe in the resurrection, and he wondered how they could disbelieve that and still believe in Jesus. Without the resurrection there is no heaven, no Christmas, and no savior. There is nothing beyond the grave, and no hope. Our lives would end in the grave with no existence beyond. She shared that we have gained the forgiveness of sin and guilt through Jesus, and we are free to live in Christ. Our lives are vibrant because of Jesus. Pastor Jeannine asked us if there is a resurrection for us. Is there an Easter? Is Christ in the grave for us or just in heaven, or is he present here and now? In Epiphany, Jesus is manifested and revealed to us. The kids learned about God’s grace in Sunday School. They came up with love and doing for others as signs of God’s grace. The disciple Paul did not always do good things, God’s grace helped him spread God’s word to others. The kids planted hyacinth bulbs which need soil, water and sunlight to grow. They had a plant to take home and water as a reminder of God’s love and grace. We will be having our pancake supper on Fat Tuesday, as the beginning of lent. This will mark the season leading to Christ’s death and resurrection. Pastor Jeannine shared that she has heard several rumors from various sources that our church is closing. No way!!!! Just to put a nix on those rumors, Bluff Point United Methodist Church is active, vibrant and very much alive! So feel free to pass on that we are present and are ongoing- so please come worship with us at 9:00 Sundays.
Pastor Jeannine shows the kids how to go fishing for Jesus Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich 02-20-2025 Pastor Jeannine told the kids how one day Simon Peter and his friends went out to fish in the sea of Galilee. They were out for quite a while, but did not even catch one fish. Jesus stood on the shore, but they did not recognize him when he called out to them and asked them if they had any fish. They told him that they didn’t. Jesus told Simon Peter to go back out again. Simon Peter doubted Jesus, but he went out anyway. Jesus's told him to throw his net onto to the right side of the boat, and he would catch fish. Miraculously, the net was full and they brought in over 150 fish. This was the third time that Jesus had appeared to them after he had been raised from the dead. Simon Peter learned a lesson to trust the word of Jesus. Pastor Jeannine’s adult sermon continued in this manner. Do you doubt Jesus when he calls to you, or do you drop everything and follow Jesus’s words? We need to trust in Jesus and in the messages he brings to us, as he is always there for us! We must learn to become fishers of men! We need to trust and have faith. We also need to smile, spread faith and be kind to others. This would include inviting others to join us at church. So consider yourself invited if you’re not already part of our church group! The doors are open 9 AM on Sundays! Don’t forget our pasta dinner- on February 22 at 4 PM. We will cook the pasta, and people can bring toppings to share. It’s nice to have these dinner gatherings especially during the winter when we can use a bit more sunshine!
Marilyn Sands serves up some of the delicious treats that she and Barbara Bailey prepared for Fellowship. Valentine’s Day is on the way! Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich 02-13-2025 Pastor Jeannine showed the kids on her calendar that there have been five Sundays thus far into this New Year. She wondered if any of the kids had made any New Year’s resolutions for the new year. She told them that God has made many promises to us to love us to always be with us. God is always there. Pastor Jeannine told us of a prayer service years ago, where a Methodist bishop shared the message of Moses to a group gathered at the Washington National Cathedral. In times of division, a vision of unity is needed- with compassion, freedom for the oppressed, and hope for the marginalized. We need to continue to work towards unity of all people. We often can loose sight of Jesus’s ministry, but his words are as important today as when they were first spoken. God judges us by our acceptance of him. Ron Miller recently received the share the light award for Yates County. The award ceremony will be held in the spring. Ron and Marguerite both do so much for our community and church. Dresden United Methodist Church will be having a Valentine’s Day dinner on Valentine’s Day, 4-7pm, which we are invited to participate in. Mark your calendars for a loving evening of food and sharing. Many of our church committees have been meeting recently during this new year,. We have some vacancies on some of the committees, so if you wish to serve, please let Pastor Jeannine know. Being on a committee is a great way to participate in church leadership, while working with others. Participation by our church kids in our services is such a bright part of our service. Please consider on a rotational basis, helping with nursery and Sunday school. The kids are really enjoying learning more about Jesus. The lesson plans have been made up
Remington Perry cheering on his favorite NFL quarterback! Article by Joyce L. Wiedrich 02-06-2025 This past week was a busy one at Bluff Point! And this past Saturday evening we had a baked potato dinner. Everyone brought toppings and Pastor Jeannine baked the largest potatoes that anyone had ever seen. Everyone had a great time. The next event will be the end of February with a pasta supper. We received a thank you note from Sue Falvey for helping with the Yates County Christmas program. We rang the bells the day before Thanksgiving and took in over $1145 that day. It’s such a great program to benefit the community. Thanks again to all who participated in everyone in the community that donated. Nancy Curran came to our service and spoke to us about the Care Net program in Penn Yan. This year they are having a baby bottle drive for people to fill with spare change to support their work. She provided several plastic baby bottle banks to fill. Care Net is a faith-based program that gives pregnancy advice and support, parenting classes, and life skill classes to families during and after pregnancy with help, compassion, and love. Pastor Jeannine spoke to the kids about the phrase- just what the doctor ordered. God wants us to be well, physically and spiritually, by looking after ourselves and following him. Jesus showed all of us how to be spiritually healthy. The sermon this week was based on Luke 4: 14-21. Jesus was baptized in the Jordan. He heard the voice from God that he was the son he dearly loved. Jesus tells us that we need him, and not just what the world offers us. God gave us a path of righteousness. The ultimate sacrifice is Jesus who gave his love for us. Jeannine told us to allow God to work through us. Marguerite Miller asked us to save old blankets, mattress, pads, and sheets for her to use for the quilts that are made and distributed for Yates County Christmas. Women help make these quilts all year long to distribute in December. Eric Detar and his colleagues are planning a mission trip within the United States during spring break with several Keuka College students. A very adventurous goal is to work on a hiking run trail. We can help support that effort by writing a check to alternative spring break at Keuka College. Eric has always come back after their mission trips to show pictures and tell stories of their efforts. Stay warm these cold crisp winter days, and come visit us Sunday morning!