“No matter who you are, no matter where you are, you are welcome here!”

January 5, 2024

Happy New Year, Pali Pres!

I pray this newsletter finds you and your loved ones healthy and well as we enter 2024.

This coming Sunday is known as Epiphany Sunday in the church, a time set aside to focus on the story of the magi who visited the young Jesus. The word “epiphany” means “to show forth” and the passage about the magi is designed to show us a great deal about the baby born in Bethlehem. I don’t want to go into too much detail here (I need to save some material for my sermon, after all!) but the lesson of Epiphany is really important for us as God’s people. By revealing the birth of his Son, the Messiah, to the magi, God was making known to the world the “new thing” he was doing. When we celebrate Epiphany, we celebrate that fact that God reveals God’s self to us in Jesus Christ and countless other ways. Our task is to have eyes to see what God is sharing with us!

With that in mind, I wanted to share with all of you something from Julian of Norwich, a 14th Century Christian mystic. Julian received her own revelation from the Lord and wrote about it in her book, “Revelations of Divine Love.” (Interesting fact: “Revelations of Divine Love” is the earliest surviving book by a woman in the English language.) Here’s an excerpt, which I hope you will find meaningful:

And in this he showed me a little thing the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball.

I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, “It is all that is made.”

I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness.

And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.

- Julian of Norwich

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Matt

Introducing our New Organist, Austin Ho

Dear Pali Pres Family,

Happy New Year! As you may recall, we had the privilege of having Austin Ho as our interim organist through Summer of 2023. With God’s amazing providence, Austin has accepted our offer as our official staff organist to provide music for our weekly Sunday worship, beginning this Sunday! I am particularly excited, because I will be able to return to the podium and focus my leadership in conducting the choir, and tackle more complex music that would have been difficult for me to lead from the piano/organ. Please kindly offer your greetings and blessings to Austin when you see him this Sunday! Here is his biography:

Austin Ho is a musician who has performed regularly within Southern California. He graduated cum laude from UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music with a Bachelors of Arts in piano performance, a minor in mathematics, and a Masters of Music in piano performance, where he has earned distinctions including the Dean’s Medal and the Chancellor’s Service Award.

Currently the principal pianist of the American Youth Symphony, Austin has performed in full live-to-picture productions of How to Train Your Dragon, Superman, and Jurassic Park, and has also collaborated with the National Children’s Chorus in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Sounds About Town series at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. He also serves as a staff accompanist at UCLA, faculty at the AMDA College of the Performing Arts, and teacher at the Suzuki Academy of LA. During his free time, he also arranges music, tutors math, sings, and plays violin.

Sincerely,

Dr. Pierre Tang, Director of Music

Quarterly Giving Statements

If you’d be interested in receiving your Quarterly Giving Statement a little earlier while saving the church postage and handling, the option of receiving quarterly statements by e-mail rather than by regular mail will be available in 2024! All you need to do to change delivery from mail to e-mail is by sending an e-mail request to our Accounts Coordinator, Natasha Perez.

Lost & Found

Did you know that we have a Lost & Found in the church office? If you’ve lost something around campus, come by and take a look!

Join us for our Livestream Worship!

Join at 9:50am on Sunday Morning to enjoy the prelude, with worship beginning at 10am.

There is no livestream from last week.

Sunday Refreshments

Bringing refreshments on Sunday mornings to share with our church is a loving and very important ministry. Thank you to all of you who have been doing this so faithfully. Please contact Refreshment Coordinator Jan Gong to sign up to serve.

Thank you to Dianne Jerome & Beverly Keese for last week's refreshments! This week's goodies are brought to us by Katie Brown!

Sunday Sanctuary Flowers

Thank you to the Joanna Darvish for providing last week’s flowers! This week’s flowers are brought to us by The Roswell Family, with gratitude to our church for a beautiful Christmas Eve service.

We invite all of our church members and friends to provide donations for flowers to adorn our sanctuary, along with a special dedication of your choosing. The cost is $75 per week.

Please contact Will Saunders and the church will order flowers from a local florist to be placed in the chancel on Sunday morning.

Our Deacons will distribute the flowers to one of our members/friends after the service.

Thank you for helping make our sanctuary even more beautiful!

Sunday Sermon Teaser

As mentioned in the blog this week, this coming Sunday is Epiphany Sunday. Come join us for worship as we learn more about what this holy day on the church calendar is all about!

Give to Pali Pres

Don't forget, you can easily give your tithes and offerings through our website!

Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth.

-Psalm 127: 3 - 4