The Herald
THE HERALD IS NEW DOVER’S MONTHLY NEWSLETTER THAT OUTLINES WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH.
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE PDF OR EXPLORE HERE ON THIS PAGE AS WELL! PDF: May 2025
CHUCK’S CHURCH CHAT
MAY
The clouds "have wept their fill" the whole night long,
And what a change is wrought! But yesterday,
We look'd around, and scarce could deem that May,
The poet's theme,—the month of flowers and song,—
Could do her own sweet lineaments such wrong
As to frown on us like a very shrew:
To-day, we feel what poets sing is true;
Like them, we hail her reign, and wish it long.
See, how each budding spray, each floweret fair
Retains the liquid treasure! how the trees,
Lest summer should o'ertake them unaware,
Haste to unfold their leaflets to the breeze;
While in the orchard every moss-grown stem,
And sapling shoot, a thousand blossoms gem!
Rebecca Hey
Saints,
Grace to you and peace…
Phew! What an amazing Holy Week at New Dover! Thanks to so many for taking on much of the “heavy lifting!” From the Bell Choir of Palm Sunday to the Chancel Choir of Easter morning! From Karen, teaching us the meaning of the Seder, to everyone who volunteered to read on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday! From Grace who played and sang, to Soomin and Ashley leading praise on Easter Eve, to Kyle leading praise in the growing light of Easter morning! From our Altar Guild who placed the tulips and daffodils below the cross, to our Acolytes who walked the light of Christ into the sanctuary! And special thanks to our cherished admin Trish, as well as our brand new Social Media Manager, Emma Patrimonio, for effectively getting the word out on numerous platforms all during April! It was a total team effort!
And May promises to be no different when it comes to the energy required!
→ On May 3rd we’ll get together to till and plant our highly successful Jehovah Jira Garden! Sue Dalton will once again coordinate the operation! Our JJ garden provides healthy fruits and vegetables to our neighbors in need!
→ New Dover’s own, Rev. Juel Nelson will be preaching and celebrating Communion with us on Sunday morning, May 4th! It will be great to have Juel back home! Pastors Chantel and Doreen will be assisting her.
→ At 6 pm on May 10, our United Methodist Men will be putting on a Spaghetti Dinner following the Praise Service, to raise money to offset the cost of shipping 31 big boxes of clothing, shoes, and supplies to the Dominican Republic! Tickets are available in Fellowship Hall after worship.
→ Our annual Mother’s Day Service of Worship, falls on May 11 this year! It’s always so nice to CHUCK’S CHURCH CHAT have the whole family in church to honor and remember our Moms!
→ Next up, on Saturday, May 17th, Rise Against Hunger is back! Come join volunteers from all over our neighborhood as we put together 30,000 meals for children in food crisis! If you haven’t already done so, you can sign up on our website
→ Finally, the day after Rise Against Hunger, Lay Delegate Alice Bennett, Pastor Chantel, and I will be heading to Wildwood for the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference! Always great to reconnect with United Methodists from all over the state!
Okay, hope you have your gardens and flower beds ready for May! Remember, as my PopPop always told me, “Don’t plant those tomatoes before May 1st! Frost’ll get ‘em!”
Let’s have yet another great month of growth, New Dover!
Peace,
Rev Chuck
EASTER 2025
Photos courtesy of Rhea Manglapus
KEEP US IN YOUR PRAYERS
Jayne Bonner
Debbie Ladym
Fran Livecchia
Jerry DiRenzo
John Resch
Pat Carpenter & Brian Richards
Service men & women
Veterans
Homeless, unemployed & uninsured
The People of Ukraine
For Peace in the ongoing conflict in Israel & Gaza
Victims & their Families of mass shootings
All Elderly of NDUMC
Pray for all those affected by Natural Disasters, those suffering with addictions, those suffering from depression, Victims of terrorism & violence, all national leaders, and all those serving at New Dover UMC. All doctors, nurses, EMT, teachers, grocery store workers, janitors, and all other frontline workers. Thank you and God Bless.
If you wish to add anyone to the 2025 permanent prayer list, please contact Karen Rowland at krowland648@yahoo.com
PLEASE JOIN US FOR PRAYER FELLOWSHIP EVERY WEDNESDAY MORNING AT 10 AM
Sermon of the Month
“When We Paint with a Broad Brush”
(Preached Sunday, March 2, 2025)
Mark 10:46-52
They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
I’d like to talk to you this morning about painting with a broad brush; a thought which came to me as I’ve witnessed what’s been happening in our country over the last couple of weeks or so. When an artist paints with a broad brush, he or she has chosen to leave out certain details in the finished painting. Other artists, like our own “artist in residence,” Bill Bunting, will often use brushes that are almost microscopic in their width, and so he puts an amazing amount of detail in his paintings.
I was there watching Saturday Night Live last night and they performed a skit of the Oval Office with James Austin Johnson playing President Trump, and Mike Myers doing Elon Musk, and the Musk character says that they're doing mass firings in the government, and the Trump character says “we love mass firings because you don't have to know what any of their names are or what exactly they do.” Now I'm not here today to debate whether government needs to be trimmed down or ramped up; what I would like to talk about is how we, the church, the Body of Christ, are to react to these broad-brush cuts, because, numbers aside, each cut drastically effects the lives of neighbors who become the actual targets of such cuts.
“Mass firings” means painting with a broad brush and when we paint with that broad brush, we make a conscious effort to not see the details. We turn a blind eye to the thousands of people, the targets of these cuts. But here’s the thing- when we lose sight of the details then we cease to be Christlike, because the gospels are clear- Jesus was a detail-oriented person and the story of blind Bartimaeus is an illustration of just that.
Now the people with whom Jesus most often found himself at odds were the Pharisees, and while there were in Jesus’ eyes, good Pharisees and bad Pharisees, the bad Pharisees we’re the ones who painted with a broad brush. They categorized and stereotyped everyone into a type of purity caste system. If you were a woman or a child you were a level or two of purity below men. Painting with a broad brush meant women can't do this, children can't do that. If you were like Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, you were treated with disrespect or disdain because you must have sinned, or your ancestors sinned, and that’s why you’re the way you are. It would be like one of us driving around town and every time we see someone in need on the street yelling out “Get a job!” as if their lot in life is because they must be unambitious or lazy. Another group the Pharisees painted with a very broad brush were Gentiles- anyone who wasn't a Jew. Gentiles were categorized as unclean, and no “righteous” Jew should be in the same room with a Gentile, can't touch them, and certainly can't dine with them.
But then along comes Jesus down the road leaving Jericho, and Bartimaeus yells out “Jesus son of David have mercy on me!” which identifies Jesus as the Messiah (because “Son of David” was a well-known phrase meaning “messiah”). Bartimaeus is crying out from the side of the road and many in the crowd, who knew him as just one more impure beggar among many, are telling him to shut up. But Jesus ignores the crowd and here we see how Jesus paints in detail! He calls on Bartimaeus to be brought to him, and what's really interesting is the question Jesus asks him, because this is where Jesus treats him like a real human being. He doesn't just go “Oh, you're blind? Okay ‘POOF!’ you're cured. Get on your way,” because that would be painting Bartimaeus with a broad brush, right? Every blind person is the same. No. Jesus respects his dignity as a human being and he asks “What do you want me to do for you?” And Bartimaeus replies “My teacher, let me see again.” And only then does Jesus heal him, but note- before he heals him he respects Bartimaeus, because Jesus never painted every blind beggar he came across with one broad brush!
This is the way of Jesus throughout the gospels. The woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5 wasn’t just an unclean woman; he treated her as a child of God. The same thing with the Gerasene demoniac who wasn't just some pagan living in graveyard who had a mental illness. Jesus treated him with kindness and compassion. The same for any leper who Jesus wasn't even supposed to come near, let alone touch! Jesus treated each one with dignity. Heck, even the very people hated by most of the Jews in Palestine were not painted with a broad brush because Jesus even healed the servant of a Roman centurion, for crying out loud! Saints, it’s difficult for us get back 2,000 years in time to understand how radical it was for a Jewish rabbi to treat an enemy soldier as an individual, as a child of God but that's what Jesus did. Again, he never painted with a broad brush!
Back to 2025. Every one of our neighbors whose life has been upended by the broad brush of the DOGE cuts needs to be thought of with the same understanding and compassion Jesus felt for each and every person in need he encountered along the way. We as Christians cannot look at the mere numbers and turn a blind eye. We are called on to pay heed to each of the stories of the individuals as well as the programs that were cut. Here are just a few examples:
There’s Air Force veteran Bilal Torrens, who had been assisting homeless veterans in Colorado, helping them secure permanent housing. That job was cut. Torrens said “Being a social worker associate, we help them (veterans), so now they're going to be bombarded with overloaded caseloads…It’s not just about me.
It’s about everybody that wakes up every morning and decides to come up here and work… So, it’s not just about veterans. I just happen to be one.” In other words those veterans who are seeking housing are going to be delayed even further. These are soldiers who served our country, and it’s just one of thousands of jobs cut by a broad brush.
In 2003 President George W. Bush started “The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).” Employing 270,000 healthcare workers, PEPFAR, part of USAID, has supported more than 20 million HIV patients. This month all their funding was cut, effecting more than 1.3 million babies born to women living with HIV. Without interventions up to 40% of the children will become infected. The program President Bush started that expanded the use antiretroviral therapy had reduced that transmission to less than 5% of babies who would have been born HIV positive. It has been is one of the biggest success stories of the HIV epidemic. response that we've had unfortunately the headline has now been US aid freeze puts But now, as medical supplies dwindle, maybe, like Jesus, we need to think of that one child who's going to be born HIV positive because these funds were cut and the clinics were closed. So many women, HIV positive, who getting scheduled treatments because of their pregnancy we're suddenly told you can't get the treatment anymore, which means that their baby is far more likely to be born HIV positive.
Some of these cuts hit even New Dover in a personal way. Many of you remember when the great Tony Campolo stood right here preaching where I'm standing now. World Vision was also here that day, and signed a number of us up to be supporters and partners in the education of students living in developing nations. Many of you are still part of that successful ministry (as a matter fact I'm supporting my second student now). But World Vision got a lot of its funding from USAID and now that funding has also taken a huge hit. How many students who have relied on that help will now find themselves denied the education they need?
Saints, when cuts like this happen it’s not simply about “trimming the budget.” People suffer. Most of you here have at one time or another lost your job, or suffered a health crisis. It's devastating; it's traumatic; it's stressful. You know what it’s like. As declared followers of Christ, we are called on to practice empathy. To be there for those whose lives have been effected, because the neighbors in need Jesus administered to 2,000 years ago are the same neighbors in need we encounter in 2025. We simply cannot paint them with a broad brush stroke because to do so is to dehumanize all of them.
That said, I want to close by letting you know of one broad brush stroke that's actually good, very good! It’s from Paul’s letter to the Galatians where he writes:
“For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Saints, the love of Christ is the one broad brush stroke that connects all of us, and not just those of us here this morning, but all of us around the world gathered together at the Lord’s table for Communion this morning! That's a broad brush that's worth believing in. As Christians we should never use a broad brush to dehumanize, harm, and judge others thoughtlessly. We instead use the broad brush which is the grace of God in Christ Jesus that unites us all together in one faith, one hope, and one mission.
May God bless us in these challenging times to continue to reflect the life of Jesus in all we do as we build God’s kingdom of love, compassion, and justice!
FINANCE NEWS
The Finance Committee is continuing to provide financial information. The following provides the income and expenses as of March 2025. The church income includes what is provided to the church in pledge envelopes to current expense and other income sources such as building rentals, flea market and various fundraising activities. Church expenses are shown which include salaries, utilities, conference obligations and other costs to keep the church operating.
Transforming Power of Handbells
Have you ever wondered how those cases of handbells become the instruments making beautiful music every month here at New Dover? While most musicians practice at home to hone their musical talent, bell ringers have 90 minutes weekly to learn their music. No music or bells go home, no extra sessions or individual instruction, just the weekly gathering with other ringers, all learning together.
If you were to enter the Music Room about 5 minutes after the conclusion of morning worship, you would be amazed at the bevy of activity. As the Ringers enter, they stop put their jackets on the hooks and get their gloves. Then, with very little instruction, the Ringers get to work. First tables are opened up and placed for practice, pads come next and then in no particular order the bells, chimes, stands, music, and mallets are placed at each of the 14 ringing places around the room. Within 10 minutes the Ringers are at their stands, music out of the folder ready to ring.
Now, on the surface, bell music looks like a page out of the hymnal. However, in addition to recognizing the standard notation and understanding what it requires, ringers are required to learn the special notations for handbells. Not all Ringers are able to read music but they all learn how to count the rhythm and quickly recognize note values. As they play through different pieces, they learn how to read the cues in the music and adjust their bells accordingly. They learn to mart (hit the bell on the table), thumb damp (put their thumb on the bell to shorten the vibration), and how to LV (let the bell sound continue longer than the note value) to name a few of the many sounds bells can make. The music also has a different note shape for chimes and special codes for mallets. Not all understanding happens in one week, or one month, or even in one year. Each time a Ringer picks up a bell they face challenges unique to that piece. A ringer perfects their techniques through ringing.
At New Dover, all new ringers have a Ring Partner, until they are ready to ring alone. We welcome ringers starting at Grade 1. We practice together providing all ringers the opportunity to move to different hands learning the techniques required for the bass, treble and upper bells.
At times the rehearsal is about practicing a technique, at other times we stop ringing to consider the text behind the music. Knowing the poets’ words help the ringers to better interpret the music. It may require biblical text or a longer story. At times we look over a hymn that is unfamiliar to the ringers to understand the composers’ intent in sections of music. The rehearsal continues until 1 o’clock when everything is rapidly replaced in the cases and set in the cabinet. Stands, mallets and music are collected and placed in drawers and used gloves are placed in the Dunkin’ bag for washing. Ringers move through the many tasks chatting and laughing as they work together. Soon the good-byes are said and the room grows still until next week.
We are blessed at New Dover. Our bell choirs have been ringing since about 1982 when they got their original 2 octaves of bells. Many hands have held these bells and made beautiful music. If you would like to join the bell choir or just want to visit, please stop in and experience a rehearsal. Our door is always open.
Alice Bennett – Handbell Director
Rise Against Hunger
For more information on Rise Against Hunger, please visit: Rise Against Hunger 2025
MEN’S CLUB SPAGHETTI DINNER
May 10th
6pm - 11pm
BUY TICKETS AHEAD OF TIME:
$10 per adult
$5 per child ages
5-12 Children under 5 eat free
For more information, contact Joe Lake at: ndumcmc@gmail.com
Mildred Vollmar Scholarship
The Mildred Vollmar Scholarship is available to all graduating High School seniors who plan on attending college in the fall. Applications are now available on the door of the office. Please fill out completely and return to the office by Sunday, May 18.
Any questions, call the office or JoAnn Lettieri (908-296-9177).
New Dover Flea Market
Open on Tuesdays From 7:30am - 1:30pm Kitchen is open for breakfast and lunch. Our new chef is Andrew. Menu includes Soup by Karen, burgers, hot dog, tuna and egg salad, breakfast sandwiches, homemade dessert. For more information visit our flea market page here.
GRADS
Please let Trish know if there is a 2025 graduate in your household by May 12, so we may acknowledge their accomplishment in June issue.
MAY BIRTHDAYS & ANNIVERSARIES
Birthdays
25
Kalindu DeAlwis
28
Sanjay Christie
29
Melissa Owsiany
30
Luke Colon
Jeff Rowland
Anniversaries
7
Mukesh & Sangita Christian
12
Tim & Elaine Lindner
17
Jeff & Karen Rowland
19
John & Kirsten Rodriquez
24
Tony & Cindy Bonito
Elton & Michele Nyema
27
Dave & Lisa Chesney
1
Arul Reddy Duggimpudi
Evan Gumbs
6
Desdimona Christian
10
Phil Davis
13
Joseph Bonner
14
Thomas Reddy Duggimpudi
15
Jake Engel
19
Aaron Christie
20
Mary Jane Manglapus
22
Rajiv Dialle
23
Herold David
Christopher Greve
Fran Livecchia
Sharonda Meade
VBS 2025
Magnified! VBS
July 14-18, 2025 | 9am-12pm
Children embark on a nature-filled adventure to explore God’s greatness!
REGISTER TODAY!
Pre-K (age 4) - 8th grade: $10 per child
Online registration found here.
Any questions? Please contact us at NewDoverVBS@gmail.com.