About Plymouth Park United Methodist Church

Note from our Pastor

I extend to you my personal greetings, and those of the congregation of Plymouth Park United Methodist Church.  We thank you visiting our website, and hope that you spend a few moments browsing through the site to gain some understanding of who we are, and whose we are.

Several years ago, Plymouth Park UMC adopted as its mission statement to “Know Christ and Make Christ Known.”  We continue to live with that mission statement.  In addition, we have embraced the United Methodist vision of being a church of “Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Doors.”  Those are wonderful statements of purpose, but you might ask “what do they mean, really?”

To us, to be a church of “Open Minds, Open Hearts, and Open Doors” means that - in humility - we understand that we do not have all the answers.  But - with assurance and God’s grace living among us - we just a firmly believe that we are a community which struggles with really good questions.  We believe faith is a journey, not a destination, and that we journey together the life of faith.  In our journey together, we come to know Christ, and at our best, to make Christ known through our witness.

Each Sunday, we begin worship by inviting the Holy Spirit to be present with us.  Amazingly, most Sundays the Spirit obliges us!  We strive to be a vibrant expression of the body of Christ with and through worship that is vibrant and exciting, mission efforts to our community and beyond that are meaningful and challenging, and a community which believes that we are the hands and arms, smile and embrace of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Believing that we have “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3.23), we place no barriers at our doors or in our worship.  Out of our belief that God pulls us into relationship, we practice the sacrament of Baptism to youth and adults, but also to children and those who cannot speak for themselves.  Out of our belief that Holy Communion is conversional as well as a time of God’s grace being uniquely present, our communion table is open to all persons, all ages, regardless of where you might be on the journey of faith.  All are welcome to our worship, to our sacraments, and to our membership.

We view the world, our mission to the world, and our lives in Jesus Christ through the lens of two great passages of scripture.

From the prophet Micah 6.8,
He has told you, O mortal, what is good:
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God.

From the gospel of Luke 4.16.
. . . he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom.  He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.  He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news  to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

I extend our invitation to come and see how the Spirit is working among the good people of Plymouth Park United Methodist church.  I invite you to be a part of a growing community that is seeking, in all aspects of our lives, to live to these two scriptures.  We seek to “Know Christ, and to make Christ known.”

Grace and peace,
Bill
Dr. William E. La Barr
Senior Pastor
Plymouth Park United Methodist Church