WELCOMING TO ALL!
Sunday Morning Worship Celebration at 10am
Our services and activities suspended until we are through this health emergency and the Shelter-in-Place order has been lifted.
Services are available online.
Stay home, stay safe, stay healthy.
GET TO KNOW US
Located in beautiful Pacific Grove, First United Methodist Church offers all who walk through our doors a place of comfort, hope, love, and a peace of mind. We are dedicated to sharing the teachings of Jesus Christ, and our goal is to inspire you through the music and word of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are welcoming to all and invite you to join us and be a part of our growing family of faith. We look forward to meeting you!
HERE'S WHATS HAPPENING
First United Methodist Church has been actively involved with the greater Pacific Grove community since 1875
when we began as a Methodist retreat center and helped found our beloved city of Pacific Grove.
ART OF THE TITLE
Together even
when apart!
Online Worship Services are available
Sunday Mornings at 10:00am PT
A live feed on our FaceBook Page
Video of our service is available
on our YouTube Page
after 3:00pm on Sundays
Join us!!
All In-Person Worship Services
and other activities
have been suspended until
the Shelter-in-place order has been lifted
and we have approval from our
UMC Conference Staff.
OPENING HOURS
We are closed until the Shelter-in-place order has been lifted
REV. GAYLE BASTEN, Pastor
Church Staff
Sharon Ericksen, Director of Music Ministries
Linda Reinertsen, Organist/Accompanist
A little something about me:
Im a second career pastor, having worked in human services all my life and prior to Seminary in 2005, I was a clinical social worker at the San Francisco VA Hospital. No one was more surprised than I that God was calling me to ordained ministry. I have never been happier (well, after seminary , anyway!)
Yes, so God had something in mind for me. Another surprise was that I fell completely in love with parish ministry. Big time love.
What informs, transforms, reforms my work in ministry is God’s unconditional love for me and all of us. I believe this is the greatest commandment and the most difficult to live into. I thrive on this love and am compelled to manifest it all that I think, say and do. As the spiritual leader of Pacific Grove UMC it will be my hope that God’s unconditional love for us will continue to transform us so that we become the people who God is calling us to be. I rely on the guidance of the God, the work of the Holy Spirit and the example of Jesus Christ to get us there.
You could call me the poster pastor for hospitality and fellowship. My favorite way to socialize is around a table. My favorite way to evangelize is around the table. Any table, all tables, tables where I might not be initially welcomed, tables where I am welcomed, tables in homes, bars, casinos, other churches…just about any place where there’s room for a table. I want to be there. I think it is there that we experience ‘koinonia,’ hospitality in fellowship. Karl Barth is right about ‘koinonia’---when we do fellowship between human beings, we are responding to God’s call to us that we bear witness to the fellowship between God and humanity. Charles Raynal coins the phrase: ‘barrier breaking hospitality. ‘’ We don’t need to to be building walls. We need to be a community that builds bridges, that reaches out to Others of all nations, together; that refuses the divisions of race, class, gender and sexual orientation as legitimate; that responds to the plurality of cultures (not demean them) by bringing us all together to unlearn ‘isms.’ Hospitality and fellowship heal brokenness, transforms hatred, breaks down barriers and overcomes fear.
We don’t accomplish the above, alone. One church doesn’t accomplish it alone. We are stronger together. And not just ‘the churched’ in the area. Everyone has a gift that can be brought to the table. Everyone. I’d want to engage in the kind of ministry that provides a seat at the table for everyone. Jesus would. He ate with the Pharisees, the less thans, the more thans, the oppressors and the oppressed. I guess we can as well. That is my hope and prayer.
CONTACT US
915 Sunset Dr, Pacific Grove, CA 93950
Sunday Morning Virtual Worship at 10:00am
831-372-5875
831-372-2020 (fax)
