Studies & Book Clubs

For the Fellowship Class, at the conclusion of Pastor Lew’s wonderful study of ‘Heaven, Hell, Points Between,’ we will turn to the Gospel of Mark. This book is considered by many, if not most biblical scholars as the first of the four Gospels to be written. With his repeated use of the word ‘immediately’ and focus on the actions of Jesus, Mark is an Evangelist in a hurry. The opening verse of the book sets the tone: ‘The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God’ (Mk 1:1). We’ll begin our journey through Mark on Oct. 8th in the Social Hall.

If Mark is the earliest of the Gospels, then there is a good chance that Matthew and Luke used it as a primary source for their own, later works (John is the outlier, thought to be written last and much later than the other Gospels). Why on many occasions do these three ‘synoptic Gospels’ report the same events but with different details and emphases? We’ll look at a number of these parallel accounts - not to fit them together but to discern what each of the writers had in mind and to celebrate the fact that we have these multiple snapshots of the life and words of Jesus. This study is slated to begin October 13th (Mondays, 6:30-8:00 pm) and 14th (Tuesday, 9:00-10:30 am). 

Yes it’s going to be a Gosp-Full Gosp-Fall, here at Hershey First United Methodist Church. Please consider joining us for either or both studies. As always, an open heart for the Holy Spirit and a tolerance for substandard leadership are the only requirements!

Next meeting TBA

Pastor Jenn is hosting a book club this year featuring books that have been labeled as thought-provoking, including some award-winning titles. We will read the books each month, then gather to discuss them and consider what lessons they offer, what new thoughts and experiences we were not aware of, and where God and religion are in them.

Given the topics, this club is open to young adults and older, but all genders. Meetings will be the last Thursday of the month in Room 203 from 6:30 pm-8 pm, except the November/December reading will meet on December 11th. For those who cannot attend in person, a Zoom link will be provided. If you know of someone who might enjoy joining us, please invite them.

Here are the books we will be reading. 3 copies of each book are available outside of the church office, on the top shelf of the mail slots so you can begin reading now. Please bring back when you are finished so someone else can read them too.

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constant.

The December 11th meeting will discuss the first 5 sections only. The rest will be discussed in January.

When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.
 
The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.
 
Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

March 26th: Flux by Jinwoo Chong

Combining elements of neo-noir, speculative fiction, and '80s detective shows, FLUX is a haunting and sometimes shocking exploration of the cyclical nature of grief, of moving past trauma, and of the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America.

In FLUX, a brilliant debut in the vein of William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Ling Ma’s Severance, Jinwoo Chong introduces us to three characters —Bo, Brandon and Blue— who are tortured by these questions as their lives spin out of control.

* After 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, his white father, attempting to hold their lives together, begins to gradually retreat from the family.

* 28-year-old Brandon loses his job at a legacy magazine publisher and is offered a new position. Confused to find himself in an apartment he does not recognize, and an office he sometimes cannot remember leaving, he comes to suspect that something far more sinister is happening behind the walls.

* 48-year-old Blue participates in a television exposé of Flux, a failed bioelectric tech startup whose fraudulent activity eventually claimed the lives of three people and nearly killed him. Blue, who can only speak with the aid of cybernetic implants, stalks his old manager while holding his estranged family at arms-length.

Intertwined with the saga of a once-iconic '80s detective show, Raider, whose star has fallen after decades of concealed abuse, the lives of Bo, Brandon and Blue intersect with each other, to the extent that it becomes clear that their lives are more interconnected and interdependent than the reader could have ever imagined.
 
Can we ever really change the past, or the future? What truth do we owe our families? What truth do we owe ourselves? 

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.
 
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
 
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.
 
Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.