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Sunday November 21st, the Music Ministry is very blessed to be able to present two musicians as part of our guest artists series to assist in our worship service on this Christ the King feast day. Lynne Spotts (voice) and Aaron Matthias-Long, (trumpet) have graciously agreed to share special works with us that reflect the readings and gospel for today. I know that I speak for the entire congregation when I wish them both welcome and thank them for graciously sharing their time and talents with us this week. Below you will find short biographies of the many things that these performers have accomplished in addition to performing at UMC Bala, and I invite you to thank them and speak with them in the Hawkins Room following the service today. And of course, I extend my deepest gratitude to all of you for your continued support of the Music Ministry, which allows us to praise God through such wonderful music in our guest artists series.—Frank Van Atta, Director of Music
Aaron Mattias-Long, Trumpet – is currently a sophomore pursuing a degree in Trumpet Music Performance at Temple Universtiy. He has performed with various ensembles while at Temple including the Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia, Wind Ensemble, Collegiate Band, and various small brass ensembles. Born and raised in the Lehigh Valley, Aaron has had numerous opportunies to provide music at churches. Aaron is currently a student of Eric Schweingruber.
Lynne Spotts, Voice – Lynne Spotts started her music career at the tender age of 6 in Philadelphia, studying piano for 10 years and dance for 9 years. She studied classical piano, ballet, tap, jazz and pointe and danced in the Nutcracker every year. Upon graduation, she enrolled in the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts to study jazz, as well as enrolling in Settlement Music School to study voice. Upon moving to Florida in 1985 she studied salsa for 1 year and enrolled in college, studying for 4 years as a Vocal Performance major. She is currently a full-time insurance agent, teaches piano, sings at the First Presbyterian Church of Tequesta, takes a ballroom dance class, as well as being a single mother of 2 children, ages 13 and 17! She sings for graduations, church functions, special events, weddings and holidays. Lynne is engaged to be married on May 28, 2011. You can listen to some of her performances on www.youtube.com/Narbethian
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On Sunday, November 7, Dr. Brenda Casper will present a program on Mongolia at the United Methodist Church of Bala Cynwyd at 12:30 p.m. in the Hawkins Fellowship Hall. This event is open to the public. Persons are also invited to join in worship at the church at the 10:30 a.m service.
The program will introduce persons to the ongoing collaborative climate change study set in the steppe grasslands of northern Mongolia; involving researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the National University of Mongolia. This region has seen grazing pressure by domestic livestock for thousands of years and is expected to experience some of the greatest temperature increases of any worldwide.
In the words of Dr. Casper,” We use passive warming chambers to elevate temperature experimentally. Together with manipulations of water and grazing, the warming experiment should enable us to project how future climate change will affect the ecology of the system – including the structure of plant and soil microbial communities. The steppe grassland borders larch forest, and we make use of tree rings and their oxygen and carbon isotopic composition to reconstruct climate history. We also document how plant community composition and nutrient cycling varies with topography in the steppe, and we take this landscape scale variation into account in our warming experiment. We also have close contact with the local herders and are investigating their perceptions of changing climate patterns."
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The United Methodist Church of Bala Cynwyd celebrates its 105th Anniversary this year. As part of our celebration, the Rev. Joseph DiPaolo of the Wayne United Methodist Church was present on Sunday October 17 at the 10:30 a.m. service to deliver a special message on this historical event. Joe went into the ministry from this church and has gone on to serve within the United Methodist connection as a speaker, teacher, author, chaplain and as a leader in local and national United Methodism.
 Rev. Joseph F. DiPaolo was born and raised in the New York City area, and earned degrees from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania (BA, Economics, 1983); Philadelphia's Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, (M. Div., 1987), and Princeton Theological Seminary (M. Theo., New Testament Studies, 1990). It was while in college that he had a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ, and began a journey that led him into pastoral ministry.
Ordained a deacon in 1988 and elder in 1990, DiPaolo is a clergy member of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church. He has served as a pastor and preacher in four area congregations since 1985, as well as a nursing home chaplain. From 2001-2005 he served as senior chaplain of the Ocean City (NJ) Tabernacle Association, a summer worship ministry featuring nationally known preachers and speakers. Active in ecumenical and community affairs, he has served on the Board of Trustees of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Myerstown, Pennsylvania since 2004, and also teaches as an adjunct professor at both Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and Evangelical Seminary in Myerstown. He has served on a variety of boards and committees for his denomination, including as an elected delegate to the General Conference of the United Methodist Church in 1996, and the Northeast Jurisdictional Conferences of 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. He also was appointed as a delegate to the World Methodist Council which met in Seoul, South Korea, in July 2006. His gifts for ministry include preaching, teaching and leading congregations to formulate new visions for ministry and outreach.
In 1992 he became the pastor of what is now the Solebury United Methodist Church, in Bucks County. During his eleven-year tenure, the congregation completed a $2.5 million relocation and rebuilding project, moving from downtown New Hope to outlying Solebury Township, and dedicating new facilities there in February 2000. Since 2003, DiPaolo has served as senior pastor of the Wayne United Methodist Church, a congregation of some 750 members in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. He recently he led the congregation through a $1.5 million renovation project, to make their facilities entirely handicapped accessible. The work was completed and the church buildings rededicated in November 2007.
In addition to his ministerial work, DiPaolo is an avid amateur historian, contributing articles on local and church history to regional and national publications, and serving as president of the Historical Society of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church. In 1998 he published the edited memoirs of a 19th century Methodist Circuit Rider entitled My Business Was to Fight the Devil. While serving in the New Hope area, he wrote three items of local interest: “A Hot Bed of Secession:” New Hope and the Civil War (2001), That They all May Be One: A History of the Delaware Valley Council of Churches, 1953-2003 (2003); and Not Built by Human Hands: A History of the Solebury United Methodist Church, 1818-2003 (2003). Most recently he published “To Your Tents, O Israel!”: The Life of Rev. Andrew Manship, Evangelist and Entrepreneur. (Fruitland Maryland: Arcadia Enterprises, 2009). He is also editor of the historical journal Annals of Eastern Pennsylvania, which commenced annual publication in the spring of 2004.
He currently lives in Wayne, Pennsylvania with his wife, Susan, and their three children, Christina, Laura and Timothy.
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