The Community United Methodist Church begins a new four-week sermon series this Sunday, July 5, titled “Transformation: Healing Waters,” drawing its name directly from the meaning of Pagosa Springs itself, which most know translates to “healing waters” in the Ute language.
The series, led by the Rev. Ken Daniell, explores what it means to be transformed, not erased or replaced, but made new, using the imagery of the area’s own deep hot spring as a touchstone throughout.
“Our spring is the deepest known hot spring in the world,” said Daniell. “At one point someone tried to measure exactly how deep it goes, and they never found the bottom. The line ran out before the water did. There’s something powerful in that image for a town, and a faith, still trying to understand what we’re standing on.”
The series opens July 5, Communion Sunday, with “Draw From the Deep,” based on the Gospel story of Jesus’s conversation with a woman at a well in Samaria (John 4). The sermon examines themes of welcome, hidden barriers to belonging, and what it means to offer welcome without conditions.
The following week, “Roots That Hold” will turn to what keeps a person or a community steady when the ground underneath them shifts, drawing on the area’s own forests and the deep root systems that hold mountain slopes in place even after fire or flood.
The series will continue with a look at renewal, what it means to be made new without losing the story that shaped you, before closing in late July with a sermon on transformation as something communities do together, not something people accomplish alone.
“Healing water doesn’t erase where you’ve been,” Daniell said. “It changes what that place means to you.”
Services are held Sundays at 8:15 and 11 a.m. at the Community United Methodist Church, 434 Lewis St. All are welcome.
For more information, visit cumcps.org or call (970) 264-5508.
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