MARY LEE TALBOT
Staff Writer
“My preaching this week will be a conversation from a Chautauquan to Chautauqua friends. I hope we will be talking with each other about being at the table of God’s abundance and how we move outward from here to the rest of our lives,” the Rev. Natalie Hanson said.
Hanson will preach at the 10:45 a.m. Sunday morning worship service in the Amphitheater. Her sermon for Sunday is based on Luke 5:33–35 and Matthew 22:1–10. The title of her sermon for Sunday will be “Invitation to a Feast.”
She said her focus for the week is how we can live abundantly and what we do that keeps us from living abundantly.
“How do we starve ourselves and others, who is at the table and who is not and why that is important are issues I want to explore. I hope people will embrace a conversation and spirit that leads to abundance. Diversity, having open hearts and minds and connections are important.”
Hanson will also preach at the 9:15 a.m. Monday through Wednesday worship services in the Amphitheater. Her sermon titles include “Who’s at the Table?,” “Table Conversation” and “A Moveable Feast.” She will share her faith journey in a conversation with the Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton during the 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning worship service in the Hall of Philosophy.
A longtime presence at Chautauqua with her husband, the Rev. James Paul Womack, who was pastor of Hurlbut Memorial Community United Methodist Church, Hanson co-hosted the United Methodist Missionary Vacation Home at Chautauqua for several years. Hanson also served Chautauqua as interim senior pastor in 2022, crafting, planning and evaluating worship services alongside members of the Department of Religion.
She is a clergy member of the United Methodist Church, now retired after 40 years of ministry. Much of that ministry was focused in urban parishes, serving for eight years as a District Superintendent in the Western, then Upper New York Annual Conference. On behalf of the Conference and as an adjunct for Wesley Seminary’s Course of Study, Hanson taught classes on preaching and worship development for several years. She was co-convener and worship developer for the NE Jurisdiction’s Clergywomen’s Convocation. Hanson was educated at Wesleyan University and the Harvard Divinity School.
This program is made possible by Week One Presenting Sponsor Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield and AHN Westfield Memorial. This program is also made possible by the generous support of The Samuel M. and Mary E. Hazlett Memorial Fund.
