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rst United Methodist Church - Victoria, TXrst United Methodist Church - Victoria, TXI hope you had an opportunity to watch my “State of the Church” address that was emailed a while back. In it, I wanted to convey how proud I am to be the senior pastor of a church that didn’t let COVID or any other obstacles derail us from BEING THE CHURCH. I am genuinely proud of all of your eorts… that goes for all of the church sta as well as laity.This newsleer is designed to give you an idea of what the church has been up to over the past year, and what to look forward to in the coming year. The vision I have for First United Methodist Church is to be a lay-driven church. Actually, I believe all churches should aspire to being lay-driven. If we look back to Moses’ ministry, we see that his father in law set him straight on his limitaons. Moses had made a fairly common mistake among clergy; he tried to do too much. He tried to keep the ministry to himself, but it wasn’t working out too well. In Exodus 18:17, Jethro, Moses’ father in law, says to him, “What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.”Basically, he told Moses that clergy have ministry responsibilies, and laity have ministry responsibilies… let the lay people do theirs! Even Jesus sent out the disciples on their own. Ephesians 4:11-12 says, “The gis he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” That seems like prey clear direcve for a lay driven church…. “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” While I’m in a quong mood, I’m reminded of one of my favorites by the founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, “We are not as smart as the laity think we are; and they are not as dumb as we think they are.” Now, I don’t think you are dumb, but the message that Wesley was sending to the clergy was the same as Jethro’s counsel to Moses: The task is too heavy for pastors to do it alone, and the laity are not only capable, but called. In the book, The Lay-Driven Church, by Melvin Steinborn, he lays out an old vs. new mindset shi that needs to happen when it comes to ministry. Let me share a few with you: Old: The pastor is called by God to be a minister.New: Every Chrisan is called by God to be a minister. Old: Ministry is the task of the pastor, supported by the people.New: Ministry is the task of the people, supported by the pastor. Old: The people assist the pastors in doing what they believe God is calling the pastor to do.The State of The Church
New: The pastors assist the people in doing what they believe God is calling the people to do. Old: The pastor has all of the gis required to nurture and care for a congregaon.New: All of the people together have the gis required to nurture and care for a congregaon. Old: The pastors bear the burden of the ministry. The people hold the pastors up in prayer.New: Both people and pastors bear the burden of the ministry. They hold one another up in prayer. As a church, FELLOWSHIP, OUTREACH, MISSION, and DISCIPLESHIP are essenal. Remove any one of these and the church becomes severely out of balance. When fellowship, outreach, and mission are nurtured, discipleship grows.Brief denionsFellowship: Builds community within our church family.Outreach: Reaches beyond the walls of the church to introduce others to Jesus Christ.Mission: Extends the love of Christ through works of mercy.Discipleship: Is a journey in which we grow in faith and relaonship with Christ.Key ScripturesFellowship – “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecng to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.” – Hebrews 10:24-25Outreach – “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?” – Romans 10:13-14Mission – “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The king will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” – Mahew 25:37-40Discipleship – “Go therefore and make disciples of all naons, bapzing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” – Mahew 28:19-20And, nally, INVITATION. Invitaon is essenal in all aspects of the church. When Jesus called his disciples, it began with an invitaon, “Come, follow me.” We must be invitaonal in all that we do. As we connue in 2021 and ancipate vaccinaons to clear the way for us to get back to normal, we are going to have to work at re-building relaonships and engagement. It is going to take intenonal invitaon to welcome people back to in-person worship. There is nothing more important than having a relaonship with Jesus Christ, and if we have that relaonship, and seek to follow him, we must also love our neighbor by inving our neighbor to come along, too. As things get back to normal, we cannot sit back and lament that our worship services are a fracon of what they were a year ago… Let’s INVITE everyone we know to join in the beauty of worship and ministry with us! In fact, let’s begin inving NOW. If you’re acve on social media, share a link to the livestreams. Post a photo of ministries or small groups that you are parcipang in and extend the invitaon for others to join you. Share something that parcularly touched you in worship on Sunday… Invite, invite, invite… your friends, family, and neighbors are depending on you.Wow, this has goen to be a much longer arcle than I intended for it to be. Sorry about that! I’ve got a lot more to say, but I suppose I had beer save up some stu for next me.God bless you,Pastor WadeThe State of The Church
The year 2020 started o with a bang. We were busy, busy during January, February and the rst part of March. We started out with a Board Member work day to clean the shop and get ready to reopen aer the Christmas holidays. We also spent a full day planning for 2020. Plans included our Semi-Annual Sale, Volunteer Luncheon, teaching cooking skills to the teenagers in our church and preparing dinner for Dinner Church. At Dinner Church we also handed out “cheater eye glasses” and large print Bibles to anyone in need. We were moving along great unl COVID-19 came to town, and then everything came to a halt. Twice Blessed closed down on March 19th and remained closed unl June 2, 2020. Closing down and reopening at a me sensive consignment store created a huge technological challenge for this group of “older” women, but with God’s help and a lot of work and prayers, we persevered. In August, we managed to give $500 to Christ Kitchen along with boles of water that our awesome customers and volunteers donated. We also donated $250 to VCAM, $250 to Food Bank of the Golden Crescent, and $250 to the Telferner Food Bank. We connued to the 10% of our prot throughout the year and make our loan payments. In September, we started selling pumpkin bread for the pumpkin patch commiee. The pumpkin bread was a big hit, and we connued to sell bread into November. October, November and December are always busy with seasonal items and holiday gi giving. This year was no excepon and we had great sales. In December, we collected coats and outerwear for children and donated them to VCAM. Considering all that has taken place this year, those of us working at Twice Blessed truly feel twice blessed. If you have some me and would like to be a part of this wonderful ministry, please stop by and talk to us.Kathy BowenTwice Blessed Showroom, Board PresidentTwice Blessed Showroom
Youth MinistryAs you can imagine from the other complicaons we’ve faced as a church with rethinking worship, Sunday school gatherings, and events, these last 10 months have been quite a bit dierent and a bit challenging for our youth ministry. We made signicant aempts in the spring at moving to a virtual ministry with the onset of the coronavirus, but those were short-lived as we struggled to gain tracon and to maintain the interest of our young people. It also became apparent that our mission trips along with other summer plans were just not going to be possible this year. As COVID connued to keep us apart, we worried about what kind of toll it would have on the momentum we had been gathering since last fall and if we’d essenally have to start over again once we were able to start meeng in person.But God has been incredibly faithful in the midst of everything going on and has given us much to celebrate, especially these last 4 months. As summer was coming to an end, we decided to try a few outdoor events to get our youth back together again, and we could not have been more surprised at what we saw. At our 1st of 2 movie nights we had 23 people show up, including 12 youth! We followed that up with a Splash Bash event with a bunch of water games to welcome our new 6th graders, and we had 7 new youth get connected! And, at our 2nd movie night, we had 19 youth show up! 19! And what was even beer was that we knew we had more coming because that number didn’t include all of our regulars or all of our new 6th graders!The start of school slowed us down a bit again as we chose to briey resume virtual youth ministry while waing to see how the schools would fare, but we have been back in person now for over 2 months and things are going great! We’ve got our group on a 4-week rotang schedule with about half of our group meeng each week (high school, then middle school, then boys, and then girls), and we connue to see lots of parcipaon. We’ve had 26 youth parcipate at some level in the program this fall, some regulars and some friends that they have brought with them, which is huge considering that we had only half of that last fall and averaged only 7 on a given week! And since we began meeng in person, we’ve also averaged more youth with only half of our group meeng at a me than we did last fall when we had our whole group meeng every week!On top of our regular numbers, we have 16 youth signed up and commied to aending our mission trip this coming June! We’re heading to Alamosa, Colorado in 2021 to do some hands-on service with some local ministries there, and we’ll be doing things like working in gardens to meet food needs, doing home repair projects, and running a kids club in a rural community in the Valley. It’s going to be a great discipleship opportunity for our youth, and we look forward to bringing the congregaon into partnership with us as we ramp up our fundraising eorts to help get them there.One more excing thing that we’re working on with our youth ministry is that we’ve been revisioning and strategizing to take our youth ministry to a whole new level. Pastor Wade and I met with several folks earlier this fall about the future of our youth program and how we can begin moving it from being an isolated, stand-alone ministry within the church to one that becomes a truly whole-church, relaonal ministry. We began a conversaon around solidifying our mission and core values—our purpose—for this ministry, and about how we can connue to strengthen and grow what we’re doing by increasing our points of connecon between the youth and the rest of the congregaon. And as this vision develops more, we look forward to bringing the congregaon alongside us as an integral part of helping to love on and grow these amazing young people in their faith.We are so excited about what God is doing in this ministry with our youth right now, and about the growth we are seeing in spite of this pandemic. It’s been a strange and challenging year, but God has sll been doing some amazing stu within our youth ministry!Rev. Ryan JensonAssociate Pastor and Director of Youth MinistriesYOUTH
Youth Ministry
Children’s Ministriesbegan with a couple of dierent surveys through email to gather informaon on children’s ministries. The ‘Women 2 Women’ ministry group formed and was able to meet several mes before everything shut down. We even managed to do a couple of studies via Zoom unl we broke for the summer.Not being able to do anything in person, technology has been a huge piece of my job since March. I started with daily challenges and bible verses on Facebook. One of my favorites was to paint a rock from your yard with a message of hope and love and leave it for someone to nd. The Bible verse was “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior.” Psalms 18:2. I did a photo scavenger hunt in April, where families would take a picture of an item they thought answered the clue and upload it to the post. I later did one for Easter the same way. There was a month of Prayer for Kids and 31 Days of Prayer for parents, teachers, sta and school administrators leading up to the rst day of school. Back before Easter I started mailing acvity packages to the kids to try and stay connected (i.e. worship bullens, a COVID-19-me capsule packet, sermon notes, coloring books, sckers, a monthly acvies calendar for the family, masks, candy, etc.) One of the biggest challenges is that children’s ministries covers children age 0 through 5th grade. In other words, one size doesn’t t all. Finding material relevant for all ages doesn’t exist, so I had to get prey creave with what I put in them. Some families have mulple kids, some have girls, and some have boys or both with all dierent ages, so no two packages were the same. We have nearly 70 kids spread out over 40 families in our church directory. In June, about 20 families registered for our quaranne friendly virtual vacaon Bible school. With minimal preparaon, easy-to-follow instrucons, and a video that led parents and kids step-by-step through each of the 3 days, BOLT was easy and super fun for families to do at home. They parcipated in games, cras, music and lessons that illustrated what it means to listen to, focus on, and follow Jesus. For Sunday School I found some really great video curriculum that I would post on Facebook on Sunday mornings. Materials were mailed that would help families go deeper into the lesson. Our friend, Scooter, made his re-appearance in April. He was a regular during children’s Sunday School three or four years ago, but I thought it would be fun to invite him back. Together, he and I made a bunch of 2020
children’s sermon videos. He and several friends also helped me with a special Easter video, “The Virus that Stole Easter,” and a Mother’s Day video greeng. Pastor Wade built him a really cool puppet theatre – of course I had to give it my creave nishing touch. And if that wasn’t enough, Scooter started wring a Blog in July that can be found on the FUMC website.I was thrilled to be able to have promoon Sunday in person in September. Two of our seven 3rd graders received their new bibles in worship. We weren’t able to send our 5th graders o into youth as we normally do, so bags were delivered with a special gi for each student. We also did a blessing of the backpack tags before school started - the tags were mailed with the acvity packages for September. When in-person worship started back I decided to change the way I was doing children’s worship packets. They are now in Ziploc bags that can be picked up on the way into worship and taken home aer the service. I connue to serve on the Board of Methodist Day School. Acvity is limited, but we were able to do our MDS prayer partner cards in September and deliver cookies to the sta prior to school starng. Liz Parker was hired in November as our new Nursery Coordinator, and together, we have hired three new caregivers for the infant and toddler nurseries. We hit the ground running on November 29th when we opened the nurseries and re-started children’s Sunday School with a series on Advent, which will run through December 27th with a birthday party for Jesus.Brooke MercerDirector of Children’s Ministries*New email address: brookemercer@fumcvictoria.comChildren’s Ministries
The Pumpkin Patch at FUMC Victoria enjoys a 28-year history. Originated as a fundraising acvity for the youth groups in the church, Pumpkin Patch has expanded the outreach to include food pantries and specic idened needs within our church and community. By far, the largest percentage of funds earned go to support children and youth. In the last few years, The Pumpkin Patch Team has returned 60% of the revenue to Pumpkin Patch USA who supplies the pumpkins grown on a Navajo Indian Reservaon in Farmington, New Mexico. In cooperaon with the Navajo Naon, they grow 1,200 acres of pumpkins, employing over 700 workers during harvest months of September and October and keeping some full me o-season sta comprised enrely of Nave Americans in a region with a 42% unemployment rate. Funds from The Patch have supported children aending summer camps, youth aending mission trips and spiritual retreat weekends in the winter. Funds have supported the scoung acvies of our church sponsored scout troop from helping scouts meet the rising cost of parcipaon/registraon fees to purchasing tents, Dutch ovens, lanterns, and other camping supplies to helping fund high adventure trips. The Patch on Opening Day 2019 with over 3,500 pumpkins in our yard! In 2019, FUMC Victoria returned $18,242.46 while prong (including sales, donaons, and Pumpkin bread) $16,116,67The Pumpkin PatchMany non-prot organizaons and churches experienced nancial dicules in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our church did not and for that we are grateful to every one of you. FUMC Victoria applied for and received a payroll protecon program loan for 89,249.39. This loan was forgiven because we were able to maintain our payroll and sta throughout the loan period. Our Wesley Nurse ministry applied for and received two grants totaling $51,000 so that those in our community could connue to receive medical and prescripon assistance while keeping our Wesley Nurse and volunteers safe. The overwhelming generosity of our congregaon is amazing. We stayed current on loan payments with Texas Methodist Foundaon and paid our apporonments in full in November. Not only were we nancially stable during this me of uncertainty, we also were blessed to be able to make many updates to our campus, expand our ministries, upgrade our technology and connue to spread the word of Jesus throughout our congregaon and community. Ministries connued, albeit in a very dierent way. In addion to supporng our church and ministries, the response of our congregaon to other organizaons was heartwarming. Examples include $14,762.50 to Christ’s Kitchen, $4,387.50 to VCAM, $2,950 to FUMC Orange for Hurricane Laura recovery eorts, $2,240 to UMCOR and many other communion oerings.Our 2021 Mission Plan was approved by Church Council and we look forward to expanding and deepening our ministries in this new year. Your connued support enables us to Be The Church in so many ways. Blessings to you all this new year! Finance Committee
2020 has been an eye opener for Methodist Day School and one the sta, students, and parents will never forget. In March of 2020, the MDS Board of Directors were tasked with the tough decision of the school's fate. Aer deliberaon, meengs, and LOTS of prayers the board decided to close the school doors for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. The health and wellness of ALL involved at the school was the key focus and leading decider of what the school should do. During the summer, the board connued to meet and formulate a plan to reopen in August 2020 and was successful with a plan. With LOTS of new state COVID regulaons and guidelines, MDS successfully reopened on August 19, 2020 eager and excited to connue to share God's love with the students. The sta deep cleaned each class, prepared for the new normal, and has taken the school year day by day. We are thankful and so happy to say the health and wellness of the sta and students has been overwhelmingly posive. We ask that you connue to pray for the sta and students and look forward to the opportunity to connue MDS tradions in the future. Methodist Day School
2020 was certainly a year unprecedented. When COVID 19 hit our service areas we were asked to stay dedicated by MHM and be paent. With this we remained steadfast in serving our communies for the least served with great exibility amidst a constantly changing landscape. My phone from the oce was transferring all calls to my personal cell phone at home in Cuero the enre me during the pandemic and connues connected to me. This meant elding calls all days of the week as well as aer hours as individuals were stressed and in dire need of various services with unemployment and some with no income means. Methodist Healthcare Ministries contacted all of their Wesley Nurses and inquired as to what was not being provided as services to our clients and I replied that our Free Clinic with Texas A &M was being closed and access to care for the underserved was not available as well as other services from the clinic. This was of utmost importance to MHM to provide nancial assistance to access care. We then were asked to apply to the grants department. I was blessed with two very generous grants from Methodist Healthcare Ministries to support our Victoria community during the past 8—9 months. I thank them for their dedicaon for our ministries to the 72 counes of the district. MHM has granted over 4 million during the pandemic to the 72 counes and this includes a grant to Christ’s Kitchen and the Victoria Food Bank. I have been humbled and proud to witness the way each of us at MHM responded to this crisis. Each of us created soluons and demonstrang an unshakable commitment to connue providing access to care for those that need us most. Whether we delivered diabec supplies to homes where transportaon was unaainable, mailed supplies to homes out of town, or le supplies outside the WN building where no contact was at risk, diabec supplies were not halted during this me at all. Our free clinic was not held for over 8 months with Texas A &M Medical School residents and therefore the WN accessed funding for many individuals with no insurance to go to the residents that pracce at DeTar Family Clinic and MHM covered the visits as well as MHM covering the lab studies at CPL lab for these underserved individuals. Prescripon Assistance was overwhelmed for the past 8 months at the local pharmacy during this pandemic. Our pharmacy bill has been averaging over $4000.00 a month during this me and this has also been covered with the WN grant from MHM as well. In support of our services, the mission to build a healthier community together, we were proud to partner with local non-prot organizaons and provide nancial support to improve the health of the Victoria community. These organizaons included Be Well Victoria, Victoria Homeless Coalion, Christ’s Kitchen, Victoria Chrisan Assistance Ministries. These organizaons were instrumental in locang the underserved individuals that rely on the emergency room for their medical needs and have no access to care otherwise. A great majority of the referrals to the WN had not seen a doctor in many years and suered with mulple chronic disease states. Through the grant funding the community was impacted with medical visits to a Primary Care Provider totaling hundreds of paents. Many of these individuals have resided in molded rooms of a motel for the past three years since Hurricane Harvey and have not seen a doctor for many years, one individual remarked it was over a decade. These individuals have not only had inial visits but with funding and aer lab studies done had follow-up PCP visits and medicaons that have desperately been needed, especially those that were diabecs. The number of paents that were accessed an ophthalmology visit was over 100 with glasses also being received. Most of the paents that needed a visit to an eye specialist were diabecs and had not seen an eye doctor in years and had developed renopathy complicaons.The challenges of my ministry during this pandemic was keeping abreast of all the paent visits, rescheduling appointments, making sure paents received transportaon to visits, and geng checks to these mulple enes daily. I found myself wring check aer check and traveling over several mes a week for paent needs. I was reimbursed by Heather weekly. Our church ministry reached so many new uninsured paents with the incepon of Be Well Victoria. As we remain diligently focused on how best to care for the most vulnerable in our community amidst COVID 19 public health concerns, we want to provide all of you with informaon on how Methodist Healthcare Wesley Nurse
Ministries is priorizing team member and paent safety. With everyone’s health as a primary goal, we screen all paents prior to being able to enter the building. We as Wesley Nurses must do a prescreening on the computer prior to leaving our home daily. If no indicators are found paents as well as the Wesley Nurse can report into the building.On top of the standard cleaning performed in our oces we are now performing extra cleaning daily and aer each paent visit. We are equipped with a hand sanizer staon as well as implemenng industrial disinfectant sprays. Mandatory masks are required of all those entering the building and keeping 6 feet or greater.Our lives have dramacally changed with COVID 19 but we persevered, stayed strong, and the commitment to serve connued. As of December 1,2020, I have over 1500 paents entered in the computer for this year and one month to go. Prescripon Assistance is once again at the forefront of the needs to these individuals that have no insurance and numerous disease states. Although the uncertainty remains, the constant is how each of us connue to press forward to fulll our mission of “Serving Humanity to Honor God” in remarkable ways. May we each connue to be used by God as we work to improve the wellness of the least served. I am so very blessed to serve here at FUMC and the enre Victoria community. Many connued blessings to each of you and your families in 2021. Grace and Peace,Kathy Frels BSNRNWesley NurseCongregational CareOne of the goals of the Congregaonal Care Commiee (CCC) is to communicate with church members. Members of CCC have stayed in touch with phone calls, texts, emails, ecards, cards and hand painted postcards. The CCC helped with the New Members Luncheon aer church on February 23, 2020. Homebound Communion came to a halt in April, 2020 due to COVID 19. A modied homebound communion started back up in September. Rev. Wade Powell, Rebecca Thornbury, Becky McKenzie, Linda and Hugh Hanes have been delivering communion and "The Upper Room" safely to peoples doors. Normally, the CCC would have had a breakfast for the graduang high school seniors and their families in May. Hopefully we will be able to honor the graduang seniors in 2021. CCC members wrote personal notes that were included in care packages Pastor Ryan sent to all the college students. We hope to connue this ministry. Christmas bags for the homebound were dierent this year This year we suprised many people of the congregaon with beauful poinseas at the beginning of December. Although we are not able to visit in person or hug you, you are in our thoughts and prayers.Wesley Nurse
Administrative• Schedule of required annual reviews ap-proved• Service contracts reviewed, updated and documented• Handicap Accessibility Audit of the entire campus was documented• Electrical Power Assessment was complet-ed to provide a thorough safety and func-tionality survey of all incoming power and its distribution through out our entire campus. Minor issues were corrected immediately, while more extensive work required on the Education Building main power equipment will be planned, funded and completed in 2021.• Investment funds at Texas Methodist Foun-dation and Prosperity Bank have been reviewed and documented. Distributions have been placed in new, usable accounts that mature in 2021 and 2022 and will be utilized to grow our church and our mission.Parsonage• Exterior repairs of the bay windows were completed• Trees were trimmed• Interior received new plumbing xtures and blindsSecurity• Wesley Nurse entrance security system is in place• Wesley Hall entrance light is now on a timer for safe entrance & exit• An 8-foot cedar fence will be erected be-tween the Children’s Ministry Center and the 505 Bridge Street property Interior Improvements• Sanctuary HVAC system was replaced.• First Connect room was remodeled and is ready for use• All tile oors in the main building, Christian Life Center and Education Building have been stripped and waxed• Wesley Hall and downstairs areas of the Education Building were painted• The ATTIC has been painted and is ready for the youth this coming year• The kitchen received a new stove and is ready for service to our congregation• Wesley Nurse facilities – the two-room suite has new furniture, more electrical outlets and has been painted. The area has been streamlined to handle the increasing needs of this excellent ministryExterior Improvements• Parking lots were re-striped, handicap logs and tire stops repainted.• Steps and external handrails repainted• Fire Escape cleaned and repainted• External doors inspected, repaired, sanded and repainted as needed• Ramp at the north end of the Education Building porch replaced• Sidewalks, steps and ramps pressure washed• Education Building porch and walkway has a new anti-slip surface• Three new benches are in place at the main entrance generously purchased by the Pumpkin Patch.• Main parking lot peninsula was cleaned out and replanted• Alley cleaned and accessible after shower trailer was removedWith fewer in-person activities due to COVID-19 this past year, the Trustees took the opportunity to complete needed updates and repairs to our facilities. As the new year begins, we are pleased to report the following accomplishments:Trustee’s Report We hope to see you all in 2021 and that you will all enjoy our beautiful campus!
United Methodist WomenSocial DistancingUMWWe could not meet in April – August because of the pandemic. The teachers at Shields School wanted stued animals for all the Kindergarten and First Graders aer they returned to the classrooms. Many of the children had had traumac experiences and the animals would be a way to give them some security. The UMW purchased these animals and they were delivered to Shields on the rst day of virtual instrucon in September. Because the animals were small, the children were able to put them on their desks.With no meengs nor worship services, Joyce Brown President sent out leers to the members as a way to keep in touch since some do not have computers. They contained informaon about what members were doing, illnesses, and church news. These leers were well-liked, so she connued sending them aer we resumed meengs in September.Our church hosted the Crossroads District UMW meeng in September both in-person and by Zoom. Cindy Powell was elected Treasurer for 2021 and 2022, and Kathy Hunt from our church was elected President.
School MinistryWe started this year with big plans and then a pandemic showed up. It’s hard to imagine a school ministry that involves social distancing. Our ministry has always been hands on at Shields Elementary. This year was so very dierent, but sll so very inspiring.As teachers scrambled to gure out how to educate children when schools were shut down in the spring, we stepped up to support our teachers by treang them all to lunch delivered from Jason’s Deli and providing them all with gi cards from Vela Farms for Teacher Appreciaon Week. With high hopes that the 2020-2021 school year would be back to normal, we connued to plan for the new school year. Since we couldn’t all gather in Wesley Hall for our annual Teacher Luncheon, we decided to have a Teacher Breakfast at the school for all teachers and sta. They enjoyed breakfast tacos and a wide variety of breakfast rolls and snacks. The next week, we delivered back to school boxes for the teachers lled with goodies. And because we are all sll children at heart, Kona-Ice visited the school next and we treated everyone to sno-cones! We joined with the United Methodist Women in providing back to school gis of stued animals and prayer rocks for the students. As the teachers and students adjusted to new schedules and new technology and new ways of learning, we provided snacks for the students and had a coat drive for those that were without warm jackets. We closed out the year with our annual Christmas Store and giving tree. Children shopped for their loved ones in our Christmas store and their gis were wrapped and labeled for them to take home. One lile boy picked a cross necklace for his mom because she had a serious illness and had been hospitalized. He told us that he wasn’t scared, because he and his mom had faith that she would be okay. Santa arrived at Shields to read the story of baby Jesus and to pass out all the gis purchased from your generous donaons. Every child received a gi……Every child was thankful……Every heart was full. Even during these strange mes of 2020, FUMC connues to spread the love of Jesus through the halls of Shields Elementary. We are looking forward to many acvies at the school during the new year. Your faithful support of this ministry is changing lives, lling hearts and impacng so many.
They Zoomed the Conference Men’s RetreatThey are Building Ramps!They are Building More Ramps!They are Building Ramps and More Ramps!They Taught Youth Car Repair & MaintenanceMethodist MenThey are Working at Christ’s KitchenWhat have the Methodist Men been up to?
January - December 2020Wade Powell ..............................................................Senior PastorRyan Jenson ......................................................... Associate PastorWill Durham ..................................Contemporary Worship Leader Ashley Hunter ..........................................................Music DirectorKeith Cox................................................. Associate Music DirectorBrooke Mercer ............................. Director of Children’s MinistriesLiz Parker ............................................................. Nursery DirectorRebecca Thornbury ......................................................... SecretaryHeather Linville.................................................. Business ManagerJennifer Burriss .............................. Methodist Day School DirectorHarlan Greene ................................................................ CustodianKathy Frels ..............................Methodist Ministries Wesley NurseCameo Mead ............................... Methodist Ministries CounselorYour thoughts for the coming year__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________