WELLSVILLE UMC NEWSLETTER

Transcription

1 WELLSVILLE UMC NEWSLETTER August 2016 Wellsville United Methodist Church Home Address: 302 Locust Street Rev. Kathy Symes P. O. Box Edgewood Drive Wellsville, KS Wellsville, KS Web Site Cell And we re on Facebook Sunday 10:45 am & Wednesday 7:00 pm Worship -- 9:30 am Sunday School Mission Statement: Knowing Christ and Making Christ Known A Stephen Ministry Church * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * POTLUCK SUNDAY POTLUCK AUGUST 14 Bring something to share and have some great fellowship time! Don t forget the Wellsville Retirement Community Service Sunday, August 7, 1:30. The residents love it! HELP US IMPROVE THE APPEARANCE OF YOUR CHURCH AND KEEP IT THAT WAY! SEPT. NEWSLETTER DEADLINE August 29 th, noon Keep everyone up-to-date and informed. Submit a newsletter article. Day Lites COMBINED MEETING IN AUGUST Nite Lites Saturday, August 13, 9:00 am Camp, Annual Conference & Institute participants will share their experiences with us. Office Hours Monday-Friday 9:00-12:00 STEPHEN MINISTRY Please call Beth Watson at , Kathy Symes at , Ruth Fleming at , or Wellsville UMC for a consultation. Keep sending your current addresses. Please contact the office. umcwellsville@embarqmail.com

2 If anyone has clothing donations for HOPE HOUSE (new, old as long as it is usable), please put in the red bin in Westover Room. Diana Jarrell will pick it up on Sunday and deliver it the next week. Christian Education NEWS Youth Sunday School has been suspended until school starts back up. See you then! Outreach/Mission Continue to bring paper goods such as toilet paper, paper towels, Puffs, and diapers. A table will be set up in the Westover Room. Thank you for your continued support. Harvester s Drive-Thru is Friday, August 19, 9:00 am. The regular distribution is Saturday, August 20, 10:15 am. If you wish to help, please be there at 9:30. MEMBERS SPECIAL DAYS AUGUST Anniversary Gary & Sharon Hart 7 Scott & Jenny Harris 7 Harley & Janet Broers 9 Brandon & Kristal Crist 21 Brent & Heidi Dubois 28 Birthday Olivia Good 1 Kyleigh Crist 2 Chevy DeVore 2 Doyle Childs 3 Aiden Manny 3 Roxie Kelly 4 Mary O Neil 4 Liz Moherman 4 Carol Coonley 4 Sharon Sappenfield 8 Heather Lawrenz 8 Darrell Childs 9 Larry Harris 9 Nicholas Rader 11 Mindy Stites 12 Larry Louise Fowler 22 Catherine Neslage 26 Nadine Price 27 Sandy Early 27 Randy Bailey 29 CONTINUED PRAYERS Each week we have a list of prayer requests in our bulletin. We thought that we could open this up to anyone who gets the newsletter. These are church members and their immediate families: Jordan Brunk Bill Casselman Theresa Chancellor Charles Cook Gayle Cook Susan Saner Davenport Susan Key Keith McIlwain Gary Milroy Jane Thompson JW & Dorothy Tomlinson And our members at the Wellsville Retirement Community: Ollidean Bradbury Bernadine Broers Louise Burgoon Louise Clayton Letha Lytle Sarah Sturm Renate Watts To the members of WUMC, I want to sincerely thank you all for the scholarship awarded to me to further my schooling. I am continuing my education at the University of Kansas, majoring in Pre-Nursing. The congregation's never-ending support of my journey through life means the world to me. I am so proud to call Wellsville United Methodist Church my home church. Blessings, Hailey Watson Hello All! I m writing this from the 2016 Great Plains Licensing School in beautiful Great Bend Kansas. I m here from Sunday afternoon till Friday afternoon. I realize

3 some of you may be thinking there she goes again and wondering why I m so involved outside the local church. The most basic answer is: Because the United Methodist Church is a connectional church. Every church is connected to the other. We are there for each other! Did you know that we average between 20 and 30 new pastors coming into the conference each year? Someone has to prepare them for work within the local church. Part of that preparation is Licensing School. After two weeks of classroom studies, if they pass, they will be issued a license to preach. My role is one of the three Deans of the school. As Dean I find the instructors for the week where I serve as primary Dean, I put together the schedule, work with the retreat center, put together evaluations and make sure there is plenty of coffee! This is important work. Every church wants a well-trained pastor and it begins at licensing school. This role is a Great Plains conference position. Another position I serve in is as the District Committee on Ministry (DCOM) Registrar. As Registrar I keep track of all the paperwork of all local pastors within the Five Rivers District. Each local pastor is required to meet annually with the DCOM for an interview. The interview is done by laity and clergy within the district. (If you re interested in serving as a lay interviewer, let me know!) The DCOM meets in the fall and spring at Wellsville UMC. This, too, is important work. Again, every church wants a well-trained pastor and the DCOM watches their sermons, discusses their theology, discusses their work within their appointed church and has access to their evaluations. This position is a Five Rivers District position, under the umbrella of the conference registrar. Finally, I serve as the Small Membership liaison on the Connecting Council. The Connecting Council is the executive committee of the Great Plains conference and we are charged with making decisions for the Conference between the Annual Conference typically held in late May/early June. The Connecting Council meets fall and spring. If a decision needs to be made between those face-to-face meetings, we do votes. Yes, this is important work. As the Small Membership liaison I am your voice! I am able to work with the Bishop and the Cabinet to keep our issues front and center. This is a Great Plains Conference position. So, this may be more information than you wanted, but I believe in transparency and wanted a chance to let you know what these other positions are and why I choose to serve in these other capacities. I believe these are all important to the entire church because we are a connectional church! Another example of being a connectional church: Recently, the parsonage was hit by a hailstorm that did extensive damage to the roof. Each church has a $5000 deductible! The Trustee Chair, Walter Key, made a few phone calls and low and behold we received a $2500 grant to apply towards the deductible. That s part of being a connectional church. One more example: This year our Church Conference will be held on Sunday November 6 th from 3-5 pm at Lawrence First Church, west campus. There will be approximately 11 churches at the conference. It is vitally important that all Church Council/One Board Members plan on attending. I have spoken with other pastors about how their members have responded to these types of large cluster conferences. And the answer was the first year not so much but since that first year they have great attendance because they have gotten to know other members from around the district and they have gotten some good ideas from the other churches. So, put the date on the calendar! Let s skip the first year low attendance mark and let s make this a banner year for the church! Because WE ARE A CON- NECTIONAL CHURCH! And we should celebrate that! See you Sunday! Pastor Kathy

4 NEW WEDNEDAY NIGHT WORSHIP SERIES Come for the next 5 Wednesday Worship Services and share in this study. The first lesson is Wednesday, August 3, 7:00 pm. This should be very thought provoking! UNOFFCIAL CHURCH COUNCIL MINUTES There was no meeting in July TRUSTEE IDEA BOX In the Westover Room, there is a box for any ideas you may have for the Trustees to consider. All we ask is that you use your name and phone number so we may get back to you. This Is a Tobacco-Free, Firearm-Free, Alcohol-Free, Drug-Free Campus. Remember to save *Best Choice labels *Education Boxtops *Campbell soup labels *Ring Tops from any can for the schools NEW BIBLE STUDY Pastor Kathy will be leading a new Bible study in the choir room beginning Wednesday, August 10, from 6:00-6:50 pm. Grace is the key emphasis of the United Methodist tradition. What types of grace are there and can grace make a difference in our relationship with God and with others? The most effective way to ensure the value of the future is to confront the present courageously and constructively. by Rollo May Fab Five Fall Festival Saturday, October 1st Iola: Wesley UMC 301 E Madison Iola, KS 9:30 am - 2:00 pm to Discipleship Rev. Dr. David Lowes Watson CEU s are available with prior request. Let us know if you plan to attend. Enjoy a 5R District worship service. Box lunch (free will offering) Baker Speech Choir performance Theme: Building Relationships That Lead to Discipleship.

5 Finance Meeting On Monday, August 1 st, the Finance Committee met. Our goal was to look at the budget in a new way so that we may explore a better practice for dealing with the churches finances. We already knew that giving fluctuates throughout the year yet our budget goal remains the same each month. We looked back at giving on a month-to-month basis over the last seven years so that we could see patterns. And through those patterns, we can see what percentage of the budget we can expect each month. This will be a closer estimate than just figuring 1/12th of the budget. We will use this practice when setting up the budget for We also met to discuss what has finally happened. The church has seen a downward swing in giving for the last six years. But we were always able to just squeak by. This month was our biggest deficit yet, even though our giving was on par to what it has been. After paying payroll, we were left with a balance of $ before paying our bills. Our bills for the month of July totaled $2033. And we have not paid our Mission and Ministry (apportionments) obligation in four months (totaling $ ). After much discussion, it was decided that this was an emergency that called for pulling money from the emergency fund savings account. To a majority of the committee it seemed obvious that when you have $13,008 in savings and cannot meet your monthly obligations it s time to pull from savings. So as not to drain the emergency fund we decided to transfer $ to our checking account: $ (bills) + $ (3 months M&M). Three months was decided upon because even though that would leave us one month behind at least we would have one-half of our annual obligation paid up. In some ways though, the decision to pay 3 months of our Mission & Ministry obligation was a hard one, however if you have not yet read this month s article, please do so. The United Methodist Church is a connectional church. Part of that connection is paying a tithe (10%) to the conference from our monthly giving. I realize that in the past this was paid in December which is our biggest giving month. But consider this: what if the majority of our members did not give an offering until December? How would we function? The same is true for the conference. Missions and ministry is a year round function of the conference, so our giving should be year round as well. So what are our next steps? First, we knew we needed to share this with the congregation. After that, some of it is up to you. We need to all ask ourselves a few questions. 1) Is this church important to you? 2) Is it enough to just pay our bills? Leaving nothing for ministry? 3) Would Wellsville suffer without us? Would the world? Please be in prayer over the finances of the church. I would love to hear your thoughts. Please give me a call, me or come in for a sit down. In Christ s Service, Pastor Kathy

6 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Calling all of those who might like to help us after each Sunday Worship!!! We need 2 people each Sunday to count the cash in the offering plate. This is the CASH ONLY. Most of the time, the cash is under $50. You need to count the cash, make the deposit slips, and deliver it to the bank s night depository box. It is really quite simple. You don t have to do anything with the checks nor do you have to record anything on the givers records. To qualify for this job, you cannot be on the Finance Committee or related to anyone on the Finance Committee. If you are interested, contact Rachel Boley, Finance Chair, Pastor Kathy, or the church office. We will make a sign-up sheet for this so we know for sure that we have someone available to do this each week. Thank you for your consideration. Not All Seniors Are Senile! An elderly couple was celebrating their 60 th wedding anniversary. They were childhood sweethearts and moved back to their old neighborhood after retiring. Holding hands one May evening, they walked back to their old grade school. As it was not locked, they entered, peeked into an old storeroom and found the desk they d once shared, where Andy had carved I love you, Sally. On their way back home, their pleasant memories and conversation were interrupted when a bag of money fell out of an armored car, practically landing at their feet. Not sure exactly what to do with it, they picked it up and took it home. Sally counted the money: $50,000! Andy said, Sally, we ve got to give it back. Sally said, Uh-uh. Finders keepers! and hid the money in the attic. The next day, two FBI agents were canvassing the neighborhood, looking for the lost money. When Andy answered the door, an agent said, Pardon me, folks, but did either of you find a bag of money that fell out of an armored car yesterday? Without missing a beat, Sally said, No. Flabbergasted, Andy said, She s lying! She hid it up in the attic. Sally replied, Don t believe him, Agent. He s getting senile. The agents turned to Andy and said, OK, sir. Please just tell us the story from the beginning Andy said, Well, when Sally and I were walking home from grade school yesterday... The first FBI guy glanced at his partner and sally, shook his head and said, We re outta here

7 Wellsville United Methodist Church P. O. Box 458 Wellsville, KS Address Service Requested