Pastor's Corner

Pastor’s Corner
Hello friends and members; grace and peace be yours in this summer season! I write to bring you up to date on what is happening in our church, and to inspire us all to seek the Lord in prayer and all the means of grace. The finances in this church for current expenses are fine but not great in keeping up with the careful budget our Council created for the year. Having previously lost staff positions of Christian Education for adults and children, those funds were not put into our budget. Still, although giving is up from last year: we would have to raise more funds to hire more staff. We have been committed to paying our full apportionments, sharing ministries in our area and around the world.
Our missions giving is at an all-time high with great local and global needs being met through you! Thank you for your donations of time and money to build up the body of Christ and do his bidding to help our neighbors! Meals on Wheels, Border Buddies, African Doctors, Ethnic Minorities, the Local Poor, and Hungry families have been helped through you!
The larger denomination made some substantial decisions at the May 2024 General Conference held in Charlotte, NC. Promoted by our Council of Bishops as a “new mission, new focus, and new purpose for our work in the 21st century,” the definition of Christian marriage was changed to include same – sex spouses. The door was opened for single and married gay and straight clergy to lead our churches, and for gay weddings to occur in our sanctuaries. Another decision removed the clergy standard of “celibacy in singleness and fidelity in marriage,” a surprising example of adapting church rules to match the values of our culture. A plan to allow each region of the world to add definitions to Christian marriage according to their cultural context was set in place. On May 8 I shared with the congregation what resources you can use to follow all the United Methodist changes as we go forward. Now that the Book of Discipline has changed so drastically, each clergy and lay person will have to discern God’s calling anew. Quite a number (25%) of our churches have disaffiliated over the past two years; many of those have gone to a new denomination called Global Methodist and some have become independent churches.
Please be informed of all the changes and the new directions of the ministry of the United Methodist church. The official news source is umnews.org and you can get on their email list for no cost. Another major source close to home is our conference website unyumc.org. I invite you again into the ministry of Christ happening here and around the world. Below are events we invite you to invite a friend to.
In Prayer with you, Pastor Jeff McDowell