Planning for 2023-24
We had a great planning meeting this past week! We’ve laid out plans for the following year that include some exciting events! One of the biggest is the return of the Grace Christmas Fair schedule for December 2nd! You can see some of the other great events scheduled below (please note, some dates and times are tentative). You’ll also find a survey link here to hear some of your thoughts and suggestions for worship, including sermon suggestions for the next year. Remember, if you have an event and want to advertise for it, head to the calendar page to fill in the form!
Grace Church Calendar 2023-2024
January (2024)
January 15th Nursery School Closed
January 21st Family Promise
Game Night
Movie Club
Mid Winter Advance
February
February 9th Parents Night Out
February 10th Grandparents Social
February 11th Souper Bowl
February 13th Fat Tuesday Pancake Dinner
Easter Lilies
Movie Club
Souper Bowl Collection
March
March 17th Family Promise
March 28th Living Last Supper
March 30th Easter Egg Hunt
Movie Club
April
CUMAC Egg Carton & Reusable Bag Collection
Volunteer Reception Breakfast
Family Kickball
Movie Club
May
May 10th Mother’s Day Tea
May 10th Parents Night Out
May 19th Family Promise
Movie Club
June
June 5th Nursery School Picnic
June 7th Nursery School Graduation
Summer Camp
Movie Night
Movie Club
July
Summer Camp
Food Drive
August
Building Closed August 19-23
Summer Camp
VBS Summer Camp
Back Packs for Camp YDP
Movie Club
July (2023)
July 15th Food Drive
July 17-21 VBS Summer Camp (9-12pm)
July 21st Youth Group Mid-Summer Gathering (6-9pm)
July 23rd Family Promise
CUMAC Cereal Collection
Movie Club
August
August 14-18 Building Closed
August 22 Mum Sale
Back Pack Drive for Camp YDP
CUMAC PB & J
Movie Club
September
September 10th Founders Day
September 10th Block Party
September 11th First Day of Nursery School
September 15th Jr. High Group (7-8:30pm)
September 17th Sr. High Group (5:30-7:30pm)
September 22nd Parents Night Out (5-9pm)
September 29-10/1 Ignite Youth Conference
September 29-10/1 Women’s Retreat
CUMAC Canned Meat
Movie Club
Grad Group?
October
October 7th Dads & Donuts (NS, 10/14 Raindate)
October 15th Family Promise
October 21st Muffins with Mom
October 22nd Personal Hygiene Kits
October 23-24 Nursery School Closed
October 31st Nursery School Trunk or Treat
CUMAC Pasta & Sauce
Movie Club
November
November 1st Wreath Sale
November 9-10 Nursery School Closed (NJ Teacher Convention)
Thanks for Giving Food Drive
Movie Club
Poinsettias
December
December 2nd Christmas Fair (9-3pm)
December 9th Cookie Walk (10am)
December 16th Parents Night Out (5-9pm)
Stockings Full of Joy
Movie Club
?Advent Family Workshop?
?Lessons and Carols?
The Grace Nursery School
As many of you know, the Grace Nursery School is a phenomenal 5-day preschool program. Since its creation in 1965, Grace has blessed so many families, including both children and their parents. The nursery school began as a ministry of Grace United Methodist Church, which continues to provide oversight to the school. We look forward to continuing the rich traditions of Grace, even after the pandemic and the many changes since. That is why it brings us such pain to announce the resignation of Amy Hofmann, the Grace Nursery School director. After faithfully leading Grace for 22 years, she will be relocating this summer to North Carolina to live closer to her daughter. We wish her the very best in this new adventure!
As the nursery school goes through this transition it falls to Grace United Methodist Church to guide the process of hiring a new director for the 2023-2024 school year. There is a staffing committee (SPRC) that will review candidates for the position, and the Nursery School Board, made up of members of Grace UMC who have experience in the teaching field, that will make the final decision of who to hire. We are very excited, however, that our head teacher, Donna Ernst, has submitted her name for consideration as the future director of Grace Nursery School and is our leading candidate. We will work quickly to have our new director in place as soon as possible so that you can be assured of the leadership of the school for your little one.
Know that you are in good hands as Grace Nursery School and Grace United Methodist Church work together to provide an excellent preschool program. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. You can reach me by phone or email using the information below or stop in my office during nursery school hours. God bless!
Sincerely,
Pastor Brian Neville
An Important Update as of May 15th, 2023
The Grace Nursery School is undergoing important changes. Amy Hofmann, the director at Grace Nursery School, announced her resignation on April 20th to move closer to her daughter in North Carolina. We have already offered our thanks for her service to the school, but we need to give a further update. As of May 11th Amy is on leave. During this interim period Patti McHugh, the Assistant Director, will be leading the nursery school.
In preparation for this transition the Staff/Parish Relations Committee (SPRC), which acts as the human resources department of the church, has worked in tandem with the Nursery School Board to select the next director for the Nursery School. Today we are excited to announce that Donna Ernst has accepted the position as the new director at the Grace Nursery School! Though she has already been busy preparing for the position, she will continue to work closely with Patti to begin in this new capacity at the end of the school year, June 12th.
As always, the Nursery School, at the direction of the director, will have full control of hiring teaching staff. Positions for the summer camp and 2023-2024 school year will be at the discretion of Donna Ernst. In the meantime, we invite you to direct any questions about summer camp, tuition and next year's registration to Patti McHugh.
Once again, we welcome Donna to this new role at the Grace Nursery School and thank our staff, parents and especially our wonderful students for making the Grace Nursery School a truly special place to be. God bless!
Sincerely,
Pastor Brian Neville
Brian Winiarski, SPRC chairperson
Bill DeBlock, NS Board chairperson
Custodial Services at Grace
We have said farewell to the ‘Steve Kay Cleaning Services’ team at Grace United Methodist Church. This outside company has served to clean the church for the last 16 years. Now, though, we attempt something new. We are going to try and hire our own custodian to do the work here at Grace. Some members have shared with me that ‘the old is new again.’ We once had exactly this situation previous to a cleaning service. We think this change will be good for the church for a number of reasons. One is that, by having our own hired custodian, we’ll be able to ask them to prepare space for us throughout the building. Need a table and chairs set up for a meeting after church? Ask the custodian! Need a space to be prepared for a presentation? Again, our custodian can do it! In the past we’ve always asked whoever was using the space to set up and tear down themselves. That meant sometimes we were asking a group of older women to set up and take down chairs themselves. That just didn’t seem like the right thing to do, so we are excited for this change.
Another good reason for this change is for some of the basic maintenance in the church building. You may have noticed some items and areas of the church have been neglected. Though our Trustees are doing several things to make critical upgrades, such as installing new doors and preparing work to be done on the steeple, many of the smaller tasks that could have been done by a custodian have been left undone. This transition from a cleaning service back to a custodian will allow those smaller projects to be completed.
Perhaps the best part of this change is that we are saving the church money! Between the added expenses for special projects and the fees for administration through an outside company, the cost for a cleaning service is higher than having a hired staff person. This is one small thing the church is doing to improve services, and make sure every dollar you give to the church is used as wisely as possible for the Kingdom of God. If you’d like to contact our new custodian you can email Nelson Perez at custodian@gumc.org. God bless!
In Christ,
Pastor Brian Neville
Did the Church Just Lose $45,000?
In short, no, the church did not just lose $45,000. A couple of weeks ago the finance committee met together to review the budget for the 2023 year. We had a very significant shortfall and many of us wondered “where did all the money go?” It took a little bit of sleuthing, but it turns out that a mistake was made all the way back in 2021. The income on our quickbooks program never properly displayed two numbers - Payroll Protection Program (PPP) and the allotment from the Nursery School. All year the numbers showed “0” dollars, despite thousands of dollars coming into the church. When the 2022 budget was put together the income for those areas was properly reported…but the extra income in the line items where that money actually showed up was never reduced. That meant our 2022 budget showed tens of thousands of dollars more than what it should have showed!
With that there is good news and bad news. The good news is that we managed to weather the financial situation in 2022 decently well. That means even with all the assumed income that wasn’t realized, we kept our expenses down enough that it wasn’t a problem. After fixing the numbers, and properly accounting for all of our income 2023 looks like it is slightly out of balance. We are still working to see if we can further reduce expenses to, again, balance the budget. The bad news is that in 2024 we will no longer have additional income from the government like we’ve had since the start of the Pandemic. PPP and ERTC money have helped us weather the storm financially for the last few years, and we’ll be perfectly fine this year, too, but we know we need to make changes in 2024. Changes can come in the form of additional income and they can come in the form of budgetary cuts. I think its always wise to consider both options simultaneously. If we can increase giving a little, and reduce expenses a little, we can much more easily get to a balanced budget. Sometimes even having volunteers step up for things we pay for can be a huge help, so I invite you to consider how you could help in the coming year. What are ways you can give, both through volunteering and in financial gifts, that can help strengthen the church? Perhaps there’s even something we haven’t thought of to help reduce our budget expenses! A little time and effort on your part can go a long way in helping us to get to a healthier place as a church. Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions!
In Christ,
Pastor Brian Neville
Facility Usage Requests
With the changes we've had, the church administration had discussions about what made the most sense for receiving facility use requests and how to process it. We have something in place we think will work for now. Basically all facility use requests will be processed through the facilities@gumc.org email address. Most simple items, like a committee meeting or ministry meeting request, can just be emailed to that address. About once a week the church's google calendar will be updated with those requests and you should get a reply that the request was granted. We want to make sure we keep that calendar accurate so everyone knows what's happening in the building, so please send an email with any changes to your meetings or schedule. If you are a staff person and would like to be added to the list of people that have access to that calendar to add and change events, let me know. It's always easiest and best if people in charge of their meetings are the ones keeping the calendar updated. Remember, all meetings at Grace MUST be on the church google calendar for insurance purposes. If you don't see your meeting on there, let us know!
For things bigger than a meeting, we have a usage form. Anyone using the building for the first time or first time events must use this form, too. You can find the document on the website at gumc.org/calendar (scroll to the bottom and click 'Usage Form'). There you can also request social media items, like the bulletin, an announcement, Facebook post, etc. When you submit your form (via facilities@gumc.org, the website or to the office mailbox using a form from the main office) it will be added to the calendar unless there are conflicts. It will be forwarded to Hilda, our office administrator (info@gumc.org), for the bulletin and to Emily for social media.
Oh, yeah...Emily Neville has agreed to do social media for Grace! Hurrah! We haven't had someone doing social media here since I began over 2 years ago! Even Alexa, who volunteered for the position in 2020, quickly transitioned to running our sound and video for our online audience, which was a much bigger need at the time. If you'd like to follow up with Emily regarding social media items, you can email her at socialmedia@gumc.org. This information will be included in a response to your usage requests, unless, of course, you don't provide us with an email. In that case, you better call us (201-891-4595 ext. 4) and leave a message. You'll also be able to click a link in the response email that shows all the items that have been submitted with usage forms and what selections you've made.
Using the button below you'll also find the Communications Audit for 2023. This document lays out the general timeline for various requests and who is in charge of what items at Grace. Where there are ??'s no one is assigned to that item, so it's harder to make those ones happen. Everything is "first come, first serve," based on the time and availability of staff and volunteers, and at the expense of the person running the ministry or event (of course, you can use budgeted line items for advertising, but that's up to the people overseeing those line items). Hilda plans to begin including the weekly calendar in the bulletin in an effort to increase communication of events happening at the church, but you can always check the website. Gumc.org/calendar will always be the most up to date information on what's happening in the church. Other items are updated as our volunteers are able to, so please be kind and patient in this process. Also, if you see something is not updated properly, you should check in with the person in charge of the event. Did they send in an email? Did they fill in the form and request a particular social media? If not, that's why the information is not being updated. Volunteers need to have the necessary detail given to them in order to make the changes.
That's the basics. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know. Below are some key items for your information. God bless!
In Christ,
Pastor Brian Neville
Google Calendar: gumc.org/calendar
Email for facility and usage requests: facilities@gumc.org
Email for bulletin items: info@gumc.org (but the attached form also at gumc.org/calendar should be filled in first)
Email for social media requests: socialmedia@gumc.org (but the attached form also at gumc.org/calendar should be filled in first)
Penitence in a New Season
Hello Grace Members and Friends,
This past week the weather turned cold quick! It was 70 degrees, yes, but I definitely had to wear a jacket because of the wind! I can’t believe how the temperature can be exactly the same, but the feeling is so different. Much of life can be like that - things look one way on the outside, but feel different on the inside. Even the church experiences this as we go through ups and downs, seasons of growth and times of trial. Sometimes just one person can make all the difference; I hope you will seek out ways you can be a person that makes a difference, whether through outward expressions of care and concern, or by looking inward to see how you can grow.
As we begin our October series on Penitence, I am thinking and reflecting specifically on how I have made mistakes, how I have hurt others (whether intentional or not) and how I can do what I can to make things right. Things will never be perfect; we’ll never have everyone happy with us or perfectly content with our work, but we can always apologize. We can always seek to improve our relationships with others. I say with some regularity that people are more important than things. Still, its easy to leave things broken between people. Its easy to ignore difficult relationships, rather than seeking to redeem them. I think Jesus calls us to work on those difficult relationships, to improve them and find life even in the challenging places. I hope you’ll join us for our October series and explore with us how we can be penitents that turn to God and find our life in him.
I also wanted to share a few updates with you as we start getting into the core of the church year.
This weekend is the annual women's retreat and the youth IGNITE weekend. Both are phenomenal events and can have a really big impact on those who attend. I invite you to be in prayer for those attending
We have our first Pathways to Congregational Development meeting October 11th. This is a group that will work with a Conference Coach to help us assess strengths and opportunities at Grace as we come out of the pandemic. I'm excited to see what will come of our work together!
October 2nd is World Communion Sunday. This will be the first time in several years that we take communion by the rail. We'll invite people to come forward to kneel, and also have the ushers provide prepackaged communion for any who wish to remain in their seats.
The Trustees are continuing their work to aid the church in both ministry and facilities. They are exploring a process to help increase funds available to do important work in the church.
We've just added a movie night to the schedule for October 14th at 7pm. We'll have free concessions and hope to have a great night!
We are working with the new Stewardship Foundation Executive Director, Brian Roberts, regarding long-term sustainability for the church. We hope to have a luncheon after church with him when he joins us this winter.
Nominations for 2023 is ongoing. We have filled some important vacancies, as well as added some new committees for the long-term health of the church! Its a great group of leaders for next year!
Those are some of the things we are working on here at Grace United Methodist Church. October 2nd is the start of a new sermon series on Penitence and I hope it will move your heart! God bless!
In Christ,
Pastor Brian Neville
The Summer of 2022
What are we working on at Grace United Methodist Church? There are many things happening, even as we are in the middle of the summer months, but I thought I’d spend a little time doing some regular updates to keep people informed of all that is happening here at Grace. Here’s some highlights of what this week holds for us:
There is a funeral for a member of a local United Methodist Church. I will be presiding at the funeral and interment, connecting with new families that live in our area. Though the goal is squarely to honor the life of the deceased, I recognize there is deep value in connecting with the extended family and supporting them through their grief. Part of the reason the church exists is to support people through a variety of stages in life, from birth to marriage to death, and to offer a place for people to grow spiritually throughout.
The Staff Parish Relations Committee met on Monday evening. We welcomed a new member, Peggy Chagares. Thanks for being a part of the team, Peggy! We also adjusted the schedule for the rest of the year, including staff reviews. We reviewed the pastoral appraisal given by the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference. There was also some discussion about the team that would be used for walking us through selecting a new Christian Education director for our Sunday School. I’ll be the point person for much of that effort over the next couple of weeks. One last item of significance for SPRC was a review of the employee handbook. Its been a few years since we updated it, and the committee came up with a plan for how to tackle that important project.
One of the key things we can do during the summer is take a deep breath and reflect on our plans for the next year. Several leaders gathered a few weeks ago to discuss worship, sermons and the schedule for the church. The sermons and Bible studies are set for the year. Next we have to meet with a couple of our creative types to come up with art and graphics for all of the series. We noticed last year that doing a new image every single week was pretty exhausting for our volunteers. We are looking forward to changing it up this year by having one key image for each series that can easily be updated by the office staff from week to week. We are also reviewing our list of events for all of 2022-23, with some of your favorite events like the tricky tray and cookie walk, and also looking at adding some new events to the year as well. We are looking at coordinating with the Cub Scouts on a movie night so we can have a nice bonfire added to the evening. We are also looking at a date night for Valentine’s Day and plant sale around Mothers Day. We had to have a follow-up meeting this week to work out some of the details for the new events. The schedule will be made available to the staff and leaders of the church after the office gets a chance to review it for accuracy.
On Wednesday I have my strangest meeting of the year. Its the Bergen County Tax Hearing. As you probably know, Grace UMC doesn’t pay taxes, but somehow, when part of our property was sold, we were added to the tax assessors list (with our name, but someone else’s address!). Every tax bill we’ve received, we called and told them we are a church and it had the wrong information on it. They’ve said “oh, okay, that’s just a mistake.” Apparently it needs to go to a Bergen County Tax hearing to have us officially removed from the tax list! I’m assured that the hearing is simply a formality, but I’ll be in on that meeting Wednesday.
On Sunday we will be having a Congregational Care Team lunch. This group hasn’t met in the two years I have been here, but after adding a few new members, I wanted to bring the group together to eat, share stories, encourage one another and see what we could learn from our caring visits. I talked with Hilda in the office about how we would provide lunch and I’m going to put together an agenda for the meeting so it has good flow and people can walk away feeling like they’ve learned something and that they were blessed by our time together.
Last, but certainly not least, we have Vacation Bible School. This big event happens next week! The station leaders are busy preparing skits and projects. The crew leaders are prepared to guide our campers through the fun and chaos, but most of all, Mrs. Chris Cauda is doing everything she can to make sure we have a perfect week. She’s pulling out all the stops with some special animal visitors and a carnival! Its a week that can’t be beat, and we are prepping every day for it. Decorations go up on Wednesday, so lend us a hand if you can! Please be sure to pray for our campers and staff. We know it can be a lot of fun, but its a ton of work as well, so please keep us in your prayers, and pray that those young people’s lives are touched by God this week!
That’s a pretty typical week at Grace. It’s all over the map, but lots of good things are happening! We keep plugging along, trusting that our best efforts, along with wise counsel and strategic steps will help us be a better church, making disciples and changing people’s lives.
I want to share a little more about the list I wrote above, though. You'll notice all of the items I listed are things I've made a commitment to participate in. I regularly lead worship, funerals and weddings. I participate and lead committee meetings. I help plan the year, especially as it relates to worship. I also volunteer, on occasion, in support of some of the events taking place at Grace. The role of a pastor can be very wide and diverse. It's so wide and diverse, in fact, that many people struggle to understand just what it is that pastors do.
This is from Susan Beaumont, an expert in church leadership. She says, "The expectations placed on senior ministers are often too numerous to faithfully execute. For example, the Book of Discipline in the United Methodist Church outlines more than thirty “essential functions” of the role. Other denominations operate with similarly excessive criteria for success. Most people cannot attend to more than twelve essential functions in their role. The governing body of the congregation should work with the senior minister to shape a job description that reflects the specific needs in the context. What are the expectations of our senior pastor in this time and space? Should the senior minister give priority to the supervision of the staff team, the development of the board, the pastoral care of congregants, the worship life of the congregation, the preaching task—or something else?" https://susanbeaumont.com/2019/10/29/five-pitfalls-to-avoid-when-evaluating-the-senior-minister/
These are important questions for our church to work through, especially as we continue to make the transition from two appointed clergy to one. Some things cannot be done by a single appointed clergy-person. Some things may simply not be done at all! That's what happens as churches make transitions and discover the gifts and talents to be best utilized for the glory of God. I want to be faithful to the things I commit to do, and I want to do as much as humanly possible to help Grace grow and thrive, but I also realize that when things have to come "through me" for approval it can create a bottleneck that stops good, helpful things for the church from happening.
The best remedy for such a situation is to empower the people! You are the best answer for the best things to happen here at Grace. As others take on the authority of decision making, there are a couple of other things that have to happen along with it. Some may be nervous or anxious to make decisions without my "okay." That's alright; I hope you will grow in confidence, and know that I won't "bite your head off" for doing something different from what I might choose. The only time I take issue with a person's decisions is when they do them out of what we might describe as a "sinful" place. Are you angry, selfish, conceited, hard-hearted or jealous? Please don't make a decision from that place! Come and talk with me and see if we can find a way forward. I am certain that we hold a mutual desire for the church to succeed, and we can best get there by working together. The other thing that needs to happen is to increase communication for alignment. If people are working at cross-purposes it can be destructive to the church. We are a team together and we need to move in the same direction. You'll find that I am a "rule follower." If the Book of Discipline describes how we are supposed to do something, I'm going to advocate for us to follow it as closely as practicable. But where there are not rules, there is freedom! That freedom can be a beautiful breath of fresh air to empower us to use our creativity to bring our best selves to the challenges that face our church. Yet, that freedom must be directed. It cannot go in the opposite direction of other work happening in the church.
I think of a concert, where each instrument in the orchestra plays its own piece. The notes and music might be different for each instrument, but when played together it forms a beautiful work that can move the soul. That's how the church works, too. Each person is an instrument of God's gifts and we want to both honor the gifts in you, and help those gifts work together for the good of the church. My hope is that, by increasing communication and my specific commitments, you can have a better sense of the direction we are going in together. You have likely heard by now of the Pathways for Congregational Development. This is a major initiative of the Annual Conference to help local congregations discern the path, the steps to take, to gain alignment and work in concert together for the good of the congregation. We are forming a team currently and I hope that it will not only help the congregation to work together, but that I would grow, too. I don't know which 12 functions are most essential for me to do here at Grace. We can only discover that by joining together to discern a vision for the church that meets as many needs as possible, to do as much good as possible. Our stated goal is to be a faith community that passionately follows Jesus Christ. By increasing communication and gaining better alignment, I think we can better meet that goal and help our church thrive.
I hope you'll join me on the journey! Here are some specific tasks that I plan to do to increase communication and help us find better alignment:
share my calendar with all staff so they can see all the tasks that I have committed to do for Grace
write more frequently about the goals and direction of the church. My current goal is to write a blog post at least once a month to help clarify the mission and gain alignment
work through the Pathways for Congregational Development workbook with a team to help clarify our mission and vision. From that will flow the 12 essential functions for my ministry
If you have additional thoughts or suggestions, feel free to email me back or come visit me in my office. I'm usually in M-W and do sermon writing off-site on Thursday. I'm also available on Sunday afternoons by appointment. God bless and thank you for all you do to grow the church community!
In Christ,
Pastor Brian Neville
A New Year at Grace United Methodist Church
It might seem strange to mark the start of July as a ‘new year’ at Grace UMC, but in many ways…it is! The pastoral appointment from the Bishop runs from July 1st to June 30th, our contracts with outside organizations runs on the same schedule, and the Sunday School program follows that of the school year - September to June. July marks many new starts, so it is time to share some of what we are looking at here at Grace for this new year.
We are looking to hire a new Sunday School Superintendent
We are starting a new program with the Annual Conference called ‘Pathways to Congregational Development’
We are working on our worship services this summer to get the right feel, and we could use your help on stories from you in some sermon series this year!
Details on the covenant from the Special Church Conference
Keep reading for more information or to get in touch with us!
A New Sunday School Superintendent
A few years ago the church had an Associate Pastor that was in charge of overseeing our Sunday School program. Because of the financial deficit of the church that position was removed just as I came on board at Grace in July of 2020. We’ve had a couple of volunteers running the program since then, and they’ve done an admirable job, but even they agree its time to have a hired person running the program again. Let me pause to say thank you to Chris and Patricia, who ran that program the last two years. I deeply appreciate their work, especially while we were dealing with the pandemic and I was still new to the church. They kept our program alive in difficult times, so thanks to both of them. If you see them, be sure to share your thanks for their work, as well.
We have posted the Sunday School Superintendent job description in a number of places: indeed.com, our facebook page, our website, with the Annual Conference and at several universities, including Drew University. We’ve received a few applications, but perhaps the most important advertising is word of mouth. Maybe you know our next great employee at Grace UMC, so if you know someone who might be a good fit, be sure to share the job description. You can find it attached to the button below.
You might also wish to give an additional gift to the church in support of this move. The Church Council talked a lot about whether we had the financial reserves to hire this new person. In the end we decided to take a step of faith, hoping that putting together a great program would lead to more families connecting here at Grace. Eventually we expect the position to pay for itself, but in the meantime money given above your tithes and offerings would go a long way to help us jump start this position and move us in the right direction. You can give online here.
Pathways for Congregational Development
Grace UMC has many rich traditions, but the combined problems of decreased attendance over 30+ years and the pandemic have put our church in a new place. What is the way forward? How can we restore the traditions of Grace and grow as a community? The answers aren’t always clear, and having my first year here with online worship and much of the congregation avoiding public gatherings didn’t help! Our Annual Conference is offering a new program called Pathways for Congregational Development where we can work with a facilitator to assess where we are, consider a plan to move us forward and engage in new and revived ministries. There is no better way to help our church thrive than to do the tough work of evaluating our ministries and deciding where it is that we need to go next, together, as the Grace community doing God’s work. If you are interested in being a part of the team email Pastor Brian Neville at pastor.brian@gumc.org.
Worship in 2022-2023
One last important item we are looking at for this next year are changes to our worship service. I asked the congregation to share with me some of their suggestions for sermon ideas and there were many excellent ones! I took those suggestions to our planning meet from a few weeks ago and asked the group gathered what was most important to them? What suggestions seemed to resonate? I’m happy to say many of the congregations ideas were included in the series we have planned starting in September. Over 60% of sermon suggestions fit in 7 topics. We couldn’t fit all of them into one year, but I look forward to preaching on these great topics!
We also have a few special series we’ll be doing that with which we need your help! In November we are doing a series on those special collections people hold onto. Perhaps you have one? A collection of fine china or special ornaments. Maybe you make art or collect coins? Whatever it is, tell us about it! We want to feature your collections as we share the series in church.
A second series we need help with is in January on fraud. Ever get a phone call from someone offering you a warranty on a car or computer you don’t own? Perhaps you have been defrauded? Maybe someone tricked you into thinking they were someone they were not. If so, tell us your story as we try and encourage others by 1. raising awareness of these schemes and frauds and 2. discern our true identity in Jesus Christ.
We are also spending this summer tinkering with our Sunday morning worship service. We are trying to strike the right balance between contemporary and traditional. We’ve switched to singing hymns for the congregational songs, but keeping contemporary music in other parts of the service (with lyrics so you can sing along). We hear that people enjoy hearing others sing familiar songs in the combined service! People are overjoyed to have the outdoor reception again and that our sound system is working properly (after a significant investment from our Trustees. Thank you Trustees!). We are working on some of the critiques people have offered, such as the song leader being too loud, not having a choir, bringing back the passing of the peace and communion offered in different modes. These are all good suggestions and we’ll work toward answers that satisfy as many people as possible, but know that our goal, ultimately, is not to satisfy people, but to satisfy God. As long as our worship is genuine and we keep loving one another at the core of how we treat one another, I think we’ll be able to get through any differences in worship in a way that pleases God and helps our church grow.
If you’d like to share your stories with the pastor or any other thoughts regarding worship at Grace, feel free to send an email to me at pastor.brian@gumc.org or use the button below.
The Covenant from the Special Church Conference
There was much good discussion regarding the Special Church Conference held June 26th after church. After lunch, discussing the biblical history and meaning of covenants, and sharing the stories of those gathered together, the church voted on the covenant proposed by the Gracious Reconcilers. I sensed many people aiming for a certain kind of church - that Grace UMC is welcoming to all people and that we stay committed to our primary goal of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. I appreciate all those who joined us for the Special Church Conference, and especially those who shared their thoughts and opinions with the gathered group. You can see the policy stemming from the meeting in the church office.
God bless and thanks for your support at Grace UMC, an inclusive community passionately following Jesus Christ!
In Christ,
Pastor Brian Neville