What’s happening at Grace UMC in 2025?
The church is taking some significant steps in the next year to help our church operate better and more effectively. For many years our Sunday School program has been requesting adding a paid staff person to run the Sunday School program. Emily Neville came on board as a volunteer to fill the role in the interim (she went to school to lead children’s ministry!) and has done an admirable job in the role. Now, though, its time for the church to take that step to move back toward a staff person devoted to helping our Sunday School program grow and thrive.
There’s more to the story, of course. In assessing the needs of the Sunday School program our Next Gen Team (formerly the Pathways for Congregation Development Team) discerned the need for help with Family Ministries and the Youth Ministry. We saw how all of our ministries for ages 0-18 needed this additional support, and so we are hiring a Family Ministries Director to oversee all of our programming for children and families. This is an exciting season for the church! Our youth ministry has grown tremendously in the last 10 months, and our family ministries events continue to attract hundreds of children and families throughout the year. These are such positive signs and we need to capitalize on this positive momentum by giving staff, volunteers and families connected to the church the support they need. A Family Ministries Director will oversee Sunday School, increase our community connection through family ministry events and be a part of a ministry team to lead the youth group.
We are also heading back to our roots when it comes to the youth ministry. We are going to have our first summer mission trip in many years! Previously the church supported RISE, which is a great ministry in the Southern Tier of New York. Unfortunately, they only allow high schoolers to go on the trip, and our youth group is full of middle schoolers, so we are trying something new! We are partnering with a new organization for our summer mission trip. I hope you’ll consider supporting the group through volunteering, giving financial support and in prayer. We’ll have a special send-off in worship the Sunday morning our youth depart for their missions’ trip.
Our confirmation class is also thriving at Grace! We have ten young people enrolled, but it looks different from how it was in the past. One of the biggest laments I hear from church folks all over is how young people show up for confirmation class, get confirmed and then disappear from the church. I agree; this is terrible and we have to do something to change it! One of the best things we can do to change this pattern is to lengthen the program. That doesn’t mean more classes, but it does mean more time between classes. Instead of meeting every week for four months, the class now meets once a month for two years! Its just as much classroom time, but it gives our young people a chance to experience the rhythms of our church for two full years. They also grow to know the other young people in the church, and see how much fun it is to be a part of our youth group! We even have a confirmation retreat planned for March that includes both confirmands and their mentors, so they can continue the journey of faith together. The response, so far, has been phenomenal, with an increased enrollment. I’m hopeful we’ll see an increase in young people sticking to the church, just as I’ve seen in other churches that have used this kind of programming.
The church isn’t just growing in the area of children and youth. We also have a large new member class joining the church, too! We will welcome them into membership in the month or March. Some of our previous new members are volunteering as mentors, joining our Bible studies and doing missions with the church. This is an incredible season at Grace, and there are so many ways people can step up to make a difference not just in our church, but in the world. Every person that connects with our church and grows in their faith is part of a network of faith-filled people that impacts the workplace, our communities and the world at large. We also want to make every dollar you give to the church stretch as far as it can, so we want to work smarter with the money entrusted to the church. That’s why we are exploring additional options around caring for the church grounds, stewardship and visitation. Grace always uses a combination of volunteers and paid staff to do the work of the church. Sometimes we find volunteers are the better option; other times it is paid staff. Sometimes people would rather give the church some money than use what little time they have for labor over at the church during the week. That’s okay! We want to facilitate the best combination of resources, but it takes work for us to get there. Additional staff grows our capacity to fundraise, connect with the community and coordinate volunteers. Its up to our church leaders to discern the best way to do this, so we are having important conversations on these topics all under the banner of “Normalize Next.” This is an initiative from the Annual Conference that helps us discern the next right thing for our church, grow our leaders, and take bold steps toward the future God has for us.
Keep praying for the church. Keep supporting and loving one another. This is the bedrock of the church, and as we discern what God has for us, I know we’ll experience an even deeper sense of his love and grace for all of us. God bless!
Pastor Brian Neville