As Fresh Start conversations have continued, several questions have emerged. We began to ask, “What steps could Grace UMC take that would:
Build up our worship experience?”
Reach out to our community?”
Create an environment more ready to welcome and nurture the faith of young adults?”
Your Administrative Council has voted to take some steps that will move us toward answering such questions.
We are opening a search for a part-time Worship Leader to assist in the development of our traditional and contemporary worship. We are seeking someone equipped to lead singing in the traditional service and create ways to encourage us to join more fully in worship. You can find a complete job description on this website. Follow the "Work at Grace" link from the main menu.
We have also begun conversations with the music and vocal performance departments at Southeast Missouri State University. We intend to create a program that will provide stipends or scholarships for students who will join the choir or participate in other parts of our worship ministry. More importantly, this program will create a pathway for students to become part of the Grace UMC community, deepen their faith and guide us in becoming a place more welcoming to younger generations.
We will work toward finding a Worship Leader and finalizing the details of a collaboration with SEMO by early September. As we move toward fall, we will also renew our congregation’s focus on invitation using social media and the efforts of each of us to invite others to participate in worship and sample life within the Grace UMC community.
I sincerely hope you will embrace plans to reinvest in worship at Grace and begin to make commitments to fill in some of the other areas of our life together. Opportunities exist to build up our hospitality, technical, and mission ministries.
As questions arise, please get in touch with any of our Administrative Council Board members or me. Rest assured, the work of creating a fresh start at Grace UMC will not end as we take these steps.
Wednesday Night Conversation
I look forward to spending time with those who can attend the “Conversation with the Pastor” this Wednesday evening at 6:30 in Fellowship Hall. The Upper Room Class is hosting the time together and providing light refreshments.
Worship Plans
We’ll conclude the “Summer Vibes” worship series this Sunday, July 2. Another theme that often emerges in Scripture is the good that can come from sharing a meal with strangers or friends. We’ll explore and share some of those stories and offer communion. If you plan to worship from home or wherever you have traveled, plan to have some bread and juice at hand during the 9:00 AM Livestream.
On July 9, we’ll begin the series “Detours & Decisions: The Book of Joshua.” Joshua is a fast-moving history of a pivotal time in the life of an individual and a nation. Joshua’s story offers ways to face life’s detours and decisions in faithful, wise, and courageous ways. For those that would like to read along, here is how the series will shape up.
July 9: Introduction/Delaying Tactics (Joshua 1:1-6)
July 16: Unlikely People/Unlikely Pathways (Chapter 2)
July 23: Wrong Turns (Chapters 6-12)
July 30: Trusting in the Promises (Chapters 23-24)
I hope you will make plans to be in worship at 9:00 or 11:00 AM. . If you are unable or away from town, join the livestream at 9:00 AM on Facebook.
Peace and Prayers!
Pastor Linda
Here and now, God, we bring this church to you. Fill it with your healing and transforming grace. Move it to a place that is beyond what we know, ask, or imagine.
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