Senior Pastor's Note

Highlights from the Annual Report of the Pastor June 2022

The last few years have been destabilizing. The politics of the denomination and the elevated cautions for COVID have taken their toll on me, our congregation, and the ministry of churches at every level and in every community.

However, I am confident that in a few short years, the counterproductive behaviors will fade from our denomination, and we will be able to trust in the stability of Methodism as a foundation for faithful ministry.

The exciting challenge before us now is to reform ourselves after the COVID shutdown. The ministry with children and youth has been the hardest hit and will require our most significant efforts.  But we cannot go back, dust off the plans we had in 2018, and attempt to implement them. We can never go back to what was.  Instead, we must always press on to what is coming.

I hope the coming months are filled with an honest conversation about our hopes for nurturing the faith of our children and young people, careful planning, and effective communications. I think now is the time to staff the nursery each Sunday

Worship attendance has been adversely affected, and we are slowly building back. I want to consider adding a second service to our morning schedule. Could we design a worship service to support our renewed efforts to nurture our children and youth?

We have had remarkable success with the Weekend Worship Video. On June 19, 2022, we had 56 people in the service and 465 views on YouTube. If we presume one view is only one person, our worship attendance was 521 for the day. I want to build on this strength by moving to live-streaming the service by September 22.

I close my report with an urgent plea. We need a more significant Nominations and Leadership Development Committee; presently, it only has two active members. So, I asked our Lay Leaders to help, and they graciously agreed to assist. Recruiting and equipping adequate leaders for our church is an important job. If we invest leadership energy in this area, it will bear much fruit. If brief 1 hr. layover to catch my next plane home, I discovered that all flights had been cancelled. Needless to say, this not frequent flyer was a little perplexed as to how to handle this. And unfortunately, I was late in contacting any local hotels for a room for the night. Long story longer, my husband found me a hotel room so I didn't have to spend the night at the airport. I arrived home on Monday about 3:30pm a little tired but very grateful to be home.

Again, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like to discuss anything.

Peace,
Janice DiTullio
President, CE District

P.S. One thing that I neglected to mention in my earlier notes were the two actions items that we have been tasked to focus on. In the past it has been four separate topics but this year it is just these two.

Just Energy for All Interrupt the School-to-Prison-Pipeline

There is a postcard designed to send to your Senator for the Just Energy, it is requested that you send an email regarding the Interrupt School to Prison Pipeline as there are a few bills on this topic. Here are the links found on the UWF website where you will find more information:

https://uwfaith.org/latest-news/2022/climate-justice-postcard-campaign/

https://uwfaith.org/what-we-do/serve-and-advocate/mass-incarceration/

Contact me if you have any questions or suggestions for your District Team!

Peace,
Janice