The Messenger April 2001 Volume 1, Issue 4 Can You Help? Celebration of Pastor Jim and Joy’s Ministry Confirmation Classes Diane Muise Concert Description of Committees and other Church Leadership Roles Exciting News from PPRC New Fulltime Pastor has Been Named to Serve our Church North Salem Preschool Accepting Registrations North Salem Sunday School Plan a Family Vacation  Thoughts We Need Volunteers! Youth Group Schedule Can You Help? Can you help by donating some paper? Sunday School is in need of some white paper for projects. One side should be blank. 8 ½ X 11, 11 X 17 or larger. Celebration of Pastor Jim and Joy’s Ministry Please join us in a celebration of Pastor Jim and Joy’s ministry at North Salem. We will be holding a special celebration service on Sunday May 20th. With a reception to follow. To allow Jim and Joy to relax and spend time with the congregation, Keith Boucher will be preaching and Jonathan Smith has graciously agreed to preach at Tenney. Please see Diane Boucher (893-5953) to contribute food to the reception. Jim’s last day preaching at North Salem will be on Father’s day June 17th. Confirmation Classes Youth Confirmation Classes Confirmation classes will begin soon. The 6th grade and up Sunday school Class will participate. Topics will include: Jesus Christ Living as a United Methodist Christian The Christian Year Spiritual Disciplines Upon completion of the class the students will have the opportunity to decide if they would like to become members of the North Salem U.M. Church. A reception will be held to welcome them. The dates will be announced soon. Please see Keith or Dawn for more information about this program. Confirmation classes for Dawn Trusty’s class begin on April 8th and will continue for seven weeks (no class on Easter because of activities) culminating in reception of these confirmands as members of our church on May 27th. The United Methodist Book of Discipline calls for confirmation of youth in sixth grade with the desire to join the church and illustrate publicly their acceptance of Christ. It has been a number of years since we have had confirmation classes, but this is planned to be a yearly ritual going forward. Please support this group of young people with your prayers and words of encouragement as they seem to officially join the community of Christ. Diane Muise Concert North Salem Women Will host a concert by Diane Muise · Nashville Recording Artist · MCMA Gospel Artist of the Year! · Award-winning songwriter! On Wednesday evening May 2nd at 7 PM at North Salem UM Church. Tickets are available for a donation of $5.00. All women club members have tickets. Get your tickets now there is limited seating and you will not want to miss this wonderful concert by this talented artist, whose music ministry takes her all over the country. Description of Committees and other Church Leadership Roles In the last newsletter I listed the Committees and job titles, now I would like to give you a little insight about these jobs and committees. Maybe something will catch your eye and you may want to get more involved with one of them we are always looking for volunteers. Some of the leaders were asked to fill out a form regarding the jobs we hold, describing what we do and why we do it. These were done to give the youth of the church an idea of how the church works. I thought it would also be worthwhile to let the whole congregation know because we have a lot of new people who may not know what goes on behind the scenes to make the church run. Lay Leader – responsible for leading the congregation in vision and growth. Lay member – represents our church at the annual conference. Financial Secretary – Takes in all monies and keeps track of what money was donated for, makes deposits and sends out statements. Treasurer – Pays the bills. Membership Secretary – Keeps track of the members, new members, baptisms, marriages, deaths, transfers. Sunday School Superintendent – Responsible for the running of the Sunday school, materials, projects, activities. Secretary of Administrative Council – Takes notes at monthly meetings so there will be a record of items being worked on and what is voted on. Administrative Council – Is made up of all the people listed above plus the Chairperson of each committee. The Ad Council’s function is to Oversee administration, initiate planning, review membership, provide ways to meet financial needs, recommend to the charge conference salaries, review recommendations, promote benevolences, help members of congregation, foster understanding of the unity of the church, encourage understanding of commitment. Finance Committee – compiling of the budget, setting financial goals, planning annual funding program, communicate with congregation, keeping records and reporting to Ad Council, evaluation on a regular basis. Pastor/Parish Relations Committee – Interprets function of ministry, counsels pastor and staff, evaluates effectiveness, confers and consults pastoral appointments, enlists recruit persons into ordained ministry. Nominations Committee – looks for people to assume various jobs and serve on various committees and Makes recommendations to the board. Trustees – custodian of deeds, plans maintenance, secures insurance, oversees contracts, maintains church building, grounds, parsonage, receives bequests, incorporate the church. Why do people volunteer for these jobs? Because we LOVE the LORD and want to serve him using the talents that HE has provided us with. Exciting News from PPRC by Merrianne McDonald As we move ahead in the expansion of our church facilities, the Pastor Parish Relations Committee has been working diligently to meet the needs of the Pastor/Parish community. With this in mind we wanted to brief you on upcoming changes that affect our church and it’s existing partnerships. As of July 1, Pastor Jim has accepted a new appointment at Tenney U. M. Church and Pleasant Street U.M. Church. This announcement was made in the Tenney newsletter last month. We all wish Jim and Joy the very best as they move to a new 2 church charge during the coming year. The PPRC and Finance committees have worked together with Ed Claus and Paul Chang, our District Superintendents, to identify the needs of our church and the opportunities that lie within a 5-mile radius of our church. What we found essentially is a large unchurched population and significant evidence for growth. With that in mind, the UMC Conference has agreed to work with us to appoint a fulltime pastor effective July 1. This is exciting news for our church! Along with church expansion, a fulltime pastor has been a vision for the last 10 years. We have worked hard as a community of faith; but we must work even harder to spread the Word of Christ and fill our church to overflow! Please keep our church and church leaders in your prayers as we forge ahead and fulfill our mission as Disciples of Christ. New Fulltime Pastor has Been Named to Serve our Church New fulltime Pastor has been named to serve our Church. Rev. Sang-Churl Bae will be our new pastor as of July 1st. Pastor Bae is married to Haeyeon and have 2 children, John is 5 and Kristie is 3. North Salem Preschool Accepting Registrations The preschool is accepting registrations for the fall 2001 school year. North Salem Sunday School by Dawn Trusty Sunday School Superintendent/Teacher All groups are enjoying more productive classes since the addition of the Portable classroom. The younger groups have more space to incorporate movement activities and small group games. The older groups are settling into their new classrooms. They’re able to concentrate on Bible readings in a quiet room and have discussions. The teachers enjoy not having to “live out of a box” as they are able to use shelves to organize their materials. Our attendance has improved. We’ve welcomed new faces into our classes. The Sunday school students and teachers would like to thank everyone Involved in making extra class space a reality. Plan a Family Vacation by Rev James Lundin Joy and I agree that the vacations we enjoyed with our children were among the smartest things we did with our Family. We were severely limited financially, but annually we took time for travel. Joy’s parents lived in northern Vermont and mine were situated along the Colorado-Kansas border. We traveled to the majestic Teatons and Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Canyon, the length of the California coastline to San Francisco and L.A., the Great Smokies, to Washington, D.C., Gettysburg, Niagra Falls, Acadia and dozens of other parks. We also took children to New Orleans and even to Glacier National Park. Later, in their late teens and early twenties our children would choose to spend several months on their own initative in Japan, England and Hungary. A limited budget nearly always added a degree of adventure and creativity to everything we or they did. Whenever I ask a member of our family to list their favorite memory of our days together the vacations are listed first. We never traveled to be entertained or to pursue rest and relaxation. We always traveled to visit relatives and to walk amidst the wonders of the world.Very soon, if you have a young Family, your opportunity to enjoy such times together will be gone and will be totally beyond your recovery. I fully recommend that you plan such times together. You’ll be glad that you did. When I was an eighth grader a Lutheran Pastor invited me on a trip with his Family to British Columbia. In doing so, he changed my life. Take an additional child along, and very possibly change his or her life forever as well. Thoughts by Keith Boucher, Lay Leader Never in the 165 years of our church has there been a more exciting time to be part of the North Salem United Methodist Church family. As you can see by the news in this issue of the Messenger, there is so much going on in our church; so much to be thankful for. A portable classroom for Sunday School realized over the last 2 months and over the next 4 months: the Phase 1 building addition, a fulltime Pastor and the acquisition of a parsonage: all of this the culmination of a longtime dream. Dreams keep us motivated to move ahead. However, to realize these dreams careful planning and vision are required to execute the steps to realize the vision. This needs to occur not only in our church but in our community and as part of our United Methodist Conference. We are part of one church body that through our unity in Christ allows our presence wherever the need may be. Over the last 10 years we have been fortunate to have outstanding leadership in our church, complemented by the spiritual leadership of Pastors with many different talents. As we move ahead into this new phase of our church life, let us give thanks for all the blessings we have received thus far; and going forward let us pray for our church. Let us pray for unity and openness of mind and spirit as we enter this time of change and exciting period of growth. Let us remember that WE are the church and HE leads us. Amen! We Need Volunteers! We need volunteers to help on the Palmer Gas mailing, this is a fund raiser. Looking at working on it Saturday April 7th thru Saturday April 14th. For times contact Nancy Collier- Welch at daytime 898-7986 or evenings at 893-2932. Youth Group Schedule See Youth Group Page or Events