Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
It is a holy privilege to send this letter to you as Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church. It is hard to believe that Tina and I will soon have served with you for 3 ½ years! You have become family for us – praying for us in joys and challenges, worshipping and learning with us, and reaching out in ever-expanding mission. This is a day of great challenge and possibility for any church. Thank you for taking up that challenge and embracing our possibilities.
As we venture into the coming year, exciting things await. As you know, our mission is to
“boldly spread the love of Christ to bring hope to the world.” As we make our financial gifts for the coming year, we provide the necessary support for us to be faithful to that God-given mission. Our ministry is a sacred trust from God that calls on the best from all of us. I invite you to take the next 10 minutes to read about where we presently are near the end of 2019 and where he hope to be in 2020.
Developing Intentional Community
In 2019, our
Andrew Ministry had an outstanding training event, 14 new
LifeGroups were started, and Jodi Marfell moved from Student Ministry to Director of Connecting Ministries. We also adjusted our front office alignment to resource this great effort to help people become fully involved in the ministry of First Church. We are already seeing fruit from these efforts with more people coming to new or renewed faith in Christ and finding their place where they can share the love of Christ.
In 2020, more LifeGroups will be formed and a pilot for a new worship service will begin. Soon we will be presenting
A Walk Through Bethlehem, the third major effort (following the August Car Show and the October Fall Festival) to reach our community with the love of Christ. We will continue to not only hold these events, but we will be improving our ways of following up so that people are no longer just guests, but brothers and sisters in Christ.
An exciting area that will expand this year is congregational care. We have been consulting with Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City and will be adding to our Care Ministries that have been led by
Stephen Ministry, Caring Angels, and other teams throughout our congregation.
Superb Spiritual Formation
We are a community of growing faith...people who are growing in biblical understanding and servant leadership for ministry in the world. That begins with the youngest in our ministry and their families. We have been having a
baby boom in our congregation with greater involvement of young families. That means we need to increase our budget for childcare for worship services, classes, LifeGroups, and musical groups, to not only accommodate more children, but also to offer competitive compensation to caregivers. Our Children’s Ministry continues to teach the Word and do remarkable mission, while our Student Ministry is intentionally developing our youth as young leaders in a powerful way. They have a love for Christ and each other, and a heart for missions that is an example to us all. Our investment is crucial for them and for the gospel. Let’s be sure that no young person misses out on Camp Eagle, or mission trips or regular youth events because of lack of resources. More than that, may our Children and Student Ministries become more accessible to the children and youth and their families in our community.
In addition to
DISCIPLE and other Bible studies, we are now looking to develop a new generation of in-depth long-term and short-term Bible Studies. Pilot studies will be available in this coming year. Through our
LifeGroups, the great work of
LEADFirst, Financial Peace University, family enrichment and mentoring by long-term leaders of our Church, the number of leaders in ministry inside and beyond the church walls is growing. We are well on our way to mobilizing 500 new Christ-centered, transformative leaders by 2025. That blend of established and new leaders will not only grow our ministry, it will multiply it. Your financial commitment provides curriculum, seminars, and staffing that is touching, growing and helping people find purpose for their lives.
Reaching the Next Generation Through Beyond the Walls Mission
The year 2019 was a stunning year for international ministries as we supported and sent people to
Panama (21 persons),
Sierra Leone (exploratory visit and missionary support of Katie Meek), and by youth and young adults in
Guatemala and
Malawi. While we expect to continue to reach people in our international missions, 2020 is likely to have local mission as our strongest feature. Our staff will meet tomorrow with the Principal, staff and older elementary students at Callison Elementary. Our city assigned us that school for partnership and we are honored to do so. Some of our people are already reading to students on a weekly basis.
The other exciting event will be
Sleep in Heavenly Peace, in which we will build beds for children and families in the Austin and Williamson County area. The goal of that partnership is that no child will sleep on the floor. Our Handbell Ministry has chosen this effort as its Mission for the
Ring Noel concert and our Children’s Ministry has chosen pillows and bedding for their
Advent Mission. We will hold a congregation-wide build in February. This will be the most exciting mission effort I have been a part of in my ministry. Your financial commitment for 2020 will enable us to touch families as never before.
We will continue our partnership with UMCOR (United Methodist Commission on Relief), DRT (Disaster Response Team), and Volunteers in Mission, knowing that weather-related disasters are both unpredictable and guaranteed. We have now offered more than $50,000 of assistance and hundreds upon hundreds of hours of hands-on service to people at their worst and provided help and hope.
This next year also will see the development of the
Twin Oaks Mission Center. Our Missions Steering Team will be transforming Payne Cottage into a major place for people to become blessed and informed by the great missionary activity of our congregation, locally, regionally and internationally. I look forward to the time when all the gifts we receive on Christmas Eve are totally for mission beyond our walls, because our budget was fully underwritten. Your commitment can move us in that direction!
Awesome Operations
In 2019 and on into 2020, the leading work we are doing is upgrading our communications infrastructure. Through a combination of memorial gifts and generous support of our budget, we have upgraded our lighting and speakers in the Family Life Center, established WIFI throughout our campus, begun a consultation to improve sound in our sanctuary and have acquired new cameras to replace our outdated ones (allowing for recording in both the sanctuary and FLC). This lays the groundwork for further advances in teaching the faith, security, publicity and communication throughout our campus.
Our Trustees have developed a preventative maintenance program that will help us be more energy-efficient and to both avoid and plan for expensive maintenance problems. Our beautiful campus is at the age where improvements and repairs are continual. Your gifts not only help keep our facilities beautiful, but more importantly, they enable life-changing ministry to happen in and through the people that use them.
Financial Freedom
For the past two years, we finished the year
in the black, even putting $65,000 aside for the new chiller we will soon need in the sanctuary. We also have developed a
First United Methodist Church Endowment Fund to help sustain the church for generations to come. Your Finance Committee works diligently to be sure every dollar given is spent wisely for our Church’s ministry.
Another important development has been to find a way to offer health insurance to our full-time employees. This important step forward was led by our Staff-Parish Relations Committee in partnership with our Finance Committee. A broader commitment financially will be needed to underwrite this step, but it allows us to better retain our dedicated and hard-working staff.
An ongoing passion has been reducing the large debt on our facilities. During 2020, our Long-Range Finance Task Force will lead us into a longer plan, which includes the implementation of a Debt-Reduction Campaign. Our Church Council has set a goal to be debt free by 2025. Meeting that goal will enable us to be in ministry in ways that we have only dreamed of. All monies received in that campaign will be paid against the principal of our debt, thereby reducing our interest, freeing up money for ministry in our budget.
I want to say thanks to all of you for your generosity that continues to position us for greater ministry.
My Invitation
I believe that 2020 could be a benchmark year in our church. More people will likely make a first profession of faith than in many years. Our connection with this community will be strengthened dramatically. Things we have been planting seeds for will start to grow and bear lasting fruit. I invite you to join Tina and me in making a generous financial commitment for the coming year. As you may know, Tina retired and has had some health difficulties that have challenged us financially. But we still have kept our financial commitment to give 10% of our income and give extra as opportunities have provided themselves. It is with joyful confidence that we give to God on behalf of our congregation and its ministry. It is also a commitment by us to be in a full partnership with God in all that we have and all that we are. That makes it a holy moment for us.
Attached you will see a copy of the inside of the folder you will find in your bulletin on each of the next two Sundays. Please read that commitment page carefully and come to worship prepared to make your commitment. We will present the cards at the altar in each of our services. You can also make your commitment
online on our website.
Thank you for taking your precious time to read this pastoral letter. Thanks also for being partners in the ministry of Christ and making your commitment. That commitment also helps our Finance Committee and congregational leadership to plan wisely. God is doing great things at First UMC and your generosity has everything to do with that! Thank you so much.
Sincerely in Christ,
