We illuminate our community with God’s grace as we lovingly accept, listen to, and serve all in the Spirit of Jesus.

SUNDAY SERVICES TAKE PLACE IN-PERSON & ONLINE AT 9:00 AM

Worship Service airs live on our Website , YouTube  and  Facebook at 9 am.

Go to the Worship Page on our Website to find more information about future services.

Transfiguration Sunday, March 2, 2025

Defining Moments: Cleanses the Temple, Luke 19:45-48

Defining Moments: Cleanses the Temple" (Luke 19:45-48) shows Jesus taking bold action to cleanse the temple, driving out corruption and restoring its sacred purpose. In doing so, He calls us to restore holiness and integrity in our spiritual practices, ensuring our lives reflect what matters most to God.

Good News Statement: Jesus cleanses the temple so that we may restore holiness and integrity in our spiritual practices.

Sunday's Bulletin can be found in Document Center

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLE OR EVENT INFORMATION

Submit information for inclusion in Messenger and/or Bulletin Announcements by Wednesday at Noon.

Please use the button TO THE RIGHT or click here for the COMMUNICATIONS submission form -- all requests for communicating an event should be made via this form, including getting items on the calendar and reserving rooms for your event. This form can also be found on the sign-up page on our website. Any questions, please email communications@genevaumc.org. Information sent to this email goes to Carolyn, Lorie and Kimberley, as does the submission form. 

Two opportunities to worship on

Ash Wednesday, March 5!

Noon service at UMCG with Pastor Becky Nicol, where she will focus her short sermon on different kinds of spiritual disciplines to practice during Lent, with imposition of ashes.

7 pm evening service at Baker Memorial UMC in St. Charles, where they are hosting a combined Fox Valley UMC's service with Guest Preacher Rev. Fabiola Grandon-Mayer, NIC's Director of Connectional Ministries, who will preach a sermon "Out of the Dust." There will be imposition of ashes.

Show your love for your neighbor next month by signing up TODAY to give blood! We are hosting a Blood Drive on March 13 from 2:30 pm to 7 pm in Fellowship Hall and we need donors!

Every donor can save up to 3 lives!

Click the image on right to sign up on Versiti's website.

Pastor Becky is teaching one of the classes at this year's Lay Academy next month-- she will help train a layperson to preach in a pastor's absence. There are three other options for those interested who will learn how to help UMCG as lay servants.

Fourteen members of Church Council reviewed the diligent work of our committees and laid the groundwork for restructuring our UMCG governance later this year. 

Highlights of the conversations include:

•  Clarifying our church's immigration policy that, while it doesn't apply to public spaces, it is a gesture of solidarity and our commitment to being a safe space.
• CiS/Missions have been contacted by several churches for collaboration events this summer to share resources in the community including food drives and refugee support. Additionally, UMG Fund has matched the $4500 requested for World Relief.
• Staff Parish outlined the potential impact of the Department of Labor Fair Labor Standards Act on part-time employees and recommended an update this fall of the employee handbook.
• Finance shared that 2024 books won’t be closed until near the end of Q12025. A clearer picture of 2025 how finances have started this year will also not be available until the end of March after delays in billing from the NIC and a shift to a higher percentage of quarterly and annual giving.
• Trustees outlined the 50% increase in property insurance rates and are in contact with NIC to share how it was calculated. Further, our Kane County tax exemptions were approved for the three parcels at 2nd & Hamilton Streets. Both parsongages are still in process with the County and State. 
• Dialogue of a UMCG governance restructure was introduced beginning with our current need to have 87 seats on committees. While this structure was an effective way to structure our leadership when we worshipped 600 each Sunday, council will be working with Mary Zajac this summer to identify goals and explore a structure that aims to free up people from committee work to engage more directly in the church's activities.
• April Council meeting moved from April 22 to April 29 due to Rummage Sale.

Announcements/Reminders

• For the June annual conference, (Schaumburg) we need two additional members. Contact Pastor Rob if you’d consider representing UMCG
• Scholarship applications are OPEN with April 15 deadline
• Blood Drive on March 13 still has spots to fill. Roll up your sleeves and please sign up!
• Greet the Pastor Table assigned by month to committees with encourage to sign up for a spot throughout the year.

CHURCH IN SOCIETY AND MISSIONS REPORT

CiS/Missions committee meets every other month to plan for disbursement of funds as well as to organize many missions activities. Although we have established charities and missions that we support annually, we also try to meet immediate needs when there is a tragedy. In January of this year, we were able to immediately funnel monies to World Relief as the organization lost their funding and had 90 refugees already in the area that needed to be housed. The committees voted to send $4,500 which is enough money for 1 family to be taken care of for 90 days (their typical time with the organization). In addition, we asked the UMG fund to also support World Relief with an additional donation of $4,500 and they met and also agreed to help fund this critical mission.

Another immediate need saw us voting to send money directly to the California Conference of the United Methodist Church in honor of Lisa Telemon to help with the loss of 2 churches/parsonages to the wildfires. Although Pastor Lisa’s church was not affected, her conference was and our committee voted to donate $5,000 to this cause.

We’ve also been contacted by other local churches and will be collaborating with them on local mission events. For example, we’ll be participating with Baker UMC and Batavia UMC for A Week of Local Missions in July and recently helped Wesley UMC’s warming shelter in Aurora through our connectional association with Hesed House. We’ve also gotten a call from Bethany Covenant in St. Charles to possibly collaborate on supporting refugees. We look forward to more inter-church collaboration in our future!

UMCG has always been a very mission focused church and the CiS/Missions committee takes this commitment very seriously and we try very hard to spend your generous donations wisely and bring opportunities to our congregation to be His hands and feet in our local communities. We will continue to work with all our mission partners to do what we can to make this world a little bit better.

The newly-revised scholarship program and applications forms are available. There are two applications this year -- one for high school seniors and one for current college students. Don't forget to apply!

ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL LENTEN STUDY

"THE FINAL DAYS" BY MATT RAWLE

BEGINNING MARCH 9, 2025

Adult Sunday School meets in the Parlor each Sunday at 10:30am. The book “The Final Days-A Lenten Journey through the Gospels” is available through Amazon and other locations. The study will also be supported with a video each week. Please consider joining them and invite a friend for good discussions and fellowship! Contact Jim McConnell with questions.

Prairie Central eNews is here.

The NIC weekly eNews is here.

Download the NIC Reporter here.