Dear Killbuck United Methodist Church;

There is a great deal of concern within the UMC General and Annual Conferences, on down to the District levels, with the spiritual and physical health of the UMC and the Christian church in general. We are not the only denomination dealing with these issues.

Since becoming involved with leadership in our district and conference, I have seen several plans initiated at the General Conference, Annual Conference and District levels to address these concerns; to find something that resonates at all levels to renew and revitalize our denomination and its mission.

On Tuesday 4/20 I attended a district training event on the MissionInsite mission context analysis website. I was there as one representative of our Cluster group. Pastor Roberta also had this training some months ago. There are upcoming conference and district mission goals for each local charge that will involve the use of this website locally.

I hope that I am not stepping on Pastor Roberta’s toes as I go on here, but here is the timeline from our district office for the aforementioned goals.
May 2, Spring District Conference and Commissioning of Ministry.
May, Training in MissionInsite. Our cluster is scheduled to receive this on May 8th and then on to each local charge.
May – June 11, Local church study of mission field and identifying of target group.
June 14 – 17, Annual Conference Challenge from the Bishop.
June 20 – September, Develop a plan/process to reach the target group.
September – November, Report during charge conference.
December 2010 – December 2011, Carry out the plan/process with regular updates on progress shared in the compass groups.

This is just an outline for us to fill in. I expect that Pastor Roberta will be speaking more to this; that she and I will be discussing this and having more to report suggest and recommend on this to Ad Board and the congregation.

In the meantime I am leaving a copy of the letter I received from our DS about this on the table in front of the office. I will also provide some of the MissionInsite.com materials with it. More on this next month.

Love,
Vic