News
January 01, 2014
An Open Letter to Worship Leaders
By Mark Roach Well, here it is. 2014. Another year in the books. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably still a bit out of breath from the Christmas season. If you’re anything like me, you’re thankful that Easter ...
January 01, 2014
Church @ the Center
By Fred Koenig Church @ the Center in Springfield is a faith community centered on new generations of non-religious people finding life change through following Jesus Christ. It’s a missional church, very focused on ...
January 01, 2014
Communicating fir a Change
By Geoff Posegate Church leaders do well to pay attention to anything offered for public consumption by Andy Stanley, founding and lead pastor of North Point Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. Andy simply is one of the most...
January 01, 2014
Diverse Group of Young Adults Consider God's Call to Ordained Ministry
By Vicki Brown Speaker after speaker told the 429 young adults gathered to explore ordained ministry in The United Methodist Church that God is calling them to go change the world and the church. “This is not your...
January 01, 2014
Faith Vessels
By Fred Koenig Hue Parnell, pastor of Fairview UMC near Springfield, found the vessels being used by many churches to be lacking. When it comes time for the sacraments, some pastors are essentially using items from the ...
January 01, 2014
I Am The Missouri Conference
By Fred Koenig Some students drift away from church when they get to college. Julia Buchholz let her church choice guide her college choice. “I had grown up in Wesley UMC in Springfield, but then I moved to Kansas ...
January 01, 2014
Imagine No Malaria via Basketball
By Fred Koenig "I started going to the YMCA about four months ago, and asked them what I could do to prepare,” Rawley, pastor of Rogersville UMC, said on the day of his event. They were helpful at the Y, and...
January 01, 2014
Involving Everyone in Advent
By Fred Koenig There are a lot of different ways to go about preparing for Advent. This year Ashland UMC in the Midstate District kicked it off with a meal, and a way to keep it going at home. After worship on ...
January 01, 2014
Leadership Development
By Ken Willard Welcome to 2014! Now what? Well this just might be the year for you and your church to take leadership development up to the next level. We read in Romans 12 that leadership is one of the spiritual ...
January 01, 2014
Were Jesus, Mary & Joseph Alone in the Stable?
By Jerry Wrenn Welcome, Holy Child. Welcome, Holy Child. Hope that you don’t mind our manger. How I wish we would have known. — “Welcome to Our World” (Words and music by Chris Rice) With Christmas comes winter. ...
January 01, 2014
Wesley in the World Today
By Hal Knight It has been said that for all of John Wesley’s impact in his own day and ours, it is the words of his younger brother Charles that are more familiar to Christians throughout the world. This is because we ...
January 01, 2014
What is the Future of Faith?
By Fred Koenig Used to be that a sermon would be developed and dreamt in the solitary book-filled office of the pastor, only to be revealed on Sunday morning. Used to be that a church program would be planned in the ...
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January 01, 2014
Wilderness Retreat & Development Center Begins Celebration of 50th Birthday
By Brittanee Jacobs Almost 50 years ago, what is now the Missouri Conference purchased 320 of acres in northwest Missouri to create a camp. Little did they know that Wilderness Camp would turn into a year-round, ...
August 31, 2013
Angels Along the Way
Greetings! It seems like a long time since my last column in the Review. In fact, it was last May before Annual Conference in one of the final issues. Now, with the change to this monthly magazine Missouri Methodists, I’...
August 31, 2013
Benefits Road Show
By Nate Berneking On our recent Benefits Road Show, Mark Conner of the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits, described several recent changes to the clergy’s death and disability (CPP) and pension (CRSP) ...
August 31, 2013
Candidates Answer the Call
By Fred Koenig “Candidacy” is part of a lifelong spiritual journey of discerning God’s callings in our lives. The Missouri Conference has an enhanced program for persons in the process called the Candidacy Summit. ...
August 31, 2013
Cherokee Citizens Get Visit, Help from 400 Missouri Conference Summer Youth Work Campers
By Julie Hubbard For the eighth straight year, the Cherokee Nation teamed up with volunteers from the Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church, and this round had 400 volunteers tackle 50 projects for several ...
August 31, 2013
Costner-Fulton Mission Start Up Grants
The Costner-Fulton Fund for Missions is a grant program of the Creative Ministries Team. Tom and LaVerne Fulton shared a passion for social work in their professional lives. Their activism was a calling, rooted in faith ...
August 31, 2013
Creating the Social Media Dream Team
For many churches, social media can be a great tool for outreach, but managing it is a big job. If your church, like many, cannot afford a social media manager, consider a volunteer team to work with the staff. To create...
August 31, 2013
I Am The Missouri Conference
By Fred Koenig Karla Geerlings hasn’t changed churches since she was a kid, but she has seen her church change. Wilkes Boulevard UMC has been very intentional recently about reaching out to the community it is in, so ...
August 31, 2013
Imagine No Malaria
By Carolyn Belshe I think the time has come for me to share my malaria story: I was commissioned as a United Methodist General Board of Global Missions missionary in 1988, studied Portuguese in Lisbon, and entered ...
August 31, 2013
Letter From the Editor
A couple years ago my wife and I started a blog. Actually, we started a project, and the blog was just a way to hold ourselves accountable to the project. There was a new cookbook out by the Missouri Department of ...
August 31, 2013
Message From The Cabinet
By Dale Stone Greetings from the Mark Twain District, a town and country district located in northeast Missouri. Our congregations and pastors gratefully serve alongside the diverse United Methodist churches throughout ...
August 31, 2013
Mission U
By Fred Koenig The Roma of Europe and the poverty that exists outside our doors were the two areas of focus at the inaugural Missouri Mission u. This year 240 United Methodists came from around the state to participate ...
August 31, 2013
Now Read This
By Andy Bryan Those two words: “Required Reading.” Although they can sometimes place immediate roadblocks between myself and a book (I’ll confess it!), this time the “required reading” was insightful, practical, and ...
August 31, 2013
Shared Moments Built the KINdom Community
By Terri Williams Relationships are built on the shared moments with others. My Aunt Edith left in 1946 to be a long term missionary in Kenya through the Society of Friends (Quaker). The original plan was that she would...
August 31, 2013
Summer Camps
By Fred Koenig For many children and youth across the state, it just wouldn’t be summer without church camp. In 2013, more than 2,000 campers participated in Missouri Conference camps at one of the four United Methodist...
August 31, 2013
Summer Youth Mission
By Fred Koenig In 1997 Beverly Boehmer took a group of 40 of Missouri’s United Methodist youth to Kansas City for a week of mission work. This year she concluded her summer, her last for leading the mission teams, in ...
August 31, 2013
UMC Ladies, You Can Do This
By Dan Steska Who is that lady with the chainsaw and why is she here? Life has a strange way of leading us in directions we would never expect. What inspired Bobbi Myers to drive over four hours to an Early Response ...
August 31, 2013
Wesley in the World Today
By Hal Knight Why John Wesley? Over two decades ago, while I was teaching in Atlanta, Georgia, a student raised that question. Why, he wondered, was he required to study Wesley’s theology? His faith was not in the words...
July 31, 2013
2013 Ethnic Minority Young Adult Interns
Twelve persons, ages 19 to 23, began work in Washington, D.C. early in June in the Ethnic Minority Young Adult (EYA) Summer Internship program of the United Methodist General Board of Church & Society (GBCS). They are ...
July 31, 2013
Disaster Care in Action
By Dan Steska How do you say ‘thank you’ to someone who works hard all his life, finally retires, and then volunteers to spend the next two years working to help disaster survivors? You really can’t...Only God does that...
July 31, 2013
First UMC St. Charles Sends Team to Haiti
ByJennette Barker Eleven members of First UMC in St. Charles embarked on a week-long journey on June 25 that was an experience of a lifetime. Our eclectic, intergenerational group spanned the age range of 50 years. We ...
July 31, 2013
Hart Family to Receive House From Annual Conference
Wow! The home being built for the Hart family in Joplin is one that we hope Jesus would like, since in essence we are building it for him through the face of this wonderful family. The Office of Creative Ministries ...
July 31, 2013
I Am Missouri Conference...
“I bleed little flames and crosses,” she said. Her great-grandfather, T.W. Glass, was a circuit rider in the Poplar Bluff area. She grew up in First United Methodist Church of Honersville, where her grandfather, a doctor...
July 31, 2013
Jo-Ota to Celebrate 60 Years of Fun & Faith
By Fred Koenig Missouri’s four United Methodist camps are just about to wrap up a busy summer of 2013, but the fun isn’t over. On September 28, Camp Jo-Ota will celebrate 60 years of ministry. On September 22, ...
July 31, 2013
Letter From the Editor
This issue of The Missouri Methodists is the second step in the development phase of your Conference magazine. Although you’ll see the publication continue to take shape, the beauty of working with periodical ...
July 31, 2013
Marceline UMC Takes Flight
By Doug Kraus Marceline UMC’s Vacation Bible School theme this year was Airplane Pilot VBS – Eagle Express Flight 4031! Kids (young and old) love airplanes. This VBS was filled with fun facts, games, and stories about ...
July 31, 2013
Maupin Joins US-2 Program
By Fred Koenig Cindy Maupin, 26, of Mexico UMC in the Mark Twain District, has just embarked on a two-year stateside mission experience as part of the General Board of Global Ministries US-2 program. Maupin is ...
July 31, 2013
Missouri Quilts to Support Education in Kenya
By Terri Williams In Missouri school will be starting again in just weeks. Our schools are equipped with buildings, desks and even electronics to varying degrees. This is the time of year we see all the great bargains ...
July 31, 2013
Moberly Area Chosen As Mission Trip Destination
By Connie Duval The Missouri Conference sends a lot of youth and adults into mission work every year, but this year one small town in Missouri was on the receiving end of mission work from youth from another state. ...
July 31, 2013
Now Read This
By Nelma Lawton I've been feeling convicted about my work with children and youth and remembered something Henrietta Mears said: "We want young people to know Christ in such a definite way...that when they meet the ...
July 31, 2013
Tech Talk
By United Methodist Communications Want the largest audience for your post on Facebook? Want the most likes, favorites or clicks? Like cooking a soufflé or preparing a good roux, there’s an art to the timing of your ...
July 31, 2013
Vacation Bible School Kids Take Charge of Imagine No Malaria Campaign
By Jill Wondell After Annual Conference, churches around Missouri began thinking of ways they could raise awareness to end deaths from malaria in Africa, and Vacation Bible School seemed like a great place to begin ...
July 31, 2013
Walking the Walk
By Cameron Ward If you have driven through the northern side of downtown Columbia within the past few weeks, you may have noticed Rev. Meg Hegemann, pastor at Wilkes Boulevard UMC, leading groups of youth along the same...
January 01, 0001
Mozambique Initiative Support Prenatal & Maternal Health The Center of Hope is a faith-based community health promotion program located across from the Chicuque Rural Hospital and has active grants from the Imagine No ...
January 01, 0001
Helping someone through the day is one level of ministry. Helping someone make a change is another. Jobs For Life isn’t about helping the masses, it’s about transformation of the individual. Schweitzer UMC in ...
January 01, 0001
Building Dedication at Conference Center
We are excited to announce the Mission, Service & Justice Building Dedication and OCM 50th Celebration. This new addition to the Missouri Annual Conference Center houses MSJ ministries, including Festival of Sharing. The...
January 01, 0001
Estamos Juntos: We Are Together
By Pamela Tilmore The M’punzu Trio opened the report from the Mozambique Initiative of the Missouri Conference. Sarah Bollinger, Associate Director of the Mozambique Initiative, shared a joyful report of a successful ...