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2024 Pastor's Report

5. The Pastor shall give a report on the state of the church and an account of pastoral ministry as it relates to (¶ 340): providing support, guidance, and training to the lay membership in the church; ministering within the congregation and to the world; and administering the temporal affairs of the congregation. Include as a part of the report a statement outlining the pastor's program of continuing education and spiritual growth for the past year and plans for the year to come (¶ 349).

 

2024 for Cobleskill United Methodist Church has, in this pastor’s view, been informally focused on developing a stronger connection between our Discipleship Pathway and our church leadership structure.  Spurred on by continuing education I was receiving through a conference-wide Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) cohort, I brought the idea of shifting our leadership development strategy to our Leadership Development Team in January.  Throughout the course of the year, we worked together to bring a sermon series focused on developing congregational gifts to the church in June and building a database of assets within our church thereafter. 

 

Fruit of this work has been a desire to structure our church leadership around the three “Bs” of our mission statement: Be Loved. Belong. Be the Difference.  With these three overarching movements, we have begun matching people’s gifts with the broad area of congregational development for which they are best suited.  The great thing about these broad categories is that there is a lot of room for adaptation and flexibility around people’s individual gifts and passions.  When someone says they like to garden and would like to help start a church garden, we can help them decide which movement this fits under best and give them freedom to develop the plan with similarly-minded folks in the congregation. 

 

A brand-new Hospitality Team has formed as a result of this ABCD movement.  People who have gifts for sharing a generous sense of “belovedness” have formed a team designed to shepherd new and existing events to embody this first movement of our church’s mission statement.  This moves the oversight and implementation of these events to a more sustainable lay-led structure. 

 

Another part of this year worth celebrating is our church’s leadership in community-wide soft plastic recycling.  Beginning in December of 2023, our church challenged its congregation and community to recycle 1,000 pounds of soft plastic (mailers, wrapping, bags, etc) within one year.  We met our goal within five months!  And we didn’t stop there.  We have almost met a goal of recycling 2,000 more pounds, with each 1,000 pounds recycled earning a recycled plastic bench through the NexTrex program.  A beautiful bench now gives a resting spot under our beloved Catalpa tree, another bench sits at our local elementary school and third bench will soon sit outside our sister church’s Code Blue Warming Station.  We are beginning to recognize that discipleship takes many forms and caring for God’s creation is one of them.

 

Small groups at CUMC are continuing to have an impact on the health of our church.  In addition to regular Fellowship Groups, we now have a completely lay-led Covenant Discipleship Group, a brand-new Social Justice Team, and a small group of pilgrims preparing to travel to Iona, Scotland together in 2025.  Our Fellowship Groups are now managed and led by lay person.

 

Continuing in the theme of exploring our giftedness from the ground up, a talented group of retired and active teachers in our congregation designed and implemented a home-grown curriculum for our annual children’s summer Compassion Camp.  “Let Us Build a House” focused on radical inclusivity and housing concerns in our community.  The children built homes for carpenter bees and packed hygiene kits for neighbors in our Warming Station.  Through creative songs, a puppet mouse, stories, and games on our spacious lawn, we welcomed 40 children plus 8 youth helpers to our church for camp. 

 

I’ll conclude this year’s report on the life of the church by highlighting the leadership our congregation has taken in building bridges within our community during a contentious election cycle.  By engaging the local chapter of Braver Angels, our church has hosted two workshops aimed at depolarization.  Together more than 50 people engaged in conversations about how to address stereotyping and negative assumptions in talking about people on the other side of the political spectrum.  Our Social Justice Team has led this effort and more workshops in the future are being planned to address family political tensions and issue-based conversations in the community. 

 

My own continuing education this year has included participation in the Asset Based Community Development cohort led by Kristina Clark.  I attended the Bishop’s Retreat, January 16-18, and I also gave a week of my ministerial time to volunteer at Skye Farm as Chaplain, July 7-12.  I continue to serve as the Coordinating Elder for the Schoharie Mosaic Cooperative Parish.  Connectionally, I have been elected as the Chair of the Order of Elders which also places me for the quadrennium on the Board of Ordained Ministry.  I serve on the UNY Creation Justice Team and helped in 2024 to prepare a “Nurturing Children” Lily Grant for the conference.

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