by Superintendent Pam Braman | Feb 11, 2021 | Pastors and Leaders Newsletter
I’m a potter. In my free time, I love to throw a lump of clay on a rotating wheel and then shape and form it into something useful and beautiful. “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand” (Isaiah 64:8 NIV)....
by Superintendent Fraser Venter | Feb 10, 2021 | Pastors and Leaders Newsletter
I will openly admit that I am somewhat addicted to home improvement shows. I think it’s because you don’t often see the completion of a thing when you are in ministry. Thus, the tendency of pastors (myself included) to constantly paint walls. It is always refreshing...
by Jen Finley | Nov 17, 2020 | Pastors and Leaders Newsletter
What’s the story of your encounter with Jesus? Sometimes He meets us in a quiet, simple moment, and sometimes He makes His presence known more powerfully. But no matter what the encounter looks like, we’re always changed in the presence of our Resurrected Savior....
by Mark Adams | Nov 17, 2020 | Pastors and Leaders Newsletter
Raging fires throughout Northern California have taken many homes, creating smoke-filled air that chokes out oxygen, making every breath a labored chore, obscuring the sun, and has made life dangerous and miserable for months. One Free Methodist church, the Foothill...
by Marissa Mattox Heffernan | Oct 13, 2020 | Pastors and Leaders Newsletter
“When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.” – John Lewis If you had told me over six years ago, when I entered the ordination journey, that this quote...
by Kayleigh Clark | Oct 13, 2020 | Pastors and Leaders Newsletter
“I want you to picture My kingdom in Uniontown.” The words echoed around me during a time of prayer, an unmistakable message to my heart from the still, small voice of God. In that moment I thought I knew what those words meant. It seemed to me an invitation to step...
by Patricia Ann Tefft | Oct 13, 2020 | Pastors and Leaders Newsletter
“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” (1 John 4:16). “Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame” (Psalm 34:5). As the North Michigan Conference’s Global Associate Prayer (GAP) missionary, my call is to...
by Mark Adams | Oct 13, 2020 | Pastors and Leaders Newsletter
Governor George Ryan handed me the Illinois Excellence Award for Hillside Free Methodist Church’s Refugee Ministry. It was a proud moment for the church. Serving refugees in Chicago had never been about awards (though the church received many) but simply about...
by Derik Heumann | Sep 18, 2020 | Pastors and Leaders Newsletter
“What is a disciple and how do we make one?” This question has been a blessing and a curse to many leaders in the church in the last few years. We are reaping the fruit of decades of attractional, consumer focused, seeker-sensitive, non-missional forms of “church”...
by Chris Hemberry | Sep 18, 2020 | Pastors and Leaders Newsletter
I have become an avid golfer. For most of the past 20 years of my life, I played golf sparingly — something like 12 to 15 rounds a year. The bar I set for myself as a golfer during that time was relatively low. Scoring below 90 was “clearing the bar” for...
