Pastor's Report from the Church Conference

Pastor Charles speaks to the gathering

2013 has been an exciting year for Stevensville UMC!  In June, Rev. Nancy Slabaugh-Hart moved to pastor the Great Falls UMC and the church welcomed Dr. Charles Alkula and his wife, Belinda, to Stevensville in July for his first appointment in the Yellowstone Conference.  Throughout the changes and transitions SUMC has continued to be a loving and supportive community that reaches outside of its walls, sharing the love of Christ and expanding the kingdom of God.

Below are some of our joys and celebrations from the year:

-Attendance and Membership: This year SUMC welcomed 4 new members to the roll.  We have also had a steady stream of visitors.  Our attendance dropped slightly in the summer months but with the beginning of a new school year attendance has picked back up, we currently average 90 per week.  Last Christmas Eve we had 157 in worship and on Easter this year we had 163 people in worship.

The focus of our evangelism efforts is not numbers of members but the growth of mature disciples of Jesus Christ who are in the business of transforming the world.  Our “numbers” display a trend found throughout The United Methodist Church.  Of note are the following:

Membership Roll: 192

Constituent Roll: 73

Average Attendance: 90 (or 35% of the combined Members/Constituent rolls)

Names on list for 1^st reading at Church Conference: 50

Faith Formation: We take growing in the faith seriously at the Stevensville UMC.  But we have fun doing it!!! Our members can be found at home, in study groups in other churches in the Bitterroot Valley, and on-line in their desire to grow in their discipleship.

- Youth and Children’s Programs: Our youth program is small, but running with Julie and Paul Ludington leading the middle school youth.  The senior high youth have taken a hiatus due to there being only one high school youth in the church at the present time.  We have a class pre-K – K and one class for grades1-5.  Our children’s message during our Sunday morning worship has been a joy both for the children and adults to experience. 

-Adult Discipleship and Small Groups: We continue to have two adult Sunday school classes that are flourishing.  We also have two small groups that meet during the week, one at the church and one at the home of Doris Taylor.  We have had short-term studies on Wednesday evenings including the Wesleyan Way and GriefShare: Surviving the Holidays.  A monthly book group reads and discusses challenging titles each month.  Each of these groups has helped to grow discipleship and provide fellowship for participants. 

This year, an Advent/Christmas devotional was introduced using entries written by church members.  A print version of this

Finances: Our Stewardship/Finance committee has done an excellent of promoting the spiritual aspects of supporting the church.  Each Sunday the invitation to give and the response to the offering are provided by a Stewardship/Finance member. 

Music Ministries: A small church in a small community might possibly be excused for not putting much effort in worshipping God through music.  That is not the case at SUMC!  We have an excellent choir (led by Brenda Bolton), a brass ensemble (led by Clay Freeman), and a chime choir (led by Molly Hackett and Brenda Bolton).  In addition to these groups we have a wonderful assortment of talent to draw upon during the summer months.  Our worship service begins with fifteen minutes of “praise music” and is led by Paul Ludington, Dave Lockman & Jenna Lockman, and Bob Edgar.  Hazel Smith and Julie Ludington provide the accompaniment for our music ministries with much appreciation!

Outreach into our Community: Loaves & Fishes is a SUMC ministry that provides food and hope to individuals in the Stevensville area and throughout Ravalli County whose financial circumstances makes it difficult to provide for themselves and their families.  We support the work of the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) by sharing our building with them.  WIC staff members welcome the community every Wednesday. 

We supported the Christmas shoebox effort for children on the Blackfeet Reservation with more than a dozen children benefiting.  We also provided gifts for sixty children through the Stevensville community “Sharing Tree” project.  When the Poverello Center in Missoula put out a plea for towels and blankets, the SUMC members stepped forward to provide these needed items with bags and bags being collected. 
We have a dedicated group who craft prayer shawls for those identified by the congregation.  When a shawl is to be presented to someone, the shawl is passed through the congregation during worship to be prayed over.  Members of the congregation share the bounty of their gardens with others each summer.  The free-will donations are then shared through our mission projects. Each year our parking lot on the corner of Third St. & Pine St. becomes the place for neighborhood families to see and be seen as the children go from trunk to trunk in search of goodies!

Our Thank Offering, held on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, coordinates our outreach efforts. This coming year we will be supporting National/World, Montana and local ministries: Heifer Project  International, Imagine No Malaria, and Pastor's Support in Angola, Blackfeet United Methodist Parish; Intermountain (Helena), Carpenters for Christ (Stevensville); Clothes Closet (Stevensville); Habitat for Humanity (Ravalli County); Loaves & Fishes (SUMC); Pantry Partners (Stevensville); SAFE/supporters of abuse-free environment (Hamilton).

In addition to these projects the members of SUMC are involved in numerous other volunteer and outreach projects of their own.  Our members are very active in the Pantry Partners, Clothes Closet, Genesis House, Ravalli County Habitat for Humanity, and more. As a church we are in conversation about how to continue to be a light throughout the Bitterroot Valley.

UMW/UMM: These groups are two of the most involved in the church.  They meet monthly, are involved in outreach to the community, and enjoy food and fellowship with one another. Our UMW and UMM groups both support children in the same village in Haiti. The UMW conducted a “sock drive” for the Yellowstone Conference’s Fall UMW event.  SUMC provided more socks than all the other UMW groups that were present combined.

In addition to efforts already mentioned, the UMW supports a number of other outreach efforts including: Bitterroot Youth Home (Hamilton)  - Christmas cookies for shut-ins (SUMC) - Clothes Closet (Stevensville) - Educational awards for graduates (SUMC) - Flathead Lake UM Camp - Genesis House (Stevensville) -  Heart Butte Ministry - Intermountain Children's Home (Helena) - Loves & Fishes Fund (SUMC) - Pantry Partners (Stevensville) - S.A.F.E. House (Ravalli County) - Special Missions Projects (SUMC) - Western Montana Walk to Emmaus - Wesley House (Univ. of Montana - Missoula) - Western Mountains District UMW - Yellowstone Conference missions

Social media at SUMC is beginning to bear fruit.  We have begun to build a presence on  social media sites including Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube.  Our YouTube channel is in its infancy and already has found an audience.  We posted each of the songs from this year’s “Hanging of the Greens” concert and have begun weekly posts of the musical ministry offerings and sermons.  A revamped website, www.steviumc.org has useful information for both guests and members alike.  A blog, www.steviumc.blogspot.com, was introduced in July and already has garnered 13,985 “hits.” 

Areas of Growth:
+The children’s program continues to be an area where more leadership would be helpful.  We have several active young children in the church and they need attention for their faith formation.  Our youth group is very small and great effort will be required to meet the challenge of a small group’s needs in the coming year.

+An on-going process of discernment is what our community’s needs are, how we can best address them, and how we can reach out to the global community as well.  Missions and outreach are an ongoing conversation and process that should never grow stagnant so this will continue to be an area of focus for our church.

In order to transform the world we must first be transformed ourselves.  If we are serious about growing the Kingdom of God we must be creative and intentional about spiritual growth.  If we take care of first things first, the numerical growth will take care of itself.