PUBLISHED BY THE WEST VIRGINIA CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
VOL 2 / NUMBER 6
A Bishop’s Vision by Laura Allen I talked with Bishop Steiner Ball about her upcoming report to the Annual Conference, which she will base on Isaiah: “... Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31). LHA: Part of your message since you came here has been to focus on what we CAN do, in spite of weariness, population decline and exhaustion. How does this Isaiah scripture tie into that message? SSB:There is a kind of fatigue that comes from a defensive life. It’s exhausting to be on the run all the time, protecting yourself from perceived threats so that you can be safe and survive. Many people go through life like this. There is also a fatigue that comes from constantly trying to advance yourself, to “succeed.” SEE BISHOP PAGE 7
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CALENDAR
Summer Youth Celebration
June
12-15 Annual Conference 15 Peace with Justice Special Sunday 23--27 Summer Youth Celebration
July
4 Conference Center Closed 13-18 Radical Discipleship Academy of Appalachia 24-26 UMW Mission U For more information and the full calendar visit wvumc.org/ calendar. Email submissions to wvumc@wvumc.org.
WE REMEMBER Rev. Dr. Robert (Bob) Florian (FE-R) E. David DuBois (FE-R) Mary Roth, surviving spouse of Rev. Charles Roth (retired) Rev. Robert James Chenoweth Jr. (FE-R) Bernard Connelly, Sr, father of Ken Connelly, (PTLP) Robert G. “Tank” Davis, father of Tim Davis (AS)
KEEP UP WITH US:
Youth from around the Conference will meet at West Virginia Wesleyan College for the annual Summer Youth Celebration June 23-27. This year they’ll learn about God’s call on their life. Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball will preach and workshops include songwriting and missions. Learn more and register at wvumc.org/youth. photo by Laura allen.
MissionU
Facebook: facebook.com/wvumc Twitter: @wvumc Photographs: flickr.com/wvumc enews: wvumc.org/communications
The Mountain Circuit P.O. Box 2313 Charleston, WV 25328 Voice (304) 344-8331 Fax: (304) 344-2871 email kthaxton@wvumc.org
Resident Bishop: Sandra Steiner Ball Editor: Laura Harbert Allen Associate Editor: Adam Cunningham Production: Ashley Perks
Find us online: wvumc.org
Join the United Methodist Women for their annual MissionU July 24-26 at West Virginia Wesleyan College. Studies include: Spiritual Growth - How Is It with Your Soul, Geographic – The People of Roma, and Issue - The Church and People with Disabilities. Learn more and register at wvumc.org/UMW. photo by adam cunningham.
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Communications Update We comm. Do you? Want to update your e-subscription to the Mountain Circuit or learn how you can find resources for your ministry? Find a communications team member during Annual Conference - they’ll be easy to find in yellow shirts!
Short Clips The goal of the Short Clips project is simple: we want to tell stories about ministry that are creative and engaging. And, we are doing them with a simple piece of equipment: an iPod touch. We’ve seen dogs blessed, heard stories of recovery, and learned about churches that have turned around. Visit youtube.com/ wvumc to see the stories you have helped
us tell so far. We’d love to hear your story ideas! Email us at wvumc@ wvumc.org. Or, find a member of the communications team (look for the people in yellow t-shirts!) and let them know you have an idea for a Short Clips project.
#wvumc Join the conversation about Annual Conference using hashtags #wvac14 and #wvumc on social media. We will also stream Annual Conference this year and provide digital and print coverage of business sessions and worship to share with the UM connection in the conference, and beyond. Visit wvumc. org/conference for “all things Annual Conference.”
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Board of Trustees officers Jeff Taylor, President of the United Methodist Foundation of West Virginia, Inc., announced that the Board of Trustees elected officers at its April 28 meeting at the John XXIII Pastoral Retreat Center in Charleston, WV. William B. Goode, of Hurricane, West Virginia was elected to serve as Treasurer, replacing retiring trustee, Dallas Kayser, of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The Board also re-elected Jeffrey A. Porter of Huntington, West Virginia, as ViceChairperson; Kim Matthews, the Foundation’s Associate Director, to continue to serve as Secretary; and Jeff Taylor to continue to serve as President. J. Franklin “Joe” Long, of Bluefield, Virginia and Hilton Head, South Carolina, continues his two-year term as Chairperson of the Board. Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball serves as the Honorary Chairperson.
The Board of Trustees also elected seven new trustees: • Ken Cover, a layperson from Warwood United Methodist Church in the Northern District; • D. Lyn Dotson, a layperson from Suncrest United Methodist Church in the Mon Valley District; • Steven Foster, a layperson from Chapel Hill United Methodist Church in the Wesleyan District; • Scarlett Kellerman, a layperson from Lewisburg United Methodist Church in the Greenbrier District; • Deborah Shaffer, a layperson from St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in the LittleKanawha District; • Ken Shanes, a layperson from Spruce Street United Methodist Church in the Mon Valley District; and • Vernon Webster, a layperson from
Bakers Chapel United Methodist Church in the Potomac Highlands District. Taylor said he is excited about the new class of new trustees and the variety of gifts they bring to the Foundation’s work. “Our Leadership Development Committee strives to nominate prospective trustees with a broad range of gifts and experience,” said Taylor. “They’ve done an excellent job in bringing these names forward. We look forward to working with them.” The Board also recognized the service of six retiring trustees: Tom Bell, Anita Bower, Victoria Coleman, William R. Nestor, Rev. David Erenrich and Dallas Kayser. The Foundation, now celebrating 40 years in ministry, manages over $87 Million dollars, all for United Methodist causes.
Praising Dr. Bowyer
Standing left to right are: Dr. Humayun Chaudhry, FSMB President and CEO, Reverend Bowyer, and Dr. Jon Thomas , Chair of the FSMB Board of Directors. photo courtesy of FSMB.
Retired Rev. Dr. Richard Bowyer received a lifetime achievement award from the Federation of State Medical Boards in April at their annual conference in Denver, Colorado. The award was presented in recognition of his leadership and contributions to the West Virginia Board of Medicine over the past 30 years. Bowyer has been appointed to the board by seven different governors and is the first public member ever to hold the office of president of the Board of Medicine in its 131year history. Bowyer was appointed for many years as campus minister at Fairmont State.
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For bikers, cause for clean water hits home By Ryan Quinn, The Charleston Gazette Biking 150 miles in two days may sound arduous to the athletically disinclined, but the Rev. Jonathan Nettles points out there are worse things. “Even if the rain is coming down and the roads are rough, it’s pretty small compared to the people who have to walk two hours for water or die from a lack of clean water,” Nettles said. That’s why Nettles, who preaches at St. Matthew United Methodist Church in Weston, is helping organize the We Care 150, a June 6-7 ride northeast from St. Marks United Methodist Church on Washington Street to a chapel at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon. J.F. Lacaria, the lead organizer, said he’s been putting together the ride for about a decade. Through sponsorships for riders, the event has raised around $12,000 each year for various causes, such as combating malaria and aiding victims of the 2011 Japanese tsunami. But Lacaria, assistant to the bishop and director of connectional ministries for state arm of The United Methodist Church, said this is the first year the group is raising money to support United Methodist missions to provide clean water in Africa. The event’s organizing team, with the state bishop’s approval, chose to help provide clean water partly because the water crisis gave them a bad taste, and a licorice-smelling whiff, of what some Africans’ everyday existences are like. “Having lived through our own water crisis, and experiencing the fear, the inconvenience and the distress that it caused here, it was easy for us to relate to communities in Africa in which clean water could be a life or death situation,” Lacaria said. The Rev. Brad Bennett, a co-pastor at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Sissonville, said he’s been raising money for clean water for years before the Jan. 9 Freedom Industries spill, which leaked chemicals into the Elk River and fouled the water of about 300,000 West Virginians.
But during the water crisis, Bennett’s church became a water distribution center. He said this gave him a more personal connection to the issue. “We found what it’s really like to not have clean water,” Bennett said. “It’s not just a slight annoyance, it really disrupts life.” Providing clean water could save the lives of millions who currently suffer and die, he said. “Some of these communities have to walk miles and miles to access water,” he said. “And some of it’s still not clean.” Bennett noted that so far 25 riders from churches across the state have registered, which is looking like a record. Most riders do the full 150 miles, but some only do part. Lacaria said the number of riders has slowly grown over the years, and he hopes to raise $15,000 this time. He expects the event to raise more money through corporate sponsors, who will appear on the riders’ jerseys. “The $15,000 could significantly help the drilling of a well in a village that does not have potable surface water,” Lacaria said. “It would also significantly allow a community to purify an existing water source.”
He said the money could also help transport water into refugee camps. The funds will be given to the United Methodist Committee on Relief, which will decide how they will best be used to provide water to Africans. Lacaria said the bikers will follow the Elk River to Sutton in the first 100-mile leg. The next day, they’ll traverse the remaining 50 miles through the countryside to Ireland and Walkersville and finally climb a plateau to reach Buckhannon, where they’ll stay for the June 12-15 annual state United Methodist conference. Those who want to donate to the United Methodist Committee on Relief can go online to www.umcor.org/umcor/ support. You can contribute directly to the local We Care 150 event by making checks out to “Conference Treasurer” and writing We Care 150 in the memo line. Send the donations to We Care 150, P.O. Box 2469, Charleston, WV 25329. You can also donate at your local United Methodist Church. To register for the ride, visit www.wvumc.org/info/ride. Reprinted with permission. Originally published on May 31, 2014 in The Charleston Gazette
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BISHOP from Page 1
Finally, there is the fatigue that comes from caring, from trying to make a difference. It comes from launching into life and trying to live it in depth and fullness, trying to live it in love. When you care about what is wrong in the world and the suffering that results from that, you can get pretty tired. God wants to help us with this last kind of fatigue. God wants to renew our strength, to make us able to do good in the world. When I read Isaiah, I hear the writer saying…Have you not seen, have you not heard? Look around at the big world. Behind it all is your creator, who has the expansive power of life, a power that can make a small grasshopper like me and you soar like an eagle. In faith, it is the capacity to look at the vast expanse of the world with a sense of awe and wonder that lifts us to new heights. Isaiah tries to help us catch a vision of the greatness and eternity of God in contrast to our limitedness. God goes before us casting a vision of good for all people. That is an important part of what it means to be saved by grace. LHA: You have also challenged us to see God in the everyday. Why is that important and how can it inspire us? SSB: When I came to the West Virginia Conference, I invited everyone to join me at lunch time in conversation/prayer with God. Specifically I asked the people of the Conference to consider these questions: Where have I seen Christ at work in the last 24 hours and in what ways can I or the church partner with or support that work? And: In the last 24 hours where has God been at work and I missed it, walked right by, failed to hear God’s voice, failed to turn aside? I asked that you end that prayer time with asking God to give you, individually and communally, Christ’s eyes, Christ’s ears, and the courage of Christ to risk faithful acts and actions in this world. Prayer is powerful and to practice prayerful watching and listening as individuals and in community puts us and our congregations more in touch with
Working the Vision What does Bishop Steiner Ball believe is next for the West Virginia Annual Conference? As noted in her interview in this issue, the district lead teams are an important piece of the strategy to connect churches with their districts and the conference. The bishop will outline this strategy and several other items in her address on Saturday, including: • the importance of a storytelling culture • digging deep into our neighborhoods and communities, e.g. “the mission field” • an increased commitment to prayer and spiritual formation • leadership development strategies We will publish the bishop’s next steps in their entirety online at wvumc.org/ conference June 14. God’s will and action. Seeing God in the everyday is important because our world needs us to reflect God’s fire and passion to change the world for good. This is very different from the world’s fire - war and terrorism, domestic violence, bullying, financial crisis, poverty and addiction - these are the cries for help from the world. God’s passion and fire - reflected in us - will enable us to transform people and communities here in our own conference and around the globe. LHA: What is your hope for the District Lead Teams? How will they connect and help us share in a new way? SSB: I hope is that the District Lead Teams inspire a fresh wind of the spirit in each of our congregations. As the lead teams visit all of our local churches each year, I hope they will come to believe that they are a chosen, holy and beloved part of the community of faith. Our churches and people have value! I hope our congregations will discover the joy of being
empowered by Christ; and the renewed spirit and conviction that comes with that discovery.. My hope is that the District Committees will be God’s instruments in helping individuals and congregations develop disciples who will be committed to making other disciples. My hope is that action plans for being the presence of Christ in each District will be contagiously multiplied and will bear fruit. My hope is that ministry and mission will become a contagious, all-consuming fire across the Conference. LHA: How does the theme of Discover Christ tie in to this new vision, this breath of fresh air for the West Virginia Conference? SSB: Well – it’s all about Christ! That is the point. We can never become the people God created and designed us to be unless we open ourselves to discover, experience, and participate in a fresh Pentecost experience and fresh movement of the wind of the Spirit today. This all begins as we rediscover and reconnect with the Christ who is in our midst.
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Habibatu Fugbawa sits with two of her children in front of the insecticide-treated mosquito net she received from the United Methodist Church’s Imagine No Malaria campaign in 2010 at her home in Bumpe, near Bo, Sierra Leone. The insecticide in nearing the end of its useful life and several villages in the Bo district will receive new nets from the campaign in the first planned redistribution to replace the nets given in 2010. Photo by Mike DuBose, UMNS.
UMC nears goal in Imagine No Malaria Campaign As the Imagine No Malaria (INM) campaign enters its home stretch, United Methodists can look with satisfaction at $60 million already raised in gifts and pledges, and with hope and confidence toward surpassing the $75 million goal by the end of 2015. Most of the money raised has been from grassroots efforts like bake sales, car washes and children donating birthday money. “Now, gifts of $1 million are coming in, and there are opportunities for more of these,” said Pittsburgh Area Bishop Thomas Bickerton, chairperson of the executive committee for Imagine No Malaria. “This is what it means to be connectional,” said Bishop Bickerton. “Everyone in the pews contributes to the success of Imagine No Malaria. This is selfless, joy-
ful giving. This is generosity that will save thousands of lives. I am so proud of my United Methodist brothers and sisters in Christ.” In the West Virginia Conference, churches stepped up. The Western District raised more than $14,000 with a special Imagine No Malaria emphasis on Mother’s Day weekend. Since 2007, the West Virginia Annual Conference raised $424,993.82 through the Nothing But Nets and Imagine No Malaria campaigns. The Rev. Monty Brown, chair of the West Virginia Conference Task Force on Imagine No Malaria, says the efforts of local churches are inspiring, because they focused on ministry first. “We intentionally set no goal for this campaign. We believed from the beginning that this
is an effort of faith,” he said. Brown also believes that the message that “$10 saves a life” helped too. “This gave individuals and churches something very doable to focus on,” he said. “The creativity in raising funds in churches throughout our conference has been inspiring.” Malaria has been killing for thousands of generations, but improved prevention, sanitation and healthcare have all but eliminated it from the developed world. Despite this progress, however, malaria continues to kill at a rate of almost one death every minute in Africa — millions of children infected each year. You can text “Malaria” to 27722 and give $10 to save another life! Edwin Acevedo and Laura Allen contributed to this story.