Sunday, 2/1     Final sermon in "Meeting Jesus" Series - Rev. Kelly Love

Marcus Borg described Jesus as a "spirit person."

Sunday, 2/8     "How to Perform an Exorcism" - Rev. Cody Sanders

Our focus in Lent for 2015 is  "covenant": what does it mean/look like for an individual to be in covenant with God? What does it mean/look like for a community to be in covenant with God? What is the nature of covenant relationship(s)? We explore elements of this theme each week.

 

Adult Sunday School Classes in December

Sunday mornings, 9:45-10:45 am 

 

This winter, the Adult Sunday School lessons follow the theme "Acts of Worship." taken primarily from the Christian Scriptures. The first four lessons explore the awesomeness of God; the next four explore the discipline of prayer, and the last four are concerned with fasting, serving others, and reasons for good stewardship in relationships with others.

 

February 1st     "Feasting and Fasting"

February 8th     "Serving Neighbors, Serving God"

February 15th   "Serving The Least"

February 22nd  "Clothed and Ready"

 

"Pathway" is the name DUMC has adopted for what is now a multi-year process of examining the life of this church and identifying, well, paths to carry us into the church's future. 

Three "theme teams" are currently doing their work. The "themes" these teams are working with emerged as significant emphases from the 116 responses collected in congregational interviews last spring. The work of the theme teams is to identify and carry out experiments - brief, simple activities that connect to the theme - and then practice deep reflection that helps us learn from each experiment and discern a next step - a next experiment. One goal is to slowly and steadily explore how strong themes in the life of this church are put into practice. But an even stronger goal is to learn to practice experiments and discernment as an approach to congregational life. 

Each theme team is continually open to new participants. In particular the development and implementation of each new experiment is an excellent time for YOU to get involved in an area of interest. Since experiments are intended to be brief, participation can ebb and flow as experiments unfold and evolve.

The "hospitality" theme began with a modest experiment of increasing the use of name tags in worship over the course of one month. In listening to people's experiences, we learned that some people feel reluctant to be outgoing when they are not able to remember names. Using name tags helps other people feel more confident in starting a conversation, and decreases the embarrassment of people who struggle to remember names. We also learned that DUMC had neglected to provide nametags for our children! Once we recognized this, we ordered many nametags for children and youth of this congregation. (If you don't have a nametag, call Anna in the church office and she will add you to our next order.)

The "caring for congregation and community through small groups" theme team felt let by the element of small groups to provide intergenerational activity and to support young parents in getting together. The group ran into some challenges with people's schedules in the holiday season and with crafting the details of what to do with this gathering, so they continue to work on shaping their first experiment. In addition, this group has the broadest of the themes, and will be looking at whether it might be helpful to define/articulate the theme more clearly or narrowly, or even define two themes within their broad area.

The "caring for children in need" theme team connected a theme of care for children with DUMC's heart for social justice, and through connections in the congregation and then community learned about a need for people to read to elementary school students. This project has been quite rewarding for those who have signed on to read. It is longer in scope than the recommended structure for an "experiment," so this team is now considering how to adapt the practices of learning and discernment to the structure of their project, in order to look at the role of this "theme" in the life of DUMC.

The ongoing Pathway work continues to be steered by the Guiding Team, whose responsibility it is to continue to learn this model of experiment and discernment and help each Theme Team practice these methods.

As we look ahead, we continue to explore the questions that come up as our work evolves, such as: when, how, or why might we add themes to this process? (Many other themes were identified in the interview data; the three listed above were simply identified as places to start.) How might we apply the practices of experimentation, learning, and discernment to the ministry areas of our church? 

If you are interested in this process and where it might go as it continually evolves, you might like to actually read the interview data - the results of the interviews. All those responses have been compiled and are available to anyone, and they are quite inspiring to read. Paper copies are available in the "Pathway" box with staff and volunteer mailboxes (toward the bottom). You can email Anna in the church office to ask for an electronic copy. 

As always, if you are interested in getting involved or if you have questions, feel free to contact any member of the Guiding Team:

Janice Morand, Louanne Horsfield, Kristin Thebaud, John Knight, Megan Houpt, Jerry Olson, Margot Clark, and Pastor Kelly Love. 

	DECEMBER ACTUAL	YEAR TO DATE ACTUAL
INCOME	$58,241	$397,758
EXPENSE	$47,615	$341,564
NET	$10,626	$56,194

We are happy to announce that thanks to the generosity of the congregation we ended 2014 in the black with a healthy carry-forward to support the work of our Church. 

 

Last night the Church Council unanimously passed the 2015 budget fully supporting the requests of our ministries as well as providing a cost of living increase to our hardworking staff and slightly increasing Anna's hours (Church Office Hours will remain the same). The budget also sets aside funds in a building reserve for the long term maintenance plan that the Trustees completed this past year.  In addition, we were the recipient of a SUMU grant in the amount of $5000 which will support Pathway's projects this coming year.  Lastly, thanks to the generous bequest from Don Hedrick in the amount of $200,000 to pay down the mortgage, we will be free of the building mortgage in August 2024. 

 

In the coming months the Finance ministry will review the solar project and make recommendations to Church Council as to how to proceed. We are currently leasing the panels and will have the option next year to buy the solar equipment from the provider. The cost effectiveness of such a buy out will be examined and will inform our recommendation to Church Council.  We will begin the solar project review at the February 18 Finance Ministry meeting. 

 

Thank you for your generous support this past year and for the commitments made through the Stewardship process for ongoing support in the coming year.  

  

Caring Congregation

ways we can support one another

 

Meals Ministry

 

Prayer Chain

 

Do you need to be prayed for? Or would you like to request prayers for someone you care about? Our prayer chain is a group of folks who are committed to praying for any need brought to their attention. To request prayers for yourself, or someone you care about, or a concern that is on your heart, contact coordinator Courtney Diedesch at 

Transportation Connection

As a church community we are called to take care of one another. If you need a ride to worship services and/or events, or if you can provide transportation, contact Gail Mitchell, our Transportation Connection coordinator. Gail can be contacted by phone at 530-574-1176 or by email at gailtalk@gmail.com.

  There are so many ways to help support the ministries of your church, and some of them are quite small in scope! 

• Typing. There are often little things around the office that need typing - hand-written notes from meetings or brainstorms, short poems or articles that we want in the computer in order to edit - things like that. Let us know if you'd be willing to have us call you when we simply need something typed.
• Reading. Many of our ministry areas have interesting resources available - sometimes more than current volunteers have time to read. If you like to read and might be willing to read and summarize information related to some ministry area in the church, let us know! Let us know whether your interest and time limit you to articles (for example) or whether you might be willing to take on a book.
• Phone calls. Phone calls are often the most effective way to convey information, but they take more time than a group email. Would you be willing to receive a list of people to call and some brief, simple information to convey (e.g. a meeting reminder)? This would be an enormous help!

 

United Methodist Women

Celebrate women in the church with us on Sunday, February 15, and learn about some of the global missions supported by them through United Methodist Women programs.

 

Please join us to hear about deaconesses in the church as we welcome guest speaker Debbie Dillon, a CLayM Pastor from Rio Linda, at our meeting on Thursday, February 19th.  It will also be a day of Prayer and Self-denial.  Join us at 1:30 pm in the Walker Room.

 

UMW meets monthly on the third Thursday of the month at 1:30 pm in the Walker Room at the church. Guests and new members are welcome. 

  

For more information, contact President Alice Lakin at 759-9978 or Vice President Rosa Washington-Olson at 753-2088.

 

 

The United Methodist Men

UMM will continue to meet weekly on Wednesdays from 7 - 8 am. Come join us for breakfast and fellowship at Black Bear Restaurant, 2nd & B Sts. Contact Jerry Beaman (753-4555) if you have questions or would like more information.

For Your Information 

Email or call Anna in the church office (davisumc@davisumc.org; 756-2170) and she can provide you with an electronic or paper copy of the most up-to-date church directory.