Corpus Christi UM youth group transforms home for Christmas
By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
Catherine Albert of Corpus Christi hesitated just long enough to make a difference.
The youth director at St. John’s UMC had called to notify a needy family that it had been chosen for the youth group’s annual Extreme Christmas Makeover—a chance for a night on the town while youths and adults transform the family home with Christmas decorations andstock the pantry
with food.
A school counselor had recommended the family—a grandmother in the Flour Bluff neighborhood who was rearing four grandchildren.
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La Vernia UMs deliver
gifts to Seguin shelter
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9 churches draw 1,046
visitors to Dec. 24 services
Nine Southwest Texas congregations reporting Home for Christmas results welcomed 1,046 visitors to candlelight services Dec. 24.
Of those, nearly half—501—were worshiping with those congregations for the first time.
Those were two results from follow-up reports on last month’s Home for Christmas public witness and outreach campaign.
Nine of 47 participating congregations submitted information about outreach planning and Christmas Eve attendance to the Communications and Public Witness Office by Jan. 4.
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Ministry academy to
offer 10 workshops
Ten workshops covering leadership development, fostering multicultural relationships and cros-sing racial lines are part of Holy Boldness Urban Ministry Aca-demy next week in San Antonio.
The Jan. 18-20 gathering at Travis Park UMC is designed to show Southwest Texas Conference clergy and laity leaders ways to transform congregational life in city churches.
Such ministry convocations date back to the time of John Wesley, founder of the worldwide Methodist movement, said the Rev. Dan Bonner, a workshop leader and president of the Center for Urban Congregational Renewal Inc. in Georgetown.
“It’s intrinsically Wesleyan to conference together around new ministry agendas,” he said.
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Survey classifies most
congregations as ‘maintaining’
Most Southwest Texas congregations are in a maintenance mode, a 2007 survey shows.
Bishop Joel N. Martinez and the seven district superintendents reviewed self-assessments of congregational health from 290 of the 348 local churches in the Southwest Texas Conference during November and December.
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