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Ministry
Opportunities
Sunday is Peace
With Justice Sunday
Peace with Justice Sunday is the next
denomination-wide Special Sunday. Our Social Principles call
us to love our enemies, seek justice, and serve as
reconcilers of conflict.
If we want peace, we must be committed to
disrupting these conditions and systems that perpetuate
injustice.”
Half of the funds raised on Peace With Justice
Sunday will remain in our conference to support ministries
locally. The other half goes to The General Board of Church
& Society to provide grants that will further the pursuit
of peace across the denomination.
So donations for this special Sunday support
programs and ministries to educate, equip and mobilize
actions in support of identified economic, health, and gender
justice priorities.
Bible Study Classes
For several years we have had 2 very
distinctive Bible study classes... one during the daytime and
another in the evening. Since COVID, the daytime class (currently on Tuesdays)
has mainly been online via ZOOM. The evening class has been a
"hybrid" with members meeting in person and via
ZOOM simultaneously. Both classes have studied a wide
range of topics and used a myriad of resources. Because
our church is in the midst of a transition of pastors, our
class schedule has been interrupted. Here is our plan
going forward:
WEDNESDAY BIBLE
STUDY CLASS will resume their meeting again on Wednesday, May 8th at 6:00 p.m. and
each Wednesday following in May. Again, a ZOOM link
will be made available for current class members.
Once Pastor Dave has arrived and gotten
settled (after July 1st), he will determine the continuation
of the classes, their meeting days and times in consultation
with those currently participating. Please be patient as he
learns his way around WUMC.
You're Invited
Join us on Sunday, June 2nd for
a Ministry Celebration for Rev. Danita Anderson! We will
celebrate Pastor Danita’s 10 years of ministry at Woodridge
UMC with worship at 10AM followed by a potluck celebration
for all! The Staff Parish Relations Committee will provide
the main dish and dessert. Please bring a side dish,
vegetable, salad, or fruit to share. Fun and games for kids
will be included. If you would like to help with the
celebration, please contact Patti Cash at 630-258-0533.
A printable invitation is here.
60th Anniversary Celebration
Join us in commemorating this 60th year of our church and
continuing our mission by purchasing a canvas tote bag ($25),
reusable grocery bags ($5) and/or stickers that allow you to
use an app to get credit for every time you refill your
grocery bag or water bottle and support important initiatives
for clean water through the Fill It Forward organization https://fillitforward.com.
Everything is on sale now in the narthex (or stop by the
church office). Follow the link to see Fill It Forward’s
partnerships https://fillitforward.com/giving/
and the clean water causes that are helped by your scans.
Woodridge Names Tom Stefanson Chief of
Police
Former Deputy Chief with 32 years of experience to lead the
Woodridge Police Department. See the full announcment here.
Blood Drive at St.
Scholastica
The Knights of Columbus are sponsoring a blood drive at St.
Scholastica on Saturday, June 1st from 7:30
am to noon. To schedule your donation, go to www.versiti.org/IL
or call Camille from Versiti at 847-305-9998. Appointments
are encouraged, but walk-ins are welcome! Photo ID is
required. Flyers are here.
11th Annual Drive
to End Hunger - On Par in Paradise
The West Suburban Food Pantry is once again hosting their
golfing event to end hunger on Tuesday, June 25th. For the
Early Bird discount, the registration and fees are due by
June 3rd. New this year: 1:00 pm shotgun start followed by
dinner. For more information and to registers click here.
Sunday School
There is no Sunday
School this Sunday, but please see Miss Becky.
Activity Bags are available in the Narthex.
We use inspiring stories, creative crafts, and fun games—all
done with guidance of loving, dedicated teachers—to engage
our students.
Here’s our process: Children begin the worship
service in the sanctuary with their family. Following the
“Praying” segment, the children will be invited up to the
chancel steps for conversation with the pastors. (We call
that time “Conversing with Children.”) Following that, the
Sunday School teacher will meet the children in the Narthex
(the big room outside the sanctuary) and walk them to their
classroom. They will be in either the Trinity Room in the
main hallway or the Blue Room in the Preschool wing.
Toastmasters
Would you like to speak with more confidence in any setting?
Toastmasters can help! The Woodridge Toastmasters club meets
on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month
at Woodridge United Methodist Church. Come
visit us and see for yourself! For more information contact John.
Birthdays
June Birthdays
1 Avery Stock
6 Rey Aquino
Jovie Santucci
7 Karen Miller
10 Wally Jeske
13 Chris McConnell
15 Michael Manderfield
16 Judy Krohn
Kelly Hoblin-Lamorena
18 Kevin Mullane
20 Jane Borgehammar
22 Charles Hoehn
27 Carole Strong
Cory Aquino
28 Ed Krohn
Nikole Krughoff
29 Dennis Nelson
Northern Illinois Conference
Annual Conference -
I Freely and Heartily Yield
The 185th Northern Illinois Annual Conference is Sunday, June 16th through Tuesday, June 18th
at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center.
Registration is $130 and due by May 29th.
There is no on-site registration. See the link here
to register and for more information
Bishop Scwerin's Reflections on General
Conference 2024
Posted: May
16 2024 at 03:17 PM
Author: Bishop
Dan Schwerin
BE HAPPY
IN HOPE
(ROMANS 12:12)
Grace and peace to you, Children of a Loving
God,
I write to touch base after doing some
listening to how news of The United Methodist General
Conference is being received in Northern Illinois. To do
that, I need to start with a story.
I was sitting in the barbershop, waiting for
my turn to get a haircut (a task still necessary in my life
that may surprise many of you). This was my General
Conference haircut. While I waited, I heard someone who was
reading something say, "So what is Palm Sunday and
Easter, anyway?"
The question came to me from the side, someone
asking but almost daring anyone to answer. I launched into a
synopsis of dozens of Palm Sunday sermons in my head. I
explained Easter in 50 words or less. On my way home I
unpacked the meaning of the question: our context is full of
people who live by the scripts of success or fear-mongering,
or just being ungrounded in the joy we have. I cannot imagine
my life without the script of gospel hope.
The scripts are flipping in The United
Methodist Church. We have been living with scripts for battle
and not scripts for Jubilee, scripts for harm and not scripts
for grace. Romans 12:12, in the Common English Bible, says it
this way: "Be happy in your hope." We are made to
live from hope.
United Methodists have an expansive view of
grace. Grace is God's unmerited, unqualified love and regard
for our good. John Wesley insisted that grace was free for
all and needed by all. We are here to grow in grace. Ministry
is living by grace in our daily lives, and ministry is from
anyone to anyone. Our hope is in God's freedom and in
God's capacity to offer grace that makes new. Some decisions
at the General Conference helped us reflect what we say we
believe.
Click here to see
more.
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Dec. 13, 2023
Dear Servants in ministry,
Greetings in this holy time of anticipation and promise.
At this time of year, we celebrate the coming of a child.
Christmas, Epiphany, the boy Jesus in the temple—all center
on a child.
Indeed, children should always
be in our hearts and minds. And now, people
who were abused as children need our Christian compassion
and generosity.
Repair the Harm to Children,
the Northern Illinois Conference campaign to address the
needs of people who suffered abuse in a Boy Scout troop as
children, needs our support.
Many churches, including United Methodists, have chartered
Boy Scouts of America troops or packs over the years. As
part of the settlement of a lawsuit brought by these
survivors, the United Methodist Church has agreed to
contribute $30 million to a survivors’ fund over a
three-year period. Northern Illinois Conference’s share is
$754,348.
Your church can be part of the
healing for these survivors by committing an amount equal
to 1 percent of its budget to this fund.
This amount is payable over three years. Your church will
still have 99 percent for local and church-wide ministries.
We don't invite people to pledge because they participated
in the harm. We invite you to give because you care about
the welfare of children and want to help those who were
hurt as children to experience healing.
The Repair the Harm to Children
campaign is not only about financial compensation for the
survivors. We also commit to listening to
survivors, if they request it, with compassion. We will
also redouble our efforts to keep our churches safe for
children and vulnerable adults.
Our conference has received, as of this date, donations and
pledges from 28 churches and several individuals. We have
received commitments for $136,770, 18 percent of our goal.
So far, pledging churches have contributed $54,036.69. We look ahead with confidence that we Northern
Illinois United Methodists will achieve our goal.
Steps Toward Participation
- Your church identifies the amount
of its pledge.
- Visit umcnic.org/RepairtheHarm
and complete the Pledge Form linked from that page.
- When your church is ready to
begin fulfilling its pledge, visit the Make a Payment
link on that page. Remember, your church can fulfill
its pledge over three years.
This site also contains many resources
to help interpret the importance of this commitment. People
in your church who have participated in Scouts as young
people or leaders and those who care deeply about
children’s wellbeing can serve as ambassadors for this
opportunity to help others.
Please remember that Boy
Scouts, Girl Scouts, and other youth organizations support
children’s faith formation and are worth hosting in our
churches. The BSA commits itself to
strengthened protections for participants. Adding your
church’s vigilant observations of Safe Sanctuaries
practices, Scout troops and packs can be a safe and
enriching experience.
Knowing about NIC churches’ and individuals’ generosity, I
look forward to our receiving your pledges and gifts.
It is good to be in ministry with you.
Peace
Dan Schwerin, Bishop
Northern Illinois Conference
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If you would like more information, you can
visit the FAQ page here.
Prairie Central Informal Gatherings with
the District Superintendent
Informational gatherings will be
held on the second Thursday of the month.
Zoom Links (The links will stay the same for all meetings,
though clergy links and lay links will be different)
Clergy Gathering 9:00 am link.
Lay Gathering 7:00 pm link.
Lay persons: This is NOT for Lay Leaders only. It
is intended for all lay persons who want to know more about
what is going on and be connected.
Northern Illinois Conference
Find out
about upcoming events in the Northern Illinois
Conference of the United Methodist Church by clicking
this link
Outreach
Opportunities
May Outreach
Offering
Missionary Nancy
Carew
Nancy Carew is a missionary with the General
Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church
assigned to the Liberia Annual Conference in West
Africa. She is serving in the ministry of empowerment in
the areas of skills training and leadership development for
women, including young adults.
Nancy teaches courses covering food and nutrition, home
management, and basic computer skills at the United Methodist
Women’s Leadership Training Center. She has additional
administrative duties at the United Methodist Mission
Missionary Compound in Monrovia. She also organizes a
nutrition program with emphasis on children in her community.
A native of Sierra Leone, Nancy has a Bachelor of Science
degree in home economics education from Njala College,
University of Sierra Leone, and is a certified facilitator in
nutrition. She also earned certificates as a patient care
technician at DeKalb Technical College (now Georgia Piedmont
Technical College) and in Windows and Microsoft Office from
Georgia Perimeter College, both in Atlanta, Georgia (USA).
Prior to her commissioning as a United Methodist missionary,
she taught high school for six years in Sierra Leone before
proceeding to London, where she worked for three years in the
dietary department of St. Mary’s Hospital. After moving to
the United States, Nancy worked in the food and beverage
department with Stouffer Concourse Hotel and the Evergreen
Mariott Conference Resort in Atlanta, while her husband
taught at a local college. Nancy says, “My training in
nutrition and experiences working in hospitals and hotels has
prepared me for God’s mission…” She feels blessed to
have been called to serve in this capacity.
“The suffering and hardship of innocent civilians, including
women and children, during the civil war in Sierra Leone and
Liberia has touched me deeply,” Nancy says. “I know God is
working through my ministry to bring relief and hope to
women, in particular, who are desperately in need of help.”
Before her assignment to Liberia, Nancy and her family served
for three years in Nigeria. Mrs. Carew was manager of the
United Methodist guesthouses in Jos, taught with the adult
literacy program, and helped to develop a children’s Sunday
school. She was also treasurer of the urban ministry program.
Nancy is married to George Carew, a retired missionary with
Global Ministries, and the Carews are members of Clarkston
United Methodist Church in the North Georgia Annual
Conference. Nancy and George are the parents of six children.
Ways to donate to
the May Outreach Offering:
- Check or cash in an Outreach
Offering envelope placed in the offering plate in the
- Narthex (the room outside the
sanctuary) or in the gold-plated mail slot at the
church’s east door.
- Online via our website. Select
“Current Month Outreach” in the drop down menu.
- Text the amount you want to give to
630-449-7121 and select “Current Month Outreach” in the
drop down menu.
Ongoing Opportunities
"Goin'
Green" Shoes & Clothes Recycling Box
Located in the northeast
corner of our parking lot, this receptacle is a
convenient place to recycle any shoes and your clothes that
are at or near the end of their usefulness. Did you know
discarded clothes account for more total landfill space than
any other waste item? The “Goin’ Green” Box helps us reduce
our waste.
West Suburban Food Pantry
There is a shopping cart that is waiting
for donations. It sits in the narthex, usually near the
sanctuary doors. The food pantry serves many
households and always welcomes
donations!!! We are all one bad month, week, or day
away from needing emergency food services. The
pantry strives to provide their customers with
nutritious meals like we would our own families.
Used Eyeglasses
There is a
basket also in the narthex for collecting
used eyeglasses. Kendra Manderfield Moore makes
sure that they are recycled to the Lions Club and Gift
of Sight groups. (Prescription
eyeglasses only).
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