Palm Sunday and staff news

This Sunday, April 5th is an exciting day in the life of our church. Palm Sunday will be a glorious day filled with music and celebration. This year our children will lead us in a full processional from the back of the sanctuary to the front waving palm branches along with the congregation. We will hear our children’s choir sing and enjoy listening to the story of Jesus’ last entry into Jerusalem before the events of Holy Week.
This Sunday is also Confirmation Sunday. We have three youth who will be confirmed Sunday. Riley Shaw, Sana Moran and Madison Griffin will make professions of faith and become full members of Woodville United Methodist Church. I hope you will make a special point to be in worship this Sunday
We have exciting news also to report on our staff ministry team. Our Staff Parish Relations Committee has met and consulted with others and has begun to shape our staff in dynamic ways. We have decided at this time to focus on our summer ministry especially with youth. Jimmy Robertson will return to Woodville for a third summer but this time as our summer youth director. We are thrilled to welcome Jimmy back this time to lead our youth ministry for the summer months. Jimmy’s ministry has produced fruit in his relationships with youth and his leadership of Bible studies and participation at camps and retreats. In addition to her responsibilities as Children’s Ministries Director, Yolanda Griffin has agreed to take on additional responsibilities in youth ministry from April-August. Yolanda is going to work with volunteers and get us prepared for all the summer camps. I and the SPRC decided to focus on the important summer youth ministry and wait on hiring a year-round youth director until after the summer.
The third staff announcement is the exciting addition of a summer pastoral intern. Through the Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church, Stephen Gehring is being sent to us for a 2 month period from mid-May through the end of July. His stipend salary is fully funded by the Texas Conference. Stephen is currently a sophomore at Southwestern University. He grew in College Station at Christ UMC and has been involved as a youth in many camp experiences. Stephen is discerning a call to pastoral ministry and participated in this program last summer at a different church. I’ll share with you more about his internship in the weeks to come but we are privileged to have this dynamic ministry team in place for the summer. Join me in thanking God for these blessings.