Update

Blessings Sisters & Brothers of Christ UMC, Selinsgrove: Today’s Update from Pastor Ryan (August 13, 2015) • Office hours next week (Monday, August 17 to Friday, August 21) are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday 8 am to 4 pm and Thursday 8 am to 11:45 am at Christ High • Starting the week of Monday August 24 – we will be back to full office hours Monday through Friday 8 am to 4 pm at Christ UMC on High Street or “Christ High” • We had many meetings this week including Agapeland Board, Insurance, Finance, Ad Bd, Worship Design and Youth Leadership not to mention multiple groups of people who have come to “Christ High” to prepare the building from Preschool to Children to Worship/Visuals to Sound and Media Ministries and more! It has been wonderfully witnessing so many people alive and doing the work of our Lord as we prepare for our grand openings at Christ high the week of Monday, August 31. • The Trustees continue their excellent work and have meet with experts to examine the proposed building settlement offer from the Insurance Adjuster. The experts have confirmed that the building offer is an excellent offer and the Trustees have voted to except the offer of $934,671.63 (this does not include Contents and Building Loss, which will be additional amounts). Of that amount, $44,980.82 was allocated to the emergency board up services, temporary power, demolition and clean up and CUMC 8th Street. This means that $889,690.81 is now available for the church to make business decisions with for the future (whether to renovate 8th Street, build new on 522, or some combination). We will and Trustees has voted to use a couple thousand dollars of that money to fix the roof at CUMC 8th Street as we cannot leave the roof at 8th Street in its current condition for the coming winter. Outside of that, the rest of the money will be used as decided by the church at a full church charge conference. Any other bills for say Mark 1 clean-up, Phoenix electronics restoration, etc. for CUMC will not be taken from the $889,690.81 money but will be more money added to the claim under contents or business loss insurance. • We are still working on contents and numbers are coming in – I will have copies of the up-to-date settlement numbers which will be available in the bulletin this Sunday with explanation following each service. Even in those numbers, the contents number will continue to increase as we work through our inventory and restoration sheets. • Finance is working on where to place large insurance checks (one for over ½ million dollars) in financial intuitions to make sure that we gain some money on the large sums until we need to use them throughout the coming year. • Administrative Board approved a plan for the coming months on how we will be moving forward. The plan is the following: o Tuesday, August 25 Building Committee will be meeting at 6:30 pm with Jim Kerber and Joe Bolick of Mid Penn Building Systems and they will be presenting plans for possible new building on our 522 property o Town Hall meetings will begin on Wednesday, August 26 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. There will be 3 Town Hall meetings with the other two on Sunday, August 30 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm and Wednesday, September 2 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Everyone is welcome at these town halls at Christ High and everyone’s input is welcome. We will discuss all that has happened, all the available options including building new, restoration and other available possibilities. Members of the church leadership and the pastor will be at all three meetings to hear the input and to answer questions. We want as much input as possible! o Agapeland Open House is Thursday, August 27 at Christ High. o Tuesday, September 1 the Trustees at 6:30 pm will meet to continue their option preparations for the 8th Street property and to check on how Christ High property is working o The first day of Agapeland is Tuesday, September 1 at Christ High. o Administrative Board will meet on Tuesday, September 8 at 7:10 pm (Finance will meet before that at 6 pm) to reflect prayerfully on all the input from Town Halls, Building & Trustees to select the best option to present to the whole congregation for a vote on Wednesday, October 7 at a Church Charge Conference where every member will have a voice and vote o Town Hall meetings will continue (1 to 3 depending on the need) after the September 8 Ad Bd meeting to communicate the selected option and the reasons behind that selection (including proposed budgets for that option) o Worship Design, SPRC and other groups will continue to meet on their normal schedules o Church Charge Conference vote will be Wednesday, October 7 at a time to be announced • Worship Schedule for the next couple of weeks is the following: o Sunday, August 16 & 23 continues to be at Susquehanna University, Weber Chapel 8 & 10:30 am with Sunday School at 9:15 am (6 new members and 1 baptism will be occurring at 10:30 am service on August 23) o Sunday, August 30 there will be one CUMC worship service at the Outdoor Worship Center from 9:15 am to 10:15 am with 2 additional options after the one service 10:30 am to Noon an open house at our Christ High Church (570 South High Street, Selinsgrove) – all are welcome to walk around our temporary location 11 am Come with Pastor Ryan to worship one last time at Susquehanna University with the University Community at their chapel service under the direction of their chaplain as a thank-you for all they have done for CUMC o Sunday, September 6 is the grand opening worship at Christ High Church (570 South High Street, Selinsgrove) with 8 am Praise Service, 9:15 am Sunday School and 10:30 am Traditional Worship (the Children will be using the Sunday School time as an open house to explore their new location – other Sunday School classes will be working on orienting themselves to our new location) – We will be worshipping at Christ High for as long as needed God continues to be with us through it all! As we continue to move for Christ may we remember that “by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8).” You are an amazing congregation with an amazing lay leadership. Thanks be to God for God’s grace, love and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Please be in prayer for the church that we be lead by the Holy Spirit to select the best future option for CUMC. Keep on going for Christ CUMC! Blessings, Pastor Ryan