Narrative Report of the Pastor
(Revised July 2017)
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Clergy Name: George M. Rowe
Charge: Union City/ Cogar charge – Cogar U.M.C.
Please write a report on the state of the church and an account of pastoral ministry as it relates to (¶340, 2016 BOD): providing support, guidance, and training to the lay membership in the church; ministering within the congregation and to the world; and administering the temporal affairs of the congregation.
Note: You may want to read the Pastor Profile form (not a charge conference form) for this year and consider what answers there might be appropriately duplicated here.
State of the Local Church and an Account of Pastoral Ministry
I believe us to be a vibrant faith community that enjoys worshiping and serving together. We have a unique familial atmosphere I believe to be absent in most churches. While we are not large in numbers, our spirit is tremendous and there is a strong bond of love and genuine concern for each other. We appear to be on a fairly stable plateau in attendance and are in good financial health.
Our community is, due to its rural location, geographically dispersed which somewhat limits our opportunities and the types of ministry in which we can engage. We have received many thank you notes from recipients of our card ministry in which during the course of a year we send literally hundreds of cards to those within our faith community along with our friends and neighbors and other acquaintances. These cards express our support, greetings, well wishes, celebrations and sympathies, and based upon the feedback from recipients are very much cherished by those they reach.
Given our circumstances I feel we excel in our outreach to children through Vacation Bible School and our annual Easter egg hunt. Both of these programs touch the lives of many, and let them know there is a God who cares about them. These ministries touch many adults as well, as there are usually as many adult helpers as there are children participants. Everyone has a great time and we look forward to these two special events.
We also continue to provide food baskets to several families at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We have also tithed funds to various other area ministries.
We have been blessed this year to participate in quarterly events aimed at our “Missional Area.” The feature event was “Worship by the Water” in July which was attended by over 100 persons. Bishop Nunn was our guest preacher for this event, where we had the opportunity to fellowship with him and people from the other churches in our missional area.
All things considered, I believe us to be a vibrant congregation that is doing its best to live into the calling of making disciples for Jesus Christ.
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