To the Church

I hope everyone is doing well.  For starters, I'd like to just offer a little bit of an update about myself.  The last few months have been a whirlwind.  Getting settled here in Ransom was made infinitely easier thanks to everyone who pitched in and donated items to my house.  I truly appreciate every single donation, card, gift card, and offers of dinner I have received over the last few months from numerous people.  It has truly been a blessing to step into this new office alongside a church that is passionate about ministry.  I have recently started school and am looking forward to the end of the semester already.

This church has been quite active in the last few months as well.  I had the pleasure of joining the United Mehtodist Women for two of their meetings.  Once they travelled out to Starved Rock for a beautiful luncheon and most recently they allowed me to give a short lession in one of their meetings.  If you are looking for a group to join, I definitely think the women's group is something you might enjoy.

On top of that, in the month of July, the church hosted a VBS that was joined by Verona.  It was a fantastic Bible School that I believe really had an impact on the community, and the adults had fun as well.  I want to give a special thanks to Beverly as she went out of her way to procure nearly all of the materials we needed and supported all of us in the numerous roles we played.  That week, our highest number of attendance was 18 kids, and for the most part, most of them stuck around for the entire week.  Following that week, we had an incredible Sunday recap service where we had 60 people in attendance.  Praise God!

For the last little while, I have done a few sermon series.  I had a blast being able to preach the "Helping Hands" and the "Hineni" sermon series.  Personally, I believe that everyone has a call from God to contribute to the Kingdom during our time on this earth.  I absolutely love to read about those stroies in the Bible and even more so love to hear about them in real life.  If you feel like God is calling you to some sort of action, I encourage you to share that with someone.  I, personally, would love to hear from you.

As many of you have noticed, I have begun posting the Sunday sermons online.  I have begun this to accommodate some of our wonderful members who are no longer able to come to morning worship with us.  I have heard that it is also nice if you ever miss Sunday worship for any reason.  To find those go to the United Methodist Church, Ransom IL Facebook page, and they should be easily located.

I want to thank everyone for their love and support during my first few months here, and I genuinely look forward to my time with all of you wonderful people.

Pastor Jon