Service – Wyoming UMC, Wyoming
March Missions Blizzard: For the past two years, we have used the month of March to focus on Missions in
worship. We started in 2013, mostly focusing on two major needs—hunger and the homeless. For our hunger
focus, we took an offering for the Family Pathways food shelf, worked at Second Harvest Heartland (a program
serving schoolchildren) and sent a crew to Feed My Starving Children as a part of the Million Meal Marathon. For
the homeless, we had a presentation on New Pathways and we collected coins for partnering with Emma Norton.
One Sunday we focused on A Brush With Kindness and launched the Care Crew North ministry. The chair of
Missions and other Missions team members spoke or led presentations in worship. We also made and sold bake it
yourself pizzas to raise money for our youth to attend Storm Camp in the summer. We collected the One Great
Hour of Sharing offering too. This year, we focused on hunger. We collected monetary donations for the food
shelf throughout the month and donations of personal care items. We also took this opportunity to launch a new
program for us called Food4Kids similar to the backpacks of food sent home with kids over the weekend. Again,
we took the One Great Hour of Sharing offering in March.
By focusing on missions for a month, we have the opportunity to talk about needs in a more in-depth manner. We
can educate people in our church about steps they can take to make a difference. And, we can inspire and
motivate the congregation to take on new ministries!
We decided on a spur of the moment basis to try focusing on Missions for a month during worship. We made
decisions on our focus, found videos and other promotional materials on hunger, talked to the local people who
run the food shelf, decided to launch Care Crew North with a skit. After the first year, we decided we had taken
on too much, had too many offerings. So, this year, we took just two offerings: one ongoing offering for the food
shelf and one for One Great Hour of Sharing. We launched the Food4Kids program with a presentation during
one Sunday.
For more information contact: Jane Rylander, jane21475@aol.com, 763-434-8568