EVANGELISM MINISTRY

Evangelism is sharing faith with others, particularly those who are unchurched or disconnected, and inviting them to follow Jesus Christ as Christian Disciples. Disciple making begins with invitation and welcoming and continues through a process of relating persons to God and equipping and sending them forth in ministry. At Vandalia UMC, there is a process that has been defined to help a person to visit our church, made to feel welcome when they do, and then to nurture them to assimilate into the life and ministry of the church. If the unchurched and disconnected won’t come to us, then the Evangelism team must work with the Mission team to go to them.

It is crucial that we establish our motives for evangelism before formulating our methods. We need more than just good ideas or wishes to perpetuate the existence of Christ’s church. Our motives need to come from one or more of the following:

Obedience to Christ’s command to tell all people the message,
Our love for Christ and a wish that others come to know him too, a desire to see society changed for the better, according to God’s righteous standards, and we have Good News to share and we cannot keep it to ourselves because of our excitement.

The Evangelism Team is also responsible for developing processes that let the community know that Vandalia UMC exists to serve their spiritual needs, follow-up with our other in-house organizations to help our congregation get involved personally in going out and ministering in the community, being responsible for assuring our Hospitality Team process is functioning properly, being responsible for recording worship attendance, following up on members not attending worship regularly and regular attendees who have been absent for three consecutive weeks, creating and maintaining brochures that describe each organization in our congregation, working with the Education team to help create focused share groups among our congregation members, coordinating lay speakers to provide personal witness in a sermon format, providing opportunities for each member of the congregation to discover his or her strengths utilizing the Ministry by Strengths program, Creating training opportunities for members of our congregation who have the strengths necessary to be active evangelists for Christ, and Establishing measurement criteria to determine if our efforts of evangelism are working.

Our group meets once a month, normally on the last Thursday Morning at 10:00 AM in the Assembly room. All adults are welcome.

If you are looking for more opportunities to witness for Jesus, this is the group for you. Gideon's provide a prison ministry and public school ministry among others. The Gideon's International organization is open to all men.

MISSIONS TEAM

Our concern is to reach out and assist members of our church, community, and world, who are in need. We meet the third Tuesday of every other month, and our meeting being at 7:00 PM in the Assembly room. The missions we oversee are:

We are currently working on events to get the youth and children of the church involved in missions.

Thank you for any help you can provide with our programs.

MISSION TEAM EXPECTATIONS

The basic responsibilities of the Mission team are:

Coordinate mission or outreach ministries. All of these come under the broader understanding of outreach in the Nurture, Outreach, and Witness model that will be used in organizing the work of our congregation.
Develop a continuous, year-round program of mission education so that our congregation will be better informed, more knowledgeable, and more motivated to be supportive of the mission outreach of the church.
Take time to identify clearly the needs of our community, our country, and our world. Engage our congregation in mission opportunities that seek to address these needs.
Seek to expand our congregation’s mission and benevolence budget and to ensure that our congregation is provided every opportunity to participate financially in God’s mission through the church.

Be a member of the church council and faithfully attend scheduled meetings. Appoint a representative to attend if the team leader cannot be there.

Prepare a presentation of current year achievements and plans for the upcoming year for presentation at the church council’s annual strategic planning meeting

See your Mission team Guidelines book for information that will help you to be an effective team.

ADOPT A CHILD/FAMILY FOR CHRISTMAS

This program provides gifts for specific needy families at Christmas. Gift suggestions are provided to the congregation on the “Giving Tree” shortly after Thanksgiving. The Mission's Team receives names from the Vandalia-Butler Food Pantry of families in need of Christmas help. They provide the names, addresses and ages of children of families within the Vandalia-Butler school system. Help is limited to names provided through an agency only, and only to Vandalia-Butler residents. Numbers are assigned to each person whose name is provided, that number is placed on a paper ornament, along with suggestions of gifts to be purchased, with sizes. The congregation of VUMC then selects an ornament and buys the gift and returns the wrapped gift to the Church Office. Approximately one week before Christmas, all gifts are delivered to the recipients. Gift cards to local grocery stores are provided for the parents.

CAMPBELL SOUP BAR CODE COLLECTION

Campbell's Food Bar Codes are collected by the United Methodist Women and given to the McCurdy School to help pay for playground equipment, school supplies, computers, etc..

PENNIES FOR POTATOES

Our smallest coin is all that is being asked for this donation. Pennies are collected to pay for the transportation of potatoes that are left in farmer's fields and collected by volunteers. These potatoes are then transported to deprived areas, to be distributed to families in need. For every four pennies collected, a serving of potatoes is provided to a person in need of food. You will find the jars for your pennies at both the Sanctuary and office entrance

SODA TAB COLLECTION

Soda tabs are collected and delivered to the Ronald McDonald House. They then turn their collected tabs into the recycling plant, to help pay for the cost of providing housing to families whose children are in the Children's Hospital for an extended period of time. The tabs may be deposited in a can located at the office entrance.

USED EYEGLASSES COLLECTION

The Lion’s Club is responsible for this recycling project. Used eyeglasses may be deposited in the designated box located in the hallway near the office entrance.