News

2012 Annual Conference explores, celebrates risk-taking mission

PEORIA -- The Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference was held in Peoria, Ill., June 6-9, under the theme of Risk-Taking Mission. Conference speaker was Rev. Jorge Acevedo, pastor of Grace Church, Cape Coral, Fla., who led sessions on utilizing teams for effective ministry and Turbo-Charging the Wesleyan Tradition for the 21st Century.   Bishop Gregory V. Palmer, in his episcopal address, reported on several front, including a report that the Imagine No Malaria campaign has surpassed...

Risk-Taking Mission: Peacemaking

PEORIA – In his final Morning Manna devotional, Bishop Gregory Palmer used the reunion story of Jacob and Esau as a backdrop to illustrate the risk of peacemaking. “All experiences of restoring broken relationships come with a nudging that says, ‘make things right,” Palmer said. “You ought to do something about this or say something about this.”   Palmer said that disagreement and estrangement brings distance, which in the short term, may be...

Fulfilling the mission requires turbo charging the tradition

PEORIA – Rev. Jorge Acevedo makes a disclaimer: Don’t expect that doing what his church has done will result in another Grace church. “It is much more than just doing,” Acevedo said in his second presentation. “It is about turbo-charging the tradition given to us by John Wesley who took it off the pages of Scripture and made it practical for the 18th century. Our task is to look for ways to move that mark 350 years forward to the 21st century.”   The...

Risk-Taking Mission: Truth Telling

PEORIA -- What one says and what one doesn't say speaks volumes observed Bishop Gregory V. Palmer in the second Morning Manna Friday morning of the 2012 Annual Conference. "Speech -- what you say -- is a big deal, but what you don't say can also be a big deal," Palmer noted. "The Bible seems to be concerned about what we say about God and about each other." Using a text from Ephesians 4,  Palmer said Paul's interest was concerned about forming community....

Most effective ministry is done in teams

PEORIA – Rev. Jorge Acevedo remembers the wakeup call he received from his wife 18 years ago. As a United Methodist pastor, Acevedo was very busy in ministry. But the busy-ness came at a great personal price and a high cost to his family.  Finally, Acevedo said his wife confronted him one day and said, "We need to talk. It’s hard to be mad at your mistress when your mistress is the church." That moment became a turning point in seeing ministry shift from a solo act...

Bishop issues several invitations in Episcopal Address

PEORIA – Bishop Gregory V. Palmer invited members of the Illinois Great Rivers Conference to enter into open, honest and heartfelt conversations about difficult issues without discounting those to whom one disagrees. Near the end of a 40-minute Episcopal Address, Palmer announced a change to the Annual Conference agenda in which a 45-minute period of time would be set aside to begin the “difficult work” of entering into holy conferencing.   “What if your greatest...

Annual Conference to Focus on Risk-Taking Mission

PEORIA – The Illinois Great Rivers Conference of The United Methodist Church will be meeting in Peoria for the 11th consecutive year June 6-9. The Peoria Civic Center will serve as the conference’s central location for the more than 2,400 expected to attend. The theme of the conference is Risk-Taking Mission.   Rev. Jorge Acevedo, pastor of Grace Church, a multi-site United Methodist congregation in Cape Coral, Fla., will be the conference speaker on both Thursday and Friday...

Laity to celebrate completion of West Point School

At the Laity Session of Annual Conference 2008 we started on an amazing journey to build a school for the West Point neighborhood of Monrovia, Liberia. For the first time in the history of Illinois Great Rivers, we took up an offering during Laity Session, and we received over $11,000. Churches and individuals continued to give throughout the following year, raising the total to over $20,000. Bunny Wolfe, Coordinator of Missions and Outreach, tenaciously sought other means of...

How Congregations Can Reach the Hispanic Community

Being missionaries in your own “back yard” may be not sound as fun and risky, but let me walk you through different suggestions with the hope you can feel called to partner in ministry by reaching your own Hispanics neighbors for Jesus. Get in a High Risk Mission by reaching the Hispanic Community. Buy a box a Spanish Bibles and prepare ready to hand them out to your “amigos,” in the restaurants or when they visit your church. Change both outdoor and inside...

What's Involved in Becoming a Prison Ministry Volunteer

Ministry in the prison system in Illinois is one that is not seen as a viable ministry by many people.  You work with men and women who are convicted felons. I worked in the Illinois Department of Corrections for more than 20 years and my chapel programs were enhanced by volunteers.  They provided various types of programs for the inmate populations at John A. Graham Correction Center in Hillsboro and the Vandalia Correctional Center that I served. We had Bible studies, prayer...

Opportunities Abound for Prison Ministry Both Inside and Outside the Facility

I am a United Methodist chaplain with more than 25 years’ experience in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. I was asked the question, “How can a congregation get involved in prison ministry?” My first thought was that they may already be involved and not know it. Prison ministry is much more than going into a facility and teaching a Bible study. Re-entry programs are now looked upon as the most important part of reducing recidivism and crime in the community. If there is...

At the Roots of Methodism: Wesley fought for Prison Reform

With the prison population in many parts of the world on the increase (the number of people in Britain's jails, for example, is at an all-time high), the church's ministry to prisoners and the prison system has never been more vital. Methodists, of course, should know that the Gospel imperative to visit those in prison was picked up very strongly by John Wesley and the early movement that he started. And he didn't limit his work to visitations, either. The appalling conditions of the prison...

Finding God in Prison

By Sam Hodges and Nick Liao If a society’s approach to punishment reflects its understanding of God, the $68 billion U.S. prison system is a crucible for theology On a clear, brisk Sunday morning in January 2009, Ken Carder and his students arrived by appointment, in separate cars, at the Bureau of Prisons Federal Correctional Institution north of Durham, N.C. The class members, who had met only once before, had not formed a bond. Most of the students had never been inside a jail or...

An Audience for Both Prisoner and President

VANDALIA – Phyllis Rames recalls a 1992 meeting at Vandalia Correctional Center as a life-changing event. As one of several persons representing various churches in the community, Rames met with the chaplain of the facility as speakers talked about getting involved in prison ministry. “I didn’t want to go,” Rames recalled in a feeling reminiscent of John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience. “I reluctantly went and we listened to the speakers and then...

Shelter Director a Tireless Advocate for Homeless

  JACKSONVILLE – Homeless advocate Vanessa Tyus understands the needs of her clients who frequent the new Comfort Center housed inside Jacksonville Grace UMC. As a homeless advocate for Helping Hands ministry in Springfield, Tyus returned to Jacksonville to help her community to begin addressing the homeless situation in the greater Morgan County area.   “I started seeing persons from Jacksonville coming to Springfield because there were no services,” Tyus said....

Granite City Gains a Vision for Feeding the Hungry

GRANITE CITY – A vision for caring for a community’s hunger during the summer by providing them a free lunch has become a partnership of church, the school district and several government entities that is growing and meeting the needs by taking ministry to them. Granite City Trinity UMC has embraced such a vision of feeding children during the summer. The congregation, which had been a student pastorate until returning to full-time status in 2009, the congregation began to see...

Springfield Woodside UMC gets vision for reaching poor, needy

“It seems people don’t necessarily remember what they are told of God’s love, but they never forget what they have experienced of God’s love.” (Sjogren, 29) SPRINGFIELD -- Many of our local churches have become invisible to the communities in which they reside.   Woodside UMC, located in the Laketown area of Springfield, was once the center of civic activity in the community. Woodside listed 999 members on its rolls 40 years ago. Today, it lists less than...

Jacksonville Grace UMC addressing homeless problem

JACKSONVILLE – It all began with a sermon, a YouTube video and God’s timing. Mike Fender, pastor of Jacksonville Grace UMC, said a sermon on baptismal vows in which members of the congregation were challenged to live out in mission what it means to be support the church with their prayers, presence, gifts and witness.   The following Sunday, while preaching on the text from John in which Jesus is calling his disciples, Fender shared the viral video of Ted Williams, the...

Canteen Run offers help to some of Champaign-Urbana's neediest

CHAMPAIGN – It's about 8:30 p.m. After two hours mainly spent outside in frigid temperatures, volunteers are ready to call it a night. The Salvation Army truck they use has just pulled back into the thrift store parking lot on North Market Street when volunteer driver Dan Davies, 56, gets a cell phone call from a Champaign police officer, saying that a 61-year-old woman needs food. As the truck makes a U-turn for the 2-mile trek south, volunteer Karen Krusa fills three bags with food for...

2010 Report on Illinois Poverty

People who had the least to start with before the recession were hit first, hit hardest, and will regain lost ground slowest, according to the 2010 Report on Illinois Poverty. Workers in the lowest income group in Illinois had a 1930’s-like unemployment rate of 27.0 percent in the 4th quarter of 2009 while Illinois’ overall unemployment rate was 10.2percent. More than 1.5 million Illinoisans, 12.2 percent of the state’s population, were living in poverty in 2008. An...