October 1, 2012 Watauga Missional Network Meeting Notes

October 1, 2013 First meeting of laity of Watauga Missional Network

Location: Faithbridge UMC, 6:30pm to 7:30pm.

Rev. Evelyn Lemons, Watagua Missional Network Leader, presiding.

Agenda:

1. Rev. Ben Carson, host pastor, to lead in welcome and prayer.

2. Rev. Lemons, Summary of the first year’s work in a nutshell.

3. Dr. David Fonseca, Superintendent of Watauga County schools to speak.

4. Christy Welch from Mabel School to speak on upcoming poverty training.

5. Hear from the churches on what we are already doing in the schools in our community and new ideas for the coming year.

Pat from Mabel UMC and Hinson Chapel UMC to speak.

6. Attached is one example of a brand new effort at Deerfield UMC to start a volunteer effort at Parkway school. We are starting small. You can too.

7. Close with prayer.

Item 2. On Agenda:

Summary of first year’s work in a nutshell:

Watauga Missional Network:  Who are we?

The Watauga Missional Network was formed last fall of 2012 when our Western NC Conference of the United Methodist Church changed the structure of the districts from having 15 districts to 8 districts. Now we are in the Appalachian District and Rev. Lory Beth Huffman is our District Superintendent. In Watauga County, all the United Methodist pastors in Watauga are in the Watauga Missional Network. We have been meeting since last fall to discern one common focus on a mission project where we can make a significant difference in our community.

After several months of meetings with our pastors and much prayer, we have been able to discern a common goal: to partner with an elementary school in our community to build relationships that will last.

 We want to have an impact on student achievement with students who are behind in math and reading. The pastors have started conversations with staff at the schools with principals and social workers to find out about the needs that are specific to their schools. These conversations are already under way between the churches and principals. We are coming to the schools to serve.

Watauga Missional Network: What are we doing?
      This summer the Watauga Missional Network learned that there was grant money from the district that we could apply for, for startup money. The pastors came together around the common thread of poverty in Watauga County that has been part of our conversation many times over the last year. So we applied for a grant to do poverty training and got $750.00 from the district to do poverty training. Since our main goal is to work with schools in our community, we are going to the teachers first for providing this training because we believe that our teachers work face to face with poverty all over our county on a daily basis. After meeting with Dr. Fonseca, our superintendent of schools here in our county, we have his permission to go ahead with the poverty training for teachers and we are working with the school system to help make this possible. Christy Welch from Mabel Elementary is our contact person for this. Her contact number at Mabel School is 297-2512.

Important dates to come:

1.  We are looking at the dates of November 20 and 21 as possible dates for the poverty training. We will confirm these dates and get the training information to each church. Our target audience is the teachers, but we want to ask the churches to attend where they can and to assist with either snacks or a meal, depending on the location and time of day. Training teachers and church leaders together is a place to make significant connections to people working with children in poverty daily.

2.  Next meeting of the laity for the Watauga Missional Network that has been called by our DS for Sun. Nov. 24 at Boone UMC at 3pm.

Purpose of our meeting tonight as the laity of the Watauga Missional Network:

Our goal at this meeting is to share what churches are already doing to connect with the school in their community, and we anticipate representatives from the school system to be present to speak directly to the needs that the church can help address. We will be addressing things to do and pitfalls to avoid. There is great work already going on in this connection in some places and not a very strong connection in other places. We want to learn from each other and support each other in this important work. This is a work meeting for the Watauga Missional Network and will include lay people. The pastors will continue to meet regularly as well.

More information to come to be posted on blog:

www.liftupyourheartsblog.blogspot.com

By: Rev. Evelyn Lemons

Watauga Missional Network Leader, Deerfield UMC, Pastor

Contact information: evelyn.lemons@gmail.com

One example of a church partnering with Parkway as we begin:

We are getting ready to step up our efforts to partner with the school in our community at Deerfield UMC. The school we are going to partner with is Parkway Elementary.  A preliminary idea in our partnership with the school this year is to take one grade per month and do something for the teachers of that grade. If we start in October with showing some gratitude towards the three kindergarten teachers at Parkway and the first grade teachers, then the next month, we will be appreciating the second grade teachers, etc.  We were not able to get started on this in September, so we are going to double up in October, then take one grade per month.

Pastor Evelyn is working on the volunteer schedules to turn in to Principal Costin regarding who can volunteer when.  We will need some volunteers from church members to drive students from ASU to Parkway to volunteer and take them back to campus. Right now, we have at least two volunteers who have a significant  block of time to give that do not have rides.

Pastor Evelyn and Angel Teague are signed up to volunteer on Tuesday mornings from 9:25am to 11:10am weekly. We started this work three weeks ago and it is going great. We are working with students individually giving specific help on reading. The school has provided training on exactly what they want us to do with the child we are helping. It has been so much fun!!