District News

At one of the meetings I attended this year, I heard Bishop Bard say the laity are the backbone of the church.  As your District Lay Leader these last couple of years, I have served on the Lay Servant Ministries Team.  I have seen first hand all the good things this group does, serving as a resource, providing support and training for the laity.

John Wesley, started the Methodist movement with lay persons organized into classes and societies, so, at the very heart of who we are as Methodists, is the extraordinary partnership of clergy and laity in ministry together.  Now more than ever, we need the gifts and calling of laity to provide excellent leadership and pastoral support in our local churches and the communities around us.  Friends, our pastors are stretched to the limit in all they are asked to do.  Laity need to be involved in the life of the church and help to relieve the heavy workload of our pastors.  Friends, we are a team – Pastors and Laity – working together serving our Lord.  Listen to your God Nudges.

Lay Servant Ministries is a leadership development program that equips and empowers people responding to God’s call in mission and ministry through an organized curriculum with three levels of certification – Lay Servants, Lay Speakers, and Lay Ministers.  They learn to lead, care and communicate as they prepare themselves to serve in the local church, community and across the connection.

Lay Servants in our district serve in a wide variety of roles such as board chairs, Bible Study leaders, food pantry directors and volunteers, trainers for disaster response teams, parish nurses, volunteers in a number of ways and much more.

For those of you who are feeling a God Nudge and want to explore lay servant ministries, you will begin with the basic class that offers a broad overview and an understanding of Methodism.  After that, a rotation of advanced classes is offered in a variety of subjects including United Methodist History and Polity, prayer, worship design, preaching, climate justice, social principles, aging in ministry, just to name a few.

So, now that you have a better idea of the purpose of Lay Servant Ministries, you may be wondering how to get started.  Our district is fortunate to have a strong team under the leadership of Sara Wolfsen, who plan a spring and fall retreat each year.  We know you are busy people so we start late Friday afternoon and end Saturday by 5 PM.  During that time, we meet for meaningful worship, action-packed class time, and lively conversation during meals.  The next retreat will be held at Cadillac UMC on April 24-25, 2026. 

Clergy, you already pour your heart and soul into your laity to equip them and connect them with opportunities for ministry.  Encourage your members to take the next step in lay servant ministries by enrolling in the Spring Retreat.

Laity, consider talking with your pastor to help you discern your next step as you feel a God Nudge to live out your own call more deeply.  You will also find a wealth of information on the Michigan Conference Website.  Just type “Lay Servant Ministries” in the search bar.  Another way is to contact Sara Wolfsen, email: [email protected] if you have questions about the retreat or Lay Ministries.

I took my first class over 20+ years ago when I became a Parish Nurse for Grand Rapids Aldersgate, Grand Rapids First and Wyoming Park and never regretted it.  I have found the workshops to be an excellent resource in my personal faith journey and in serving my church, District and Conference.  Listen for your God Nudge.

Blessings, Wendy

I have a list of “someday” things…You know, someday I am going to __________________. (You fill in the blank.)  I bet you have one too.  Every once in a while, I manage to cross something off the list.  Like the year I learned how to quilt.  I am still learning a lot about quilting, colors, fabrics, patterns, different techniques.  I find it fascinating how the same pattern can look so different just by changing the color of fabric.  (See the picture.  Same directions just different color placement.)  As I sew, I am learning a lot about life and God.  We have lots of talks, God & I.  As in quilting, you have to trust the instructions God gives you – especially when they don’t make sense.

A quilter takes different colors, textures, and patterns to form a beautiful design that brings comfort and warmth.  The Lord does the same thing – if we let Him – He takes the darks and lights of our life, the rough and the smooth, the harsh and the soft, the plain and the fancy and fits them into a beautiful pattern that is our life and relationship with Him and with others.  Even the ugliest of fabrics become part of a beautiful quilt by combining it with other colors.  Both are needed.  He does the same with us.  We need to place our complete trust in the Lord and let Him fit the pieces of our life together.  A piece of fabric by itself, no matter how colorful or not, large or small, pretty or not, is just that – a piece of fabric.  But let Him take all the darks and lights and form a beautiful kaleidoscope of a life of love, hope, joy and peace with Him.

When I started my first quilt, I could not imagine how the many colors and patterns could possibly come together to form a pretty design.  Some of the colors I loved, some I did not and wished they were not a part of the quilt.  But I trusted in the process, I trusted the instructions.  Combined with the other fabrics of color and size, it became a beautiful quilt of warmth and comfort.  Such can be the sorrows and joys, the successes and failures, the healing and wholeness of life.  Let him use the colors of your life – colors of white, innocence, God the Creator; red, strength, joy and happiness, blood of Christ; purple, mourning, humility and suffering; green, nature, hope and renewal; black, of grief and sorrow; blue, loyalty, throne of God; and yellow, Giver of life.  He uses these colors to stitch a quilt of life.  A quilt of life:  using the good times and bad, representing His comfort, warmth and peace – the fabric of faith, the Quilt of Life.

Your church needs you.  The Laity are the backbone of the church.  How is God calling your pieces of fabric to stitch into the church mission and ministry?  Every piece is important, every color is important, every stitch is important.  It takes all of us serving together to create a ministry of warmth and comfort.  How is God Nudging you?  Good things happen when we trust and follow His instructions.

Well, that time went fast.  I had to double check my records and sure enough, this completes year one of writing “God Nudges.”  I have been reflecting back on these writings as I decide where to go with #7.  A couple things occurred to me.

First, I believe sometimes we have to go far enough forward to look back and see where those “God Nudges” happened in our lives.  We may not always realize it at the time.  When I look back at my nudges, I am reminded of the amazing, wonderful things that happened in my faith journey and in serving God and the church.

Second, as I look at my “God Nudges,” I noticed they seem to match my Spiritual Gifts.  How about that?  God, is so clever.

Have you ever taken a Spiritual Gifts Assessment?  I have done so a few different times in my life for various reasons – curiosity, part of a class, or being offered by my church as a way to see where your gifts match up with the needs of the church.  I have found there are two gifts that are always present, Healing and Helper.  Makes perfect sense because I am a nurse and second, I prefer helping over leading.  As I look back, I am reminded of how my gifts change as I have grown in my faith journey, as I have responded to God Nudges and yes, older and wiser.

The picture included with this blog shows a key chain a friend made in a class I was teaching on Spiritual Gifts.  She made a key chain for each of the participants listing our spiritual gifts.  I was shocked at the time, that two of them were Pastor/Teacher and Administration/Leadership.  I keep it nearby as a reminder.  I have a post-it note, listing my spiritual gifts of the last assessment inside my notebook as a reminder – Helper, Mercy, Faith, Leadership, Healing.  There it is again…Leader.  And so, I said yes when asked to be District Lay Leader and I saw it as a way to help.  When I am asked to take on a new task, I ask myself if it fits my Spiritual Gifts.  I have learned not to question a God Nudge because that nudge always matches up with my gifts and talents, even the ones I do not recognize in myself.  Good things always happen with God Nudges.

If you are interested in learning more or taking a Spiritual Gifts Assessment, you will find a resource available on the Conference website that also includes a link to a Gifts assessment.  https://michiganumc.org/spiritual-gifts/.

Blessings, Wendy