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Faithful to the call
By: Pastor Dave | January 22, 2026 | Discipleship, Leadership, Pastoral Letter, Purpose/Mission/Vision, sermon, sermon slides
Dear Minooka UMC Found Family,
Wasn’t MUMC Eras Tour slide show so much fun!? Huge THANK YOU to Office Manager Melissa Candler for organizing all those photos throughout the year!
If you don’t know to what I’m referring, I must encourage you to click here to watch the video of our worship experience wherein we shared the story of Minooka UMC in 2025. Or watch again at the bottom of this post. I think you’ll be glad you did.
As I wrote in this space last week, our congregation is extraordinarily blessed by the sheer number of dedicated and talented people who give so much of their time and effort. We have a wonderful set of leaders for all our committees, teams, and small groups. We have a wonderful set of hard working people filling those committees, teams, and small groups. Thank you all for being so faithful to God’s call in your lives.
As our committees, teams, and small groups meet in this first quarter of the year, I’ve asked our leaders to add these questions to their agendas:
— What wins are we celebrating? Personal wins, congregational wins, or both.
— What are your committee/team goals for 2026?
— In what ways does the work we are doing connect to our purpose, mission, and vision?
Truthfully, every organization, every leader, every speaker, every congregation, every presenter I have ever encountered all define purpose, mission, and vision differently. Here’s how we think of them:
Our purpose is our ‘why.’ Why does Minooka UMC exist? To love God with our whole selves and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Our mission is our ‘what.’ What is Minooka UMC doing? Forming disciples of Jesus Christ, including us, for the transformation of the world.
Our vision is our preferred future. Who do we want our congregation to be? An inclusive gathering of found family learning to be more like Jesus and serving the community.
Thanks be to God for Her Holy Spirit who moves in us, with us, through us, (and when necessary, in spite of us), calling us and empowering us to be disciples of Jesus! Now, as promised, here’s the video of our Eras Tour:
