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Congressman helps church celebrate

WASHINGTON – Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri preached at Hughes Memorial UMC’s 61st anniversary celebration March 21, the day after he’d been spit upon while walking to the U.S. Capitol by a participant in a Tea Party protest of the health care bill.

Before his election to Congress, Cleaver was a United Methodist pastor for 36 years at St. James UMC in Kansas City, Mo.

He told the congregation he would not press charges against the assailant, just as Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t when he was stabbed.

“We have to operate in a different spirit,” Cleaver said. “We have to show the love of Jesus.”

Though all Congress members were expected on the Hill for the health care reform vote, Cleaver took time to kneel and pray at the altar with a young woman, whose home was being foreclosed, said the Rev. Connie Smith.

The prayers were answered, Smith said; a few days later the woman reported that the bank had agreed to redo her mortgage and she could stay in her home.

Cleaver had approached the church through a young UMM member, since he was unable to speak as requested at a UMM event last year. “He recontacted us this year,” Smith said. “He’s very down to earth and approachable.”

Church says ‘welcome’ loudly

GAITHERSBURG – Wesley Grove UMC was recently certified as an official “Welcoming Congregation in 2009” by United Methodist Communications in Nashville.

The designation recognizes the high value The United Methodist Church places on radical hospitality as a vital ministry, said Sheila Hawkins, UMCom’s certification coordinator.

The church received a plaque and seal that symbolizes the certification; and is on the United Methodist Web site at Find-A-Church.org.

The church is also committed to being “green,” diminishing its carbon footprint. “We want the community to know we care about the planet,” Miller said.

Identifying itself with the “Grove” in its name, the church gives visitors a small tree and uses as their mission statement, “By their fruits you shall know them.”

UMs and Lutherans share space

EDGEWATER – The sanctuary of Parkwood UMC, one of the two churches in the Mayo-Parkwood Cooperative Parish, was the site for a joint Holy Thursday service with Joy Reigns, a Lutheran congregation that now calls Parkwood’s fellowship hall their home.

Joy Reigns was a “nomadic” congregation that rented space in various places for several years.

After considerable negotiations, Parkwood’s Leadership Council reached an agreement creating new space for Parkwood’s coffee hour and Sunday school classes.

The new arrangement expands the meaning of “cooperative” and is in keeping with the 2009 historic denominational agreement between the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and The United Methodist Church to share in each other’s worship, Communion, mission and clergy.

Volunteers recognized for contributions

BALTIMORE – More than 3,000 people, most from churches in the Baltimore-Washington Conference, who volunteer with the Board of Child Care Auxiliary, were honored recently when the BCC Auxiliary received a national award.

The United Methodist Association of Health and Welfare Ministries presented the 2010 Group Volunteers Award to members of the Auxiliary and BCC staff at its 70th National Convention March 6 in Burlingame, Cal.

In 2009 the children of the Board of Child Care benefited from the Auxiliary’s activities that included making afghans for each graduating senior and giving each graduate $100; assembling 173 Thanksgiving baskets for foster families; baking 27,000 cookies for the children; filling 200 Easter baskets for children and youth in residential care; and raising more than $1,700 for extra educational resources through box tops and labels collection programs.