July 2, 2010 The Journey Continues...

After 128 days at sea, the founders of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World, arrived at Cape Henry, Virginia, on April 26, 1607. When they disembarked, these grateful settlers raised a large wooden cross and thanked God for their safe arrival on the soil of their new home. It wasn’t all pleasant from that point forward. There were dark and dismal days for these new settlers.  Disease-filled swamps, skirmishes with Native Americans, and untold challenges...

Young Adult Mission Team Forming

United Methodist Church Union, a ministry agency based on the Northside of Pittsburgh, is forming a young adult volunteer team to work in Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts in Crisfield, MD from August 18-23. It’s part of the denomination’s Restoration Generation initiative. There are 20 openings on the team. Participants must be at least 16 years of age. With lodging in a local UM church, the cost is estimated to be about $300. "This trip is geared toward young adults and...

Volunteers Aid Colombia Church in Trafficking Area

The Rev. David Stains, pastor of OakView UMC in Waynesburg, and his team of 10 Volunteers in Mission have returned from a 10-day trip to Colombia, where they worked on an addition to El Camino Church in Sincelejo, an area hard-hit by power struggles over drug trafficking. The work in Sincelejo is part of a Northeastern Jurisdiction Volunteers in Mission Project proposed by the Rev. Clinton Rabb, who died in the Haiti earthquake. Teams are needed to continue the project in Colombia. In...

Bailey Selected to Lead UM Foundation of WPA

The Rev. D. Edward Bailey, pastor of Christ UMC in Youngwood and vice-chair of the Conference Board of Pensions and Health Benefits, has been selected to succeed the Rev. Frederick Leasure as executive director of the United Methodist Foundation of Western PA. The executive committee of the Foundation’s board of directors announced Bailey’s selection on February 15 after a three-month nationwide search conducted with the Orion Delta Group. “We are extremely pleased that the...

Bishop Calls for Prayer, Action to Aid Storm Response

As people in the Northeast begin the long process of recovery after "Superstorm Sandy," Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton called on United Methodists in Western Pennsylvania to pray for those affected, prepare flood buckets and donate to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) recovery efforts.  "While we have seen and felt Hurricane Sandy blowing around us, her wrath has affected us much less than it has our neighbors to the east and south," the Bishop said....

Park Elected Vice-Chair of GBOD

 NASHVILLE, Tenn. Oct. 1, 2012  – The General Board of Discipleship’s new, smaller board, in its first organizational session, has selected Bishop Elaine Stanovsky of the Mountain Sky Episcopal area as president and the Rev. Eric Park,  superintendent of the Washington District in Western Pennsylvania, as vice president for the coming quadrennium. The board, which was reduced to 23 members from 60 members by the 2012 General Conference, also created a new working...

Team Inspired, Energized by Zimbabwe Immersion

When members of Western Pennsylvania’s Zimbabwe Immersion Team met at the Nyadire United Methodist Mission after living with families in different areas for nearly five weeks, none of the stories they shared seemed the same. “We even joked, wondering if we were all on the same trip,” said Ruth Ann Varrato, lay leader of the Kane District. As they talked more, though, Varrato said they all realized there was something common to all their experiences—love, kindness...

Bishop to Return to Western PA

  Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton has been assigned to serve as the spiritual leader of the Western PA Conference for the next four years. He was first named as resident Bishop of the Pittsburgh Area after being elected a bishop in 2004  and returned for his second four-year term in 2008. All nine bishops in the Northeastern Jurisdiction (NEJ) received news of their 2012-2016 assignments at 6 a.m., Friday, July 20 after the Episcopacy Committee which determines the appointments...

Get Your Walking Papers! The Challenge is On!

Some “Heavenly Bodies” provided the impetus for First UMC in Punxsutawney to propel the Indiana District into second place in the competition for the 2012 Golden Sneaker award. Kane District won the Golden Sneaker for the third time with several of its congregation’s participating, but Punxy First’s effort was a singular sensation in the Indiana District. In presenting the award at annual conference, Butler District Supt. Dean Ziegler noted the importance of...

Annual Conference 2012 Summary

Dreaming God-Sized Dreams was the theme of the 2012 Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference session, held June 7-10 at Grove City College in Grove City, PA. Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton described a God-sized dream as “a vision of something that you and I cannot accomplish on our own.  It is bold, challenging, and just far enough out there that you can’t get there without the spirit’s help.  “On the way to fulfilling it,” he added, “You have to be...

Bishop Ordains New Clergy

Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton ordained seven new elders and a deacon Sunday morning, June 10 during a service that included a baptism and Holy Communion at the close of the 2012 session of the Western PA Annual Conference.  On Saturday night, the Bishop commissioned five new provisional members. The newly ordained elders are:  Pamela Sue Armstrong, pastor of New Hope UM Church on Pittsburgh’s Northside and manager at Light of Live mission; Wade Reitz Berkey, pastor of the Bruin...

Conference Endorses Two for Bishop

Members of the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference endorsed two of its members as candidates for bishop of the Church: Greensburg District Superintendent William B. Meekins Jr. and Washington District Superintendent Eric S. Park.  Both were recommended for endorsement by the Conference's delegation to the denomination's General and Jurisdictional conferences, and received the endorsement of the annual conference on the first ballot. Bishops will be elected in the Church's five...

Campus Ministry Leads to New Churches in Ukraine

 Michael Airgood, a member of First UMC in Kane, PA, is a General Board of Global Ministries missionary serving as a church planter and youth ministry developer in Western Ukraine. He’s based in the city of L’viv. The United Methodist presence in and around L'viv is growing rapidly after being introduced through student ministry. University-based work led to the formation of the L'viv United Methodist Church and to a new church start in a nearby village. Erika Tatchyn first...

Bishop Launches Turnaround Prayer Movement

Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton asks all United Methodist in Western PA to commit to regular daily prayer as part of what he calls the Turnaround Prayer Movement. As congregations work toward increased vitality and leaders from Western PA prepare to join their counterparts from around the globe at denomination’s 2012 General Conference in late April, there is a need for “a revival of our spirit and a re-examination of how we do church,” the Bishop said.  “We know that...

Sunday to save Lives Follow-Up

If your congregation participated in the Sunday to Save Lives on May 22, thank you! The Imagine No Malaria ministry was blessed to have churches from every district across Western Pennsylvania join together in the fight against malaria with special activities and offerings. Ultimately, your contributions will help our brothers and sisters in Christ to realize a future free of this deadly disease. You have made a difference!   You may be wondering, “What do I do...

May 22: The Sunday to Save Lives

And I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven…-- Matthew 16:18-19    This Sunday is the day! On May 22, 2011, Western PA Conference churches will celebrate the Sunday to Save Lives. One Sunday to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Africa against the killer that is malaria.   If you haven’t already done...

Moving Toward Sunday to Save Lives: Week 1

While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living.  When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, ‘The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.’  Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’  So he and all his household believed. --John 4:51-53 This Sunday marks the first of four weeks of Imagine No Malaria activity...

April 1, 2011 - Where Are We Going?

The best class I ever took in seminary was Professor Robert Cushman’s course in Systematic Theology (Systematic Theology attempts to express a rational and comprehensible account of the Christian faith and beliefs). I can remember going into class with  high expectation. Dr. Cushman was an elder statesman of Duke Divinity School. His reputation as an excellent professor extended far and wide. Dr. Cushman was aging rapidly so I knew I was being blessed with an...

CD Features Music of Eric and Tara Park

 After a mission trip to Ghana, West Africa a few years ago, Washington District Superintendent Eric Park wrote a song, “Poorer Than These.”  “That experience was transformational for me because, while ministering with the Ghanaians, I was confronted with my own poverty--a spiritual poverty in which I'm often enslaved by my own gluttony for the things that I want, but don't really need,” Eric said. The self-proclaimed gluttony provided the name for a newly...

Imagine No Malaria-Tip of the Week #10

Celebrate Success Along the Way Keeping your members up-to-date on your icongregation’s progress towards your goal is a great way to motivate others and build a sense of community.   Just ask the folks at Lowville UMC in the Erie-Meadville District. When this congregation with a Sunday worship attendance of about 35 quickly reached their goal of 1,000 lives saved (that’s 28 lives saved per attendee) they paused to celebrate and rejoice together. Then they...