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Welcome to LaGrange District!
Serving Christ Together
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To sign up, go to the conference website, www.ngumc.org and click on "Blogs". From there, click on "email preferences" on the left side of the page. Enter your email address and the various communications you wish to receive. This is also where you should go to update your email address if you currently receive the newsletter by email.
Message from the DS
I hope that you will keep your eyes and ears open for new ways that we are being connectional in our district. At our Connectional Ministries meeting last night, the Church Development Committee presented a new project that will involve all of us in helping churches who with their facility and ministry needs. We will be organizing work teams to provide repairs and services for churches who may not be able to do repairs themselves. Churches helping other churches minister to their communities – isn’t that what the connectional system is all about? I am very excited this and am prayerful that this will bring us all together. Remember that we can do so much more together than we can separately.
We also are continuing the building of our ministry bridge to El Salvador. Plans are being made for two possible trips next year and we are talking about ways that we can provide financial support, as a district, to the growing ministry there. If you are interested in participating, please let us know in the district office.
Rev. Juan da Dios Pena, President of the Methodist Church in El Salvador, will be in our district June 7-9 and will be preaching at LaGrange First on June 9 at 9:30 and 11:00. You are invited to come and hear about his ministry.
Annual Conference will be an exciting time of conferencing and learning about other mission opportunities through our Bridges program. Please register for Annual Conference and choose two special opportunities where you can learn more about ministry in other parts of our world. The Bishop’s Special Offering for Annual Conference will benefit the Bridges Program for our Conference. I hope that your church give generously – more information is in this newsletter.
Exciting things are happening in our District Lay Servant Ministries. We just completed our Spring Lay Speaking School with great participation and great spirit.
There are great things happening in the LaGrange District! Let us all celebrate together as we make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Annual Conference
June 11-13, 2013 in Athens
District Pre-Conference Briefing
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Peachtree City UMC (Robinson Rd. Campus)
3:00 pm
Registration is now open on the conference website at
The Annual Conference Special Offering for 2013: Bridges Partnerships
This year’s Annual Conference Special Offering will be used to support the North Georgia Conference “Bridges” mission partnerships. The greatest need of North Georgia’s six international mission partners is for assistance in leadership training. Your gifts this year will go toward providing training in El Salvador, The Bahamas, Russia, the Philippines, Kenya, and Portugal.
You are encouraged to give generously to bring training to the “next level” for our mission partners. Place a check in your church offering plate made out to your church with “Bridges” in the memo line. A representative from your church will then present a check from your congregation during the 2 p.m. Annual Conference Worship Service on Wednesday, June 12.
Future Mission Trips
Two dates have been set for return trips to El Salvador with district mission teams. Each team will be limited to 30 people. If you are interested, please contact the District Office to get your name on the list or contact Rev. Stephen Soulen for additional information (706-601-5368 or stephen.soulen@ngumc.net). There will be some informational meetings in June and then you will be asked to make a financial deposit to secure your spot on the team. The dates for the trips are February 15-22, 2014 and April 5-12, 2014. Approximate cost for a trip is $1200 and will include all transportation, accomodations and food.
Action Ministries Smart Lunch, Smart Kid Issues Call for Volunteers
People of Georgia Invited to Make a Difference in the Lives of Local Children
ATLANTA, Ga. (April 4, 2013) – Leaders of Action Ministries are issuing a “call for volunteers” to help with Smart Lunch, Smart Kid, the child nutrition initiative that connects local kids who receive free- or reduced-price lunches during the school year with healthy meals and educational enrichment opportunities during the summer months.
Beginning in June 2013, Smart Lunch, Smart Kid – with the help of volunteers -- will provide 200,000 healthy meals and educational enrichment opportunities to children in need during the summer months in communities across Georgia.
This year Smart Lunch, Smart Kid will be helping children in Athens-Clarke, Butts, Carroll, Columbia, DeKalb, Fayette, Floyd, Fulton, Hall, and Richmond counties.
According to a recent national study, Georgia ranks sixth in the nation for child food insecurity (limited or uncertain access to adequate food) with more than 700,000 children in the state at risk of hunger.
Smart Lunch, Smart Kid is the child nutrition initiative of Action Ministries, a statewide nonprofit that mobilizes communities to address the challenges of poverty by focusing together on housing, hunger and education. In Athens, Atlanta, Augusta, Decatur, Gainesville, and Rome, and through programs such as Breakthru House, Our Daily Bread, Action Ministries Housing and the Smart Lunch, Smart Kid child nutrition initiative, Action Ministries is serving more Georgians than ever before. For more information visit www.actionministries.net or www.facebook.com/ActionMinistriesSmartLunchSmartKid.
Changes to Lay Speaking Program
At the 2012 General Conference, legislation was passed to change the name of the Lay Speaking Program to Lay Servant Ministries. To learn more about these changes, please see the Lay Servant page of this website. There you will also find information about upcoming classes.
LaGrange District Facebook Page
The LaGrange District is one of the few districts with a Facebook page. If you are on Facebook, be sure to check us out and "Like" us. Churches are encouraged to post information about their events and activities on the district Facebook page. Also, if you have videos of church activities we would love for you to post those also.
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