2009

Pastor’s Corner

Greetings Members of the Danville United Methodist Church. We greet you in the name of our Risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Some of you have begun to get to know me, I am Pastor Mike Renken and this is my wife Linda. I have been a part of your community now since Pastor Bob left August 30^th. At the present time I am still learning names and putting faces to the names. I appreciate all the things that you as members of Danville UMC are doing to help us get acquainted with all of you.

I graduated from High School in a little town in Illinois by the name of Flanagan . After graduation I came to Iowa to Wartburg College for a semester and things did not work out for me and college at that time. I went back to Illinois and worked several factory jobs and also worked 1 and a half years as a Correctional Officer at a maximum security prison. The last 3 years I lived in Illinois I worked for a county Care Facility as head cook for 150 residents plus staff. In 1984 I came to Iowa to Mt Pleasant to work for a car dealership as the head bookkeeper. After the dealership was sold I worked several jobs before going back to College and receiving my Associate Science Business degree from Southeastern Community College in West Burlington. I worked for the United Methodist Church in Winfield Iowa as Custodian and then went to work in Muscatine at a manufacturing company as Chief Accountant. While there I had already started the Candidacy Process for Ministry in the United Methodist Church. In 2001 I was appointed Ľ time at New Sweden UMC at Lockridge, Iowa and still worked in Muscatine. July of 2002 I was appointed full time to Birmingham and Stockport Iowa Charge. In July of 2006 Birmingham and Stockport were combined with Libertyville Faith UMC for a three point charge. As of July 1 this year was not appointed as there was more need for Elders than Local Licensed Pastors. So when Pastor Bob informed the district he was leaving I received a call from District Superintendent Rose Blank and the process began for me to be the pastor at Danville.

Linda and I have been married for 19 years. This is a second marriage for both of us and between us we have 6 children from the age of 33 to age 18 and 12 grandchildren from freshman in High school down to just a couple days old.

We spend time with family and devote our time to our church lives. Linda is Pastor at New Life Parish in Wayland Iowa serving Cottonwood, Wayland First and Finley Chapel churches. You will find Linda or me at church functions and possibly cooking or making things for bazaars or fall suppers. Hopefully in the time to come we will get to know each other better and maybe sometime Linda will be able to participate in worship at Danville for a special church service.

May the Lord bless and keep each of you in his loving arms and hold you close.

Love in Christ,

Pastors Mike and Linda Renken

How is your relationship with God, the church and the church family? There are some of you that I haven’t seen in worship for some time. I miss you. I’m sure some of the reasons are: illness, weather, other obligations, too tired, or too busy.

I am a beautiful building; warm in the winter, cool in the summer that a lot of the people before you worked hard manually to build. Along with the manual labor there were lots of prayers including yours. But, what am I in the community without your active support in worship? If not you, who? If not now, when?

I have a dedicated pastor that you will get to know. This is his profession, but it’s hard for him to get to know you, a member, without your presence. We are in the second month since Pastor Mike joined us here at Danville. He has wonderful messages, but it’s the fellowship with other believers in a church setting that keeps me alive and growing in a community. Is Satan at work trying to pull you away? Is he at work in this community, and in the world?

Faith without works is like a tree without leaves. A tree can be a plant of beauty, shade and comfort to lie under for relaxation; to desert dwellers, a sign of vegetation. In a dry year a tree’s roots grow even deeper seeking water for nourishment. In a storm a tree can be uprooted, tossed around, or sustain broken branches. Have you sustained a broken relationship with God…your church family? Once we are torn away from a routine, it seems extremely hard to return. This can cause communities to die. Are we dying? What will it take to keep me alive and growing?

Life’s circumstances can leave us thirsty. Are we ready to reach down with our roots and drink deeply? Faith is a relationship with God in prayer and attendance in worship. Attending worship helps to nourish us and keep us alive like food for the body. Is your faith centered on the church, community, or self?
I will hope that you will return to God’s roots of faith and my house of worship. Bring a friend…I have lots of room. I also have great Sunday School teachers that hope that you will attend and bring your children. We are family oriented. Come son, I’ll be so excited.

Advent Bible Study will be starting in November. When would be a good time for you to come for some time studying the Word. Pastor Mike will be leading the study. Please let him know by the 10^th of November so enough material will be available for you to participate. You and your thought are more than welcome.

Thank you for your time in reading this and may God Bless.

Danville United Methodist Church

As of July 1, our church will be participating in the Safe Sanctuary Program. The church has a policy in order and will follow the guidelines set forth by the Methodist Church. For anyone teaching or caring for young children we will do a background check. This is not only for the church, but also for you. If you are interested in teaching or caring for younger children, please let us know so that we can proceed with filing a request for a background check.

During this year we will be celebrating our sesquicentennial. The committee has been planning various events throughout the year. A few of these are a Movie Theater in June, an Ice Cream Social with musical entertainment (David Bennage, and Tom Nealey). In September we plan on having a celebration for Sunday Service and it will be followed with the old time favorite chicken dinner plus all the trimmings. We will also be coordinating with the high school when it presents the history of our town in their fall program. As we do these celebrations we will pass a list around before each event asking for donations of cookies, and making home made ice cream. At the close of the year we will be doing a Time Capsule. There will be other things that will be planned, and you will be hearing about those. If you have any pictures or memorabilia that you would like to share with us please call the church or contact Nancy Guffey.

One of the projects the church has going on now is Crosses for Memorial Day. Brad Morris and Matt Hauptman have done a very nice job in making white crosses with the Methodist Symbol on them to decorate our families grave sites. There is no charge for these crosses. We will place them if the family is not around here. We hope continue this project and do it every Memorial Day. If you would like more information please contact the church.

Take time to notice that the big evergreen shrubs on the south side of the church have been removed and replaced with a variety of smaller shrubs and brick edging. Still to be added is mulch and then maybe some gravel in the parking area. (Pictures)