An Historic Day for Common Cup

This afternoon, I had the honor of presiding at an historic Church Conference for Paintersville UMC and Eleazer UMC, two of our sixteen Common Cup Churches. Each church voted unanimously for Paintersville to merge with Eleazer and become one church, keeping the Eleazer name and using the Eleazer church building and property.

Future decisions still need to made regarding the use of the Paintersville building. The historical information and several items in the Paintersville church will need to be incorporated into the new combined congregation at Eleazer.

The United Methodist Book of Discipline is very clear that the purpose of a merger should only be considered if it will help the two congregations to more effectively fulfill their ministry. It's interesting that this is also the purpose behind our Common Cup shared ministry model of sixteen area churches (now fifteen!) The Common Cup mission statement is to be more effective by making disciples of Jesus Christ together for the transformation of the world.

Today, the two congregations shared a meal after worship, conducted the joint Church Conferences, and shared in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. I took the above picture of the members of Eleazer and Paintersville who attended the meeting today. Notice the smiles!

Let's keep the newly formed Eleazer congregation under the leadership of Pastor John Beers in our prayers as they continue their transition of bringing their resources together for the sake of the kingdom.