Hello Church Family & Friends,

It’s been a bit since I (Elizabeth Whiting, webmaster at Bethany UMC) have updated the site. My apologies for that, life got in the way a bit. It’s been a busy summer for me personally. I attended the Michigan Area Annual Conference and then went up north to celebrate my little brother’s high school graduation. Then, there was an epic family road trip vacation to Denver, Colorado in July. In August, I went to Grand Rapids for a work conference for a week and am now preparing to take my sister’s eldest child off to college at MSU this week! In the midst of all of that, there’s been time for some summer ministry fun as well! If you have been away for the summer too, let me fill you in on 10 highlights around the church halls this summer!

1. New carpet was installed in our sanctuary! 2 Sundays in July we worshipped in the Fellowship Hall while the carpet installation was in progress.
2. Pastor Kayla has been hosting the Backyard Bookish Bunch in her backyard. Our last book club meeting is tomorrow, August 20th at 6:00pm and we are talking about Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
3. Carmen Berlin of Otisville started a grief group here at Bethany in May and I’ve been a bit remiss at promoting it here. Grief group meets on the 1st & 3rd Thursday of each month at 6:30pm in the Fireplace room. I’ve attended the grief group and find it very valuable to talk through grief with someone else. Whether your loss is recent or distant, this group can benefit all who are walking through grief of any kind.
4. Our Bethany Food Pantry has been in high demand! We fed 20 families in the month of July. That’s over 80 people that were able to eat because of the generous donations of our members and community. The food pantry continues to be busy and can use your donations anytime.
5. We celebrated Joyce Dunlay’s 100th birthday after church in August. It was the best time! Happy Birthday to Joyce!
6. We hosted about 30 kids for VBS in July across 3 days. We provided dinner every night along with a Bible story, craft time, an interactive story, a science project and fun & games outdoors along with some music and dancing. It was a lot of fun. We had some new faces and we saw many kids back from last year. It took a ton of volunteers. Thank you to all who are a part of making VBS happen.
7. Our VBS Mission project is collecting socks and underwear for Clio Area elementary students. We can take any size and color through the end of the month of August. Drop them off during regular church hours.
8. We collected school supplies that were distributed to Clio Area School students at a community wide event on August 15th.
9. Our family fun nights were a success over the summer. We’ve ended a week early so that on August 23rd we can join with the entire community at the Clio Amphitheater to celebrate Clio’s Sesquicentennial. Happy 150th Birthday Clio!
10. Amidst all of the fun of the summer, we also are in a period of discerning our future after receiving some surprising news about our cooperative parish. We will not be continuing to develop our cooperative parish. We continue to have a close relationship with Otisville UMC and are looking forward to continuing to do ministry with them as we share a pastor. Be in prayer for the people of Otisville and Bethany as we both discern what our future looks in our new reality.

If your group in the church is making plans for the fall, be sure to get your dates and information into the church office soon. The deadline for the September issue of the Tower Notes is August 21st. Keep watching the page here to see how our fall plans unfold! I can’t wait to see how the next season of ministry enriches our community and deepens our faith in Jesus. Come & be a part of it!

Get the details on the Sesquicentennial event on August 23rd below!