Since becoming the pastor of Providence UMC I have been made aware of the history of this beautiful church and it’s involvement with the life of our community. Once we had a store on the corner, now Bart’s Corner, and also Providence school, now they are both gone. The only “center” of the Providence Community is the church and across the road is our community fire department. Our wonderful ball fields are located on some of the old school grounds. The ball fields have a lot of activity for several months on church property and then go quiet. A few months ago a group of person convened and established a community watch that was being housed at the fire department. The fire department decided that the crime watch could no longer meet at the department. A call was made to me asking if they could meet in one of our church buildings. I called David Shuler and we decided that since this was a community centered activity they could meet in our social hall. I certainly support this decision because I want the church to be the center of activity for the once strong Providence family. Hopefully this will meet with approval of our church family and is a step in endeavoring to strengthen our community. I have talked with several of you as to how we can make the church a vital part of Providence. We placed a sign on “Bart’s Corner” communicating information regarding events that occur here at Providence. It is our goal that persons who do not attend this church will read the sign and want to become involved with us.  I encourage all of you to help in making our church a center of activity for persons within the Providence Community. We want all who visit here to feel the warmth, spirit and constructive direction our church hopefully is willing to project. If our church is going to survive we all must take an active roll and support the programs that are inspired by our leaders. Recently we stated a Men’s program, it is doing rather well and has a solid group of men who attend our monthly breakfast on the first Sunday at 8:30 AM. We invite all men to come and be a part of this time of fellowship, a time to get to know one another. There must be some missional projects that we can provide as leaders, those projects are yet to be determined. I know our Methodist Women, and Methodist Youth have been involved in various projects that have required time and dedication. Many children have had an exciting time playing on the new ark and swings. We need to decided what are we going to do with the tennis courts that are not used for tennis any more. Kids, during ball season, have a grand ol time playing ball on this old court. Prayfully more of us will get involved to make our church a visible center and a lively heartbeat for the wonderful Providence Community.

Terry