Change

“Change is the only constant in life.” -Ben Franklin

When I started in 2014, I was tasked with moving Plainfield United Methodist Church (PUMC) technologically forward. Some changes have been easy and barely noticeable; others were challenging, causing a lot of consternation. But all in all, you all were fantastic with the changes and providing feedback.

With that said, more changes are coming, mainly to the website and how end users interact with the Next Steps, groups, and service opportunities.

Next Steps

What are the Next Steps without a plan? Wandering. While not all who wander are lost, it is easier to get lost without a plan. When we introduced the concept of the Next Steps, there was no path for users to follow. We are creating the Next Step plan for new people to follow and become involved with life at PUMC.

Step One: Starting Point

“Meet PUMC” is a 30-minute introduction to PUMC. Attendees will meet others who are new and leave with a Next Step to help find their place at PUMC. “Meet PUMC” will occur at 11:15 a.m. roughly every other month in the Worship Annex. After that, starting on the third Sunday of September, we will offer “Meet PUMC” every other month on the third Sunday.

Step Two: Small Groups

You can connect with others at PUMC and grow your faith by joining a Small Group. The small group experience will help you see your faith story, understand how we live out our Christian faith at PUMC, and find ways to grow in your faith in this church community.

Step Three: Membership

Become a member of PUMC. You promise to faithfully support the congregation’s ministries with your prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. In return, you will gain an entire community willing to walk beside you in Christian faith.

Next Steps live on pumc.org in the next few weeks.

Small Groups

Sitting on a back burner since 2019, the idea of getting small groups on the website is something that needed to be done sooner than later. As many of you may know, our groups are VERY active, and I could easily spend most of my week making changes to the listings. So how do we fix this bottleneck? With Planning Center Online. We created a listing of the groups in this church (28 at the writing of this article), and it is available at pumc.org/groups. While those groups have been created, after a brief training course, group leaders will take over and add events, manage membership & communications, take attendance, and more. The training classes will start May 15 at 6:00 p.m. and run until the leaders complete them. If you are a leader, you can register for the courses at pumc.org/registration.

Serve (Service Opportunities)

Much like groups, PUMC has a LOT of missions. When you include Internal, Local, and Global opportunities, we have 27 chances to serve at PUMC in the local and even global communities, and the list will keep growing! We will be working with these leaders (many are the same as the group leaders) to help use this page to benefit their members and those they help. Check out the ways you can serve at pumc.org/serve.

Bonus: QR Codes

Have you noticed them? They have become trendy among content providers to help connect people with important (sometimes unimportant) information. In the coming weeks, QR Codes will become a bit more pervasive at PUMC. You can access the worship folder on your phone using the QR Codes on the screens during the countdown. Soon, an insert will be placed in the seatbacks with QR Codes and instructions on how to use them to quickly access and fill out a connection card, view the Next Steps, securely give online and submit prayer requests.

Some exciting changes are afoot at PUMC! If you have any questions about these changes, don’t hesitate to contact me at eshriner@pumc.org.