East Mountain United Church - Newsletter

This is a letter to update all the friends and members of East Mountain United Church regarding our building program and our overall status. As a friend and contributor to this church, it seemed like an appropriate time to send out this update.

Since the last fundraiser drive around July 2008, we have suffered some unpredictable setbacks to our building program. As you know, the economy hit the basement around this time and recovery is still ongoing at the writing of this letter. Even though we have recently welcomed some new faces, we have had an overall loss in membership due to people moving away, some deaths, and others changing church memberships. Because of these setbacks we have delayed building on our land until we have the funds in place to complete the project. Your past and current contributions remain ready to go to work when the time is right.

We are still facing some financial challenges as the year 2011 begins. We are at the end of a grant that we received for the past two years from the Disciples of Christ Montgomery Fund. We have used this to pay our pastor and it ran out in March 2011. Since it would be difficult to pay a permanent pastor without this grant, our current pastor, Roxroy Reid resigned as of March 27. With the help of the Presbytery, the Disciples of Christ, and former pastor Linda Roberts-Baca, we have been able to secure the talents of Methodist Pastor Melissa Madera until the end of August, with Presbyterian Pastor Mary Davis filling in when necessary. We hope and pray that with the help of these pastors, along with the guidance of our denominations, we will be able to discern our future, and grow to have a continued presence, and be servants of God's work in the East Mountains.

We are in the process of building our new website. It is up and running at: www.eastmountainunitedchurch.org we invite you to check it out. If you have prayer requests, just click on the Prayer Request tab and send it to us. Until we hear from you or you from us, may the Lord keep you in perfect peace.

East Mountain United Church

East Mountain United Church

April, 2011