Merger Announcement - Pastoral Letter
Greetings Central City Church,
When Allyssa and I started Central City Church, we didn’t know what would happen, where it would lead, or what God would do. All we knew was that God was calling us and we wanted to be faithful. Since then, we’ve met in a dozen locations, seen hundreds of people come (and some go), had dozens of staff come and serve, hosted interns, launched ministries, engaged in justice, and pursued God’s heart for inclusion. It’s been a journey!
And today, we start a brand new journey.
This past Sunday, St. Luke's and Central City Church met as a church conference to discuss merging. Dr. Tim Bias, our superintendent, presided. This was a result of over 6 months of conversation and collaboration. In the end, the decision to merge passed, nearly unanimously. We had zero "nos" and only one abstention. Over all, we had more than 50 votes cast.
Along with merging, we decided to adopt a new name. We will now be Cityview United Methodist Church. Over the coming months, we will start operating officially as Cityview, but it will take awhile to get all of our accounts up and running. So until then, any checks or official business will be done as "St. Luke's UMC" or "Central City Church." We will be sure to let everyone know when we're ready to operate as Cityview!
And finally, we adopted a new leadership board:
Charlie Kovanda - Board Chair
Andy Marshall - Pastor Parish Relations Chair
Tom Culberson - Trustee Chair
Beth Janoski - Financial Secretary/Finance Chair
Tom Clemens - Lay Leader
Jeff Mckee - At Large
Kelly Brown - At Large
April Volpe - At Large
Jeni Shuey - At Large
As the new pastor of this new church, I wanted to personally let you know what has happened. We are excited about what the future holds. We believe God has called us to be a church in the 5thxNW neighborhood, love our neighbors, and pursue justice and inclusion for all. I've attached a copy of our vision, mission and about us section that our two congregations created. (If you would like the complete merger agreement, let me know.)
If you want to stay up to date on what's happening and be included on our email list moving forward, let me know!
Either way, I hope you will join us in offering this prayer our merger team composed:
To the God who provides all and who meets us in our brokenness, we ask that you take all that we have—our gifts, doubts, fears, challenges, legacies, and vision—and use them to create something new. We know that you are the one who first prayed that the church might become one, so as two churches become one, meet us in this journey. Give us patience, courage to be honest, comfort in the journey, and a resolve to engage in dialogue, so that together we might experience all that you have to offer us. In the name of the one who died and rose again, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Blessings,
Joe Graves
he/him
Pastor - Central City Church