Stewardship Minister & Members
Joanne:
“Hi, I’m Joanne Anquist and I’m the Worship and Congregational Leadership Minister here at McDougall. That’s just a fancy way of saying that I’m responsible for making sure that we are a vibrant, diverse and engaging church in many ways. In the past, I’ve been responsible for creating worship services, Sunday services with others that engage our world in new and relevant ways. We’ve had book studies, movie days, had coffee groups, done traditional bible studies, so many different ways of being. But when Covid struck, things became a lot harder. So with the help of a technical team, that’s been amazing, we quickly shifted our worship online. And we recorded so people could enjoy worship when they wanted to, sometimes not even on Sunday if you can imagine. I continued that coffee discussion group on Fridays but now we did it on Zoom and I was so excited to see that people who were seniors were getting into the technology and becoming part of that. We started a Book Club on Tuesdays, also by Zoom so we could have a way of discussing with each other, and then during the Summer partnered with Ogden United and Bill Weaver do a Summer Series on Sin that was very engaging and interesting. I enjoyed working with Bill.
What’s surprising about this past seven or eight months is though we really miss being together, we’ve also found new ways of engaging people in the community. There are things we can do online that meet the spiritual needs of people who are seeking meaning and purpose in their lives. And there are ways we can connect digitallythat are just as meaningful as when we were all sitting here in the same room.
Our Stewardship Campaign is really leaning in to these things. It has a theme of Nourishing our Faith and Supporting our communities. When I hear that, it’s thinking about how you support McDougall with your gifts, you aren’t just making sure that we survive as an organization to get through this. You’re helping us engage with people around their spiritual health. You’re creating a space for authentic community, even though it’s not in person. And you’re helping us to serve the community around us by providing basic things like lunch and a warm coat or a food bank. So this Stewardship Campaign isn’t so much about the health of our organization – it’s about the ealth of the communities that we serve.
The Work of the Church is engaging people where they’re at, it’s continuing social justice work and outreach, it’s creating opportunities to go deeper in faith, and celebrating God at work in the world in ways that all can understand.
When you do the Work of the Church, you might just help change the world.”
Gordon:
“Mary and I have been members of McDougall for 47 years and our Church family has always been very important to us.”
Mary:
“Gordon and I have been so grateful for the online Church services. During this time of pandemic when we are unable to meet in person, or not comfortable with doing so, it is more important than ever to have this source of comfort and learning available to us. We feel that the services have been very meaningful and the music most uplifting. We can tell how much thought and effort has gone into making each service thought provoking, and each piece of music, and the videos have been specially chosen. No matter where we are or what time of day it is, we are able to watch the Church service. We really hope that these online services will continue until we are all comfortable to meet in the sanctuary again.”
