“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” –2 Peter 3:18
Dear SPUMC Family:
Trees can live anywhere from a few years to a few centuries, to thousands of years. The oldest tree on earth is thought to be a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine in eastern California. The tree is almost 5,000 years old and is named Methuselah after the oldest person named in the Bible. You may have learned as a child that one way to tell the age of a tree is to count the dark rings from a cross section of the tree. Trees that have a long life have wonderful stories to tell.
As the Sun Prairie United Methodist Church, we too have wonderful stories to tell. Our story started 177 years ago and keeps growing. We are in the midst of our four-year Plan of Ministry of G.R.O.W., which started in 2020 and focuses on our Gratitude, Relationships, Our story, and Worship.
On Sunday, October 16, we will begin our annual Stewardship Campaign to support the ministries of our church and our next 3-year Capital Campaign to eliminate the mortgage on our beautiful church building. This will be one campaign with two purposes and our theme will be Keep Our Story Growing. Each week, in worship, through devotionals and on our social media, we will hear people from our faith community sharing their faith stories and how those stories keep our SPUMC story growing.
The enclosed narrative budget brochure gives you a look into the investment needed to continue to Keep Our Story Growing through the Sun Prairie United Methodist Church. Also enclosed is our Capital Campaign brochure that tells more of our story and the changes that were made to our church building in 2013.
Before our Celebration Sunday on November 13, you will receive another mailing asking you to prayerfully consider how you will support the Keep Our Story Growing campaign for supporting our ministries in 2023 and eliminating our building mortgage.
It is a blessing to be part of a faith community where we freely share our time, talents and resources, along with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, knowing that in partnership with God, we are the ones to Keep Our Story Growing.
Let’s keep our story growing together,
Rev. Jenny Arneson
Lead Pastor
2023 Capital Campaign Information
The Sun Prairie United Methodist Church has been a presence of God’s love and hope since 1845. In that year, 11 members formed a ‘Methodist Class,’ which formed the church. In 2020, we will celebrate our 175th year of being a faith community in Sun Prairie! It is amazing to think about all the lives touched by our ministry in those now 177 years.
The current church building was built on its present location in 1962 and celebrates having nearly 900 members and friends. Many changes and additions have taken place to the church building since 1962, with the most recent changes be completed in 2013.
Our church building has allowed our faith community to continue to be a strong outpost of hope in God’s kingdom. The church building is literally used seven days a week for our worship, Christian education, caring ministries, children and youth ministries, small group ministries, and music ministries. We also offer our church building as community space for the Sun Prairie Nursery School, 4-year-old kindergarten classes, WORC (a work opportunity agency), theatre groups, scout troops, choirs, blood drives, gatherings for our United Methodist Conference Center and other community gatherings.
This next 3-year capital campaign, which will offer pledges for 2023-2026, will use the skills and talents of staff and others within our church community to help make the campaign successful instead of using an outside company to assist us. The theme of our campaign is Keep Our Story Growing.
This Keep Our Story Growing Capital Campaign will focus on:
•Sharing our faith stories and keeping our story of faith growing as we share gratitude for the ministry our church building allows us to do and how our building blesses those who use and depend upon our facility. In this 3-year campaign, we are looking to eliminate our remaining loan balance of approximately $793,480 (with interest).
•Including our 2023 annual stewardship campaign to support the annual church budget of approximately $700,000.
Please take time to prayerfully and gratefully think about how our wonderful building allows our ministries to continue and how we use our building to extend the hospitality of God’s love to our community neighbors. Thank you for considering your part in this campaign effort.
Memorial Gifts
Received May, 2022 through May, 2023
“If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. Thanks be to God.” –Romans 14:8
As each day passes, we gain a deeper sense of how our lives are enriched by other people. Our joys are multiplied and our sorrows divided. Our spirits are bolstered and our fears diminished. All of this we know to be the gift of a loving God.
We dedicate gifts that have been given in memory of loved ones and give thanks to God for these treasured people of our lives. Through tangible gifts, we honor people who have encouraged us, loved us, guided us, brought us joy and who have been at our side in times of struggle. In our remembering, we claim again the love and joy we have known through these persons.
IN MEMORY OF:
Bruce Babcock & Janet Olson
Carol Davis
Penny DeMott
Maxine Dull
Ruth Lehr
Jeanine Lohr
Jo Mainwood
Bob Nonte
Dee Pogue
Jean Schenck
John Schneiter
Gerry Wiessinger
Lowell Zirbel
Items Purchased or Funded with Memorial Gifts this Year:
Canopies for Outdoor Worship
Portable Sound System
Clavinova
High Accessible Chair
Sitting Chairs & Small Table in Fellowship Hall
Gifts toward the Greenspace Project
Thank you for a total of $16,370 given in Memorial Gifts this year to the Sun Prairie United Methodist Church.