Crest To Coast Missional District just completed its annual fall gathering on September 20. We had a successful meeting with over forty attendees and presenters, with seven Units represented. Our theme was “Carrying Our Faith Forward.” Our featured speaker was Brittany Gilliland, Youth Director of Olympia UMC. Centralia UMC hosted the event, although they no longer have an active Unit. Rochester UMC provided a delicious soup and salad lunch.

We opened with singing of some familiar songs and devotion given by Sue Raymond (Spiritual Growth). Joan Hackett (Membership, Nurture and Outreach) introduced a new program that will probably replace our Mission Today called Revolutions Per Minute (RPM) using volunteers from the Units to give examples of information sharing used in the new program. She and Sheree Fitzpatrick (E&I chair) will fine tune it and give it out to the Units to try this year. Joan also did the memorial remembrance for members that have passed. Brittany Gilliland then gave her presentation that emphasized that being invitational is being intentional when it comes to growing your membership in programing. She works with the youth but a lot of the examples she used applies to older ages and adults as well. A lot of information was gained to try in our own church situations. Our business meeting followed in the afternoon with election and installation of officers followed by communion led by Alexa Eisenbarth, Associate Pastor of Olympia UMC.

We continue to work on our Soul Retreats which have been well received. Four have been done this year. In our reading program we have over 22 readers reading 115 books. As President, I continue to view Faith Talks, Emily Jones and other podcasts from the National office and attended Mission U this summer. We continue to try to increase the number of our Units and fill our officer roster. We were successful adding Teresa Rivera as our Secretary this summer.

Bev Thomas,
Crest to Coast District President