[vc_row bg_type=”image” parallax_style=”vcpb-vz-jquery” bg_image_new=”id^54278|url^http://localhost:8888/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2018-09-25-0034-Edit-small.jpg|caption^null|alt^null|title^2018-09-25 — 0034-Edit – small|description^null” bg_image_repeat=”no-repeat” bg_override=”full” enable_overlay=”enable_overlay_value” overlay_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.5)” overlay_pattern=”transperant” overlay_pattern_opacity=”25″ margin_top=”-50″ type=”vc_default” css=”.vc_custom_1540600837636{padding-top: 12% !important;padding-bottom: 12% !important;}”][vc_column offset=”vc_col-lg-offset-0 vc_col-lg-12 vc_col-md-offset-0 vc_col-md-12 vc_col-sm-offset-0 vc_col-xs-12″ css=”.vc_custom_1476043981108{margin-top: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][ultimate_heading main_heading=”OUR GROUPS AND PROGRAMS” main_heading_color=”#ffffff” spacer=”line_only” spacer_position=”bottom” line_height=”3″ main_heading_style=”font-weight:bold;” main_heading_font_size=”desktop:50px;mobile_landscape:38px;mobile:30px;” main_heading_line_height=”desktop:60px;mobile_landscape:48px;mobile:40px;” line_width=”150″ el_class=”accent-border-color” main_heading_margin=”margin-bottom:15px;”][/ultimate_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” bg_type=”grad” seperator_enable=”seperator_enable_value” seperator_type=”round_split_seperator” seperator_position=”top_bottom_seperator” seperator_shape_size=”80″ css=”.vc_custom_1541030513714{margin-bottom: -40px !important;padding-top: 60px !important;padding-bottom: 60px !important;}” bg_grad=”background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(40%, #ABA9E9), color-stop(100%, #E0DFF0));background: -moz-linear-gradient(160deg,#ABA9E9 40%,#E0DFF0 100%);background: -webkit-linear-gradient(160deg,#ABA9E9 40%,#E0DFF0 100%);background: -o-linear-gradient(160deg,#ABA9E9 40%,#E0DFF0 100%);background: -ms-linear-gradient(160deg,#ABA9E9 40%,#E0DFF0 100%);background: linear-gradient(160deg,#ABA9E9 40%,#E0DFF0 100%);”][vc_column width=”2/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1539752236651{padding-top: 50px !important;padding-bottom: 50px !important;}” offset=”vc_col-lg-offset-2″][ultimate_heading main_heading_margin=”margin-top:100px;”]
There’s a lot going on at Central. See where you could plug in!
[/ultimate_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_column offset=”vc_col-lg-6 vc_col-md-6 vc_col-xs-12″ css=”.vc_custom_1476026661856{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_row][vc_column][vc_tta_accordion style=”modern” color=”peacoc” spacing=”10″ gap=”5″ c_icon=”chevron” active_section=”400″ no_fill=”true” collapsible_all=”true”][vc_tta_section title=”Sister Church on the Southern Border” tab_id=”1576784061395-e8f7aeed-fdde”][vc_column_text]We are in a sister church relationship with El Mesias Church in Nogales, Arizona. We help support their immigration ministries, while sharing how we are interacting with our local Hispanic communities.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Community Kitchen” tab_id=”1539740203565-3883c758-7527″][vc_column_text]
4:30 – 6:30 pm, the last FULL week of each month (Mon-Fri)
In November, the week before Thanksgiving
In December, the week before Christmas.
We, Central United Methodist, join with Skagitonians to serve meals to people in need year-round. The program uses CUMC’s kitchen and Fellowship Hall.
About 80-100 meals are served each dinner hour to anyone who needs a hot meal, Monday-Friday, during the last week of the month. About 50 meals are served in the Fellowship Hall and about 50 are packed in “to-go” boxes and delivered to individuals in their homes.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1540698656899{padding-top: 20px !important;}”]
Meal Preparation
Open Door/Community Kitchen has been in operation since 1989. It exists to provide warm meals to folks who, because they are homeless or otherwise unable, cannot provide for themselves.
All food and money are donated. Some commodities come from the Sedro-Woolley Food Bank. A bread company donates bread. All the money used to buy food is donated. The food is purchased directly by Open Door volunteers.
This is definitely a community effort.
Dee Dugan, a member of Central United Methodist, founded Community Kitchen. CUMC’s Vickie Newell and Vivian Russell have served in various capacities for more than twenty years.
Volunteers come from Central United Methodist Church, which hosts and provides leadership. Other volunteers from from area churches and organizations.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Matt 25: 35
Members of Boys & Girls Club Help Out[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Mission and Social Justice” tab_id=”1539740104104-cf10bc1c-d45e”][vc_column_text]The Church Mission Social Justice committee strives to be representatives of Christ by helping with the needs of people locally and worldwide, and by raising awareness and collecting supplies and funds as needed.
This has included supporting the local food bank, collecting school supplies distributed in our school district, participating in a fund raiser for a new dining hall and kitchen for the local homeless shelter, supporting Oasis Teen Center, Friendship House, Tacoma Community House, and a Christmas family. We helped to coordinate an educational experience concerning immigrants.
We also occasionally sponsor special offerings for natural disaster relief, both in our own country and internationally via our denomination’s relief network United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).
As a committee, we don’t meet regularly, but if you would like to participate, please contact the church office for ideas about how you might want to pitch in.[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”United Methodist Women” tab_id=”1539740205014-177c7039-0cef”][vc_column_text]
We meet on the 1st Saturday of each month at 9:30am in the West Wing (excluding June, July, & August)
United Methodist Women (UMW) is the largest denominational faith organization for women in the nation, with approximately 800,000 members. Our mission is to foster spiritual growth, develop leaders, and advocate for justice. The main focus is women, children, and youth. There are UMW units in United Methodist churches worldwide.
Our goal is to expand our concepts of mission and participate in outreach programs that focus on women and children, both locally and around the world.
The UMW unit at Central United Methodist Church meets the first Saturday of each month (excluding June, July, and August) at 9:30 am in the south meeting room (West Wing) of the church.
Our focus is on the needs of the church, the community, and worldwide mission. We enjoy programs, devotions, guest speakers, and Christian fellowship.
Projects vary depending on need. Recently we prepared Health Kits for disaster response efforts by our United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), the humanitarian agency of the United Methodist Church nationwide.
We host two rummage sales a year, which not only raise funds for our service projects, but also offer high-quality, low-cost everyday necessities to the local community. Members meet most Wednesday mornings to organize rummage sale items.
Each year we read and discuss books selected for the UMW Reading Program, a nation-wide effort to keep women informed on current topics in our complex world.
Although our group is small in size, it is part of something much bigger. When we as United Methodist Women worldwide put out hearts and hands together in service, we can make a difference!
All women are welcome to attend our meetings. We are a creative, supportive fellowship of women worldwide who seek to know God and experience freedom as whole persons through Jesus Christ.
Come to our next UMW meeting and experience the warmth of women in fellowship and service. You are welcome here![/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Gardens at the Church” tab_id=”1539740205895-4a3f1a60-eff7″][vc_column_text]Of course, we do live in the Pacific Northwest, where natural beauty is so abundant that it pretty much stops our hearts every day. Plus, our town, Sedro-Woolley, located the beautiful Skagit River, is known as the “Gateway to the Cascades.” (That is, the Cascade Mountains!)
And, among us we have ample skills in nature photography, trail building/maintenance, fishing, farming, camping, backpacking/hiking, logging, and GARDENING, especially with native plants.
So, it just seems to follow naturally that we create and maintain not only a lovely sanctuary—simply but beautifully appointed in the Methodist tradition—but extend our “sanctuary” to our surrounding campus. It would be accurate to say that this aspect of our congregational life is a vital component of our collective spiritual experience.
And so, we do not look out at stained glass windows—we look out at rhododendrons, cedars, , gingko, Douglas firs, Western dogwoods, ferns…
But all this doesn’t come easily—so, many hands pitch in with whatever skills they happen to have…
Of course, we are all, every one of us, always at home in the presence of the Lord anywhere in all of creation, but we are human, after all, and a special physical space set aside just feels right. And, how could we be welcoming if we didn’t have a place to gather and invite folks into…?
And so, although it’s way far from the glories of, say, Vancouver Island’s Butchart Gardens, we maintain our garden sanctuary as beautifully as possible, with our rakes, clippers, paint brushes, help from Scouts, tractors, Janicki’s huge machines, and lots of willing hands.
We did a little Bible searching and found some inspiring instances of the garden as a metaphor for perfect harmony, for well-watered places and souls, for goodness and abundance—the opposite of “waste places.” Jesus used the metaphor of the garden in his parables, and at his last, prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_accordion][/vc_column][/vc_row]