Growing Together: A New Season for Our BUMC Staff
Churches are always growing and changing. The needs of our community shift, new opportunities emerge, and sometimes the way we organize ourselves needs to change too.
Over the past several months, we have been looking carefully at the staff structure of Bozeman United Methodist Church and asking an important question: How can we best use the gifts of our staff to support the ministry God is calling us to today and into the future?
Following the conclusion of Pastor Mari-Emilie’s time as our Nurture Care Pastor, we made the decision not simply to replace one position with another. Instead, we have worked to realign responsibilities across our staff, strengthening areas that are increasingly important to the life of BUMC, congregational care, connection, discipleship, worship, communication, administration, and community engagement.
At the heart of these changes is our vision to Do Good, Seek God, and Build Community.
Our staff works together toward that shared mission, while each person brings particular gifts and areas of responsibility:
Pastor Zach Bechtold— Lead Pastor: pastoral leadership, worship, preaching, staff development, and the overall vision and direction of the church.
Joe Schumacher— Community & Groups: helping people build relationships, grow through small groups, develop leaders, and create new opportunities for connection within BUMC and throughout the Gallatin Valley.
Rin Stearns— Youth Ministry: creating a welcoming and meaningful community where young people can build relationships, ask questions, serve, and grow in faith.
Abbie Thompson — Children’s Ministry: helping children and families experience BUMC as a place of belonging, joy, faith formation, and community.
Ann Dickensheets— Worship & Seniors: supporting our shared worship life while helping strengthen relationships and ministry with the older adults of our congregation.
Janna Lauver—Congregational Conenction: a newly realigned role focused on helping people feel known, cared for, connected, and supported throughout their life with BUMC.
Janet Colombo— Missions: connecting our congregation with opportunities to serve, build community partnerships, and put our faith into action.
Amy Woessner — Administration & Property: supporting the administrative, logistical, and facility needs that allow the ministries of BUMC to thrive.
Christian Garcia— Finance: helping us faithfully and responsibly steward the financial resources entrusted to our congregation.
While these descriptions help identify areas of responsibility, our ministry does not happen in separate boxes. Congregational care connects with small groups. Children and youth participate in worship and mission. Administration makes ministry possible. Worship creates connection. Missions deepen discipleship.
We are one staff working alongside one congregation toward a shared purpose.
One important part of this realignment is also recognizing that ministry is bigger than the work of paid staff. Our staff members are here not simply to do ministry, but to help equip all of us for ministry. Some of the most meaningful work at BUMC happens because people share their gifts, leading a group, visiting someone who is lonely, serving in worship, working with children or youth, participating in missions, making a phone call, preparing a meal, or simply noticing someone who needs a community.
Over the next few weeks, we are going to use this space to introduce you more fully to each member of our staff and ministry team. We will share more about what they do, how their roles are changing or growing, what excites them about their ministry, and how you can connect with them and become involved.
Our hope is that this series will do more than explain a staff structure. We hope it will help all of us better understand how the pieces of our shared ministry fit together and where each of us might find our own place within it.
There is a lot happening at BUMC, and there is a lot to look forward to. Through these changes, we are continuing to ask how we can faithfully serve one another, welcome our neighbors, grow as disciples, and become the kind of community God is calling us to be.
Together, we continue to Do Good, Seek God, and Build Community.
Do Good…
Pastor Zach