Roving reporters

While our website is intended primarily as an information resource for members, friends, and the visitors we enjoy welcoming, we need a place as well to provide information and relate stories that we hope will be of general interest to our site readers. Our initial pieces have been submitted by our own "Roving Reporters". However we're also looking forward to using this page to invite contributions from others in our church family.

We hope you'll enjoy these!

1. A Primer on AutoPay for Churches: We're all used to seeing the offering plate on Sunday morning. Yet times are indeed changing...

The Easter Totem Pole: Imagine trying to tell the Easter story using only a carved cedar pole. Yet that's exactly what we found in Ketchikan, Alaska.

2. More than Just a Building: Two consecutive weekends found our Roving Reporters at two quite different United Methodist churches in Arizona. And the contrast provided a key teaching point.

3. Sign Language: Winter travels often find your Roving Reporters visiting a little-known desert community in Southern California's Anza-Borrego Desert. At our local United Methodist Church there we recently discovered a rather remarkable sign...

4. Homeless: The Issue in Florence, Oregon: [Updated November 2014] With the onset of winter weather, it seems especially crucial to consider the plight of homeless persons in our own community -- and how we can become personally involved as part of the solution.

5 The Healthy Vital Church Initiative Part 1: Your Reporters get a sneak peak at a bold new venture being undertaken by the Bend UMC. This is news -- and it's our good fortune to share it...

6. The Healthy Vital Church Initiative Part 2: We complete this series of two articles that focus on an innovative new process for the revitalization of the church.

7. Cruise Ship or Mission Outpost?

-- Mike Slaughter challenges the Oregon/Idaho Annual Conference to "rethink church" in a bold new way. Our Roving Reporters comment on this important message...

8. The Pastor is IN

-- Our own Pastor Rev. Ruth Marsh takes the message in one of her sermons literally "to the streets". See how this creative and inspirational effort became part of this year's Rhododendron Festival...

9. The Bright Red Bag -- Our Roving Reporters discover something they never knew about a church that they visit often. Sometimes big messages come with very few words!