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Citizen Choice Awards: Garner United Methodist Church

By Lisa Mumma
Citizen Journalist

Editor’s note: The following is the second part in a six-part series of profiles on our Citizen Choice Awards honorees. Citizen Choice Awards is an award ceremony that recognizes people who exemplify what it means to be a Garner citizen. This week, we honor Garner United Methodist Church for faith.

Driving through the center of town, one can’t miss the gentle giant that is Garner United Methodist Church. Home to a faith community that strives daily to propel dynamic change and maintain steady growth through mission and fellowship, its leaders and members commit time, talent and treasure to make the world a better place. And despite hardship and pitfalls, their efforts are producing far-reaching results.

Pastor Bob Redmond. KRISTY FOUSHEE, CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Lead facilitators and spiritual guides Senior Pastor Bob Redmond and Associate Pastor Susan Hobbs say that the church is intentional in its teaching and that members willingly share through word and deed.

“In a community like Garner, it’s hard not to know the needs of others, and together we do our best to meet those needs,” Redmond said.

“Vision teams” within the church community help determine options, find resources, craft plans and drive action, providing focus and direction to church operations.

A prominent online presence via an extensive home page and a Facebook page, including the necessary staff to support it, as well as an expanded, revamped worship schedule are two recent changes instituted with this specialized group’s guidance. While Redmond believes that a Web site shows the heartbeat of a local church, Garner UMC hasn’t abandoned the old ways in its quest to go high-tech. Church staff still send hard copy newsletters and correspondence through snail mail when requested, and the church office remains the hub of activity when the real work needs to be done.

“Evolving programs and offerings will help our church move forward in growing disciples for Christ,” Hobbs said. “Most new members, especially younger adults, find us on the Web. It speaks to where they are and may want to go.”

“I always look forward to having people in church because of the fellowship,” Redmond said. “The goal is that everyone finds a new small group that offers friendship, discipleship and the love of Christ.”

Community outreach, both inside and outside the church walls, is a primary motivator of the members’ momentum toward service. Members have a long list of church-sponsored involvement possibilities from which to choose, many spanning generations and populations.

Member Gayle Hines found her calling to help improve the plight of Haiti, cementing her dedication long before recent earthquakes brought additional poverty to that country’s residents.

“I had to do something,” she said. “Praying for them helped but not enough.”

Having worked on Haiti relief efforts with a Methodist church in Clayton, she tapped an army of volunteers from Sunday School classes to spearhead assembly-line packaging of toiletry kits for the beleaguered residents. Learning through her connections that the supplies did indeed make it to their destination, Hines is now leading collection efforts of rice, beans and pop-top canned goods.

“Our church is very mission-minded,” Hines said. “It’s the perfect place to help meet the needs of others.”

Redmond and Hobbs agree that mission offerings “spark fires and stimulate passions” throughout the congregation and the community. Each acknowledges that volunteers such as Hines are blessings that propel the success of the mission.

Both leaders also acknowledge that partnerships formed inside and outside the church — notably those with ecumenical, community, corporate and educational organizations — provide the structure to effectively and efficiently perform mission work and community outreach both at home and abroad.

“Cooking for a Cause,” an additional church-led fundraiser benefitting the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life event, brings together GUMC members to grill chickens and schlep burgers to sell to participants. Redmond noted that in addition to members cooking more than 3,000 chickens, they raised approximately $13,000 in 2009.

“We do this because this would be what Jesus would have us do — love the sick and ‘walk’ for them,” he said. “Garner UMC pulls together at Relay for Life like no other time of the year.”

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