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Sep 2023
By Rev. Lynn Bartlow A good friend of mine in Illinois used to make fun of me and my travels. “Do you ever stay home and work?” Apparently he thought my husband and I were always planning our next vacation, our next education event, our next trip. Our Book of Discipline gives us, as appointed pastors, four weeks every appointment year for vacation, plus a week of continuing education and a week for camp or revival kinds of opportunities. I believe pastors should take every day of their four weeks. Ideally, we......
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It’s Time for ‘Food With Friends’!
By Rev. Lynn Bartlow One of the essential tasks of the Implementation Team has been to help form a community as two congregations merged into one church. As we wrestled with how to do...
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Being the Church
By Rev. Lynn Bartlow St. Mark’s has shown once more what an amazing community you are. You have lived out our mission to care for all people as you stepped in after Pastor Kim’s...
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At Home With God
By Rev. Kevin Lester Over the last 10 years, home renovation shows have become a phenomenon on television. Remember chanting “MOVE THAT BUS!” at the end of “Extreme Home Makeover” episodes? Since then, there...
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Greetings From Daytona!
By Rev. Kevin Lester It’s been a great week at Youth 2023! This is our national UMC conference just for youth that happens only once every four years (so it’s a big deal). We...
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Our Pastors and Their Roles
At Annual Conference this year, I took photos with several former Associate Pastors from here at St. Mark’s. You’ll see in the photo above Jonathan Arnpriester (1992-1996), Jennifer Hageman (2006-2011), Tom Jelinek (2005-2006) and...
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Audacity
Audacious! So many of you mentioned my shoes on Sunday. Mine are in the photo above, the pair on the bottom left. They are high, impractical, a little too big (the danger of online...
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Skipping the Messiness and Giving the Highlights
On May 30, my Covid test came back positive. We had flown the day before from Paris to Manchester, preparing for the Wesley Tour portion of our trip. With a positive test in hand,...
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On Inclusivity and Becoming One Church
Our family just returned from an epic three-week trip to Paris and England. One of the things we noticed was how inclusive everyone was. It wasn’t some political statement; it just was. Vegetarian? Got...
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Remembering Our Methodist Heritage
Did you miss me?!? The Bartlow family has returned from our three-week epic vacation and Continuing Education opportunity in Europe. We spent a week walking around Paris, joined the Wesley Heritage Tour for an...
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