August 2025 Leadership Board Report
When school is out and families are taking summer vacations it may seem a bit quieter at church. But, there are still plenty of opportunities for community connection through Brecksville UMC.
In June, Eric and I participated in Cleveland Pride. It was an absolutely wonderful day. Our group was small: Linda Crouch, Charles and Jamie Schwendeman, Eric and me. The parade took about 1 ½ hours, and we walked along with other local churches. There were just as many people watching the parade as there were walking in it, an extremely positive display of love and support. We didn’t stay for the after party, but there were lots of booths, musicians and speakers lined up for the afternoon.
The following weekend, we attended Pride Fest in Broadview Heights, another new experience for us. The BUMC booth was lots of fun! We had candy, stickers, and other giveaways. Cameron Wasie hosted a beading station, where people could make bracelets. I had several interesting discussions with people who go to other churches but wanted to learn more about how we got to where we are in supporting events like Pride Fest and the process that our congregation went through to become a reconciling church. It was very exciting to tell our story of becoming a reconciling church 11 years ago and experiencing the many ways our church family has grown since then. I walked away from the event feeling that we are making a difference – that we are known in our community for being intentionally welcoming to all.
We also participated in the BUMC Home Days booth, where it was HOT, but again, quite fun. Here we supported the community in another way, one scoop at a time, by providing ice cream cones and floats on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Home Days provides another great opportunity for the church to connect with and meet members of the community.
Finally, although I didn’t participate, I enjoyed hearing about VBS from Maria Shurik and Julie Kubek at Monday night’s Leadership Board meeting. We had 125 students registered for VBS, 34 of whom already are associated with BUMC in some way. That means 91 students (and their families) connected with BUMC through our VBS program! Jenny and 67 volunteers came together to make the week a complete success. They expanded the programming this year to add a mission station, where the kids packed 1,350 food items, 1,400 diapers & wipes and about 200 hygiene kits for Trials for Hope.
These and other events are opportunities for BUMC to engage with our community, which is one of BUMC’s goals: To establish new and deeper relationships with 100 people from our communities. This leads me to our capital campaign. Yes, our building and our grounds require maintenance, and our building is an important part of our ministry. Recently, Heidi, the Capital Campaign Work Group; and the Leadership Board have taken time to re-think our approach to the capital campaign. As we ask members of our church family to contribute to the needs of our church building and our ministries, we want to be sure we are intentional about the campaign. We believe we need to seek input from community members, consultants and, most important, you. This will delay our timing, but we believe it is important to do our homework about all the ways we can improve our building and use it to connect with the community in ways we haven’t even imagined yet. Stay tuned … we will provide more information soon.
–Submitted by Kathy Louttit