Greetings, fellow worshipers,

Despite this pandemic, pledged church giving is on target. Plate giving is as low as physical attendance. On line attendance is high for these very inspiring zoom worships. We are beginning to work on budgeting earlier this year to better coordinate with our United Methodists Open Door Churches. Soon, we will be asking for pledges in order to accurately and realistically estimate resources in building next year’s budget. Thank you for your faithful financial support of Morningside UMC.

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The Morningside United Methodist Church (MUMC) Foundation continued to operate via emails these last few months.

During that time, the Foundation approved three requests from the Trustees to help with electronic equipment upgrades to our sanctuary.  The $3,850.00 to support these requests was from the Royal Tarter memorial fund and the Ken Amend memorial fund.

Here is a look at our finances. The endowment fund grew to $199,928 (about 3 percent) as of July 31, 2020, after starting the year at $194,470. For comparison, endowment earnings dropped by 6.7 percent in 2018, but increased by 20.8 percent in 2019.

Money with Pioneer Trust Bank totals $14,597 as of July 31, 2020. Most of this total is from memorial gifts designated for a specific purpose, most commonly trustee projects or education activities.

Tes Lacy, our new Family Ministries Program Director, has been busy creating this important ministry in the time of COVID-19 - a challenge to be sure!

We are getting started on a new project that we call "Sunday School in a Box. It will be going out to any families in the Morningside Church and also Open Door Churches who are interested. It will be some games and activities for families to do together during the online service that ties into the theme and scripture for each Sunday's worship service. We will be going over the activities during kids connect so that you all can follow along. Our hope is that it gives families a chance to do something together and also help kids understand and/or talk about the scripture that was used.

We are planning on getting the boxes out to those who sign up by Oct 11th so that families can begin to do the activities starting with the online service of Oct. 18th. Tes will have more information to send out with in the next week.

We are also still doing a Parenting Class/Support Group via Zoom on Thursday nights. We usually begin at 8:15 to just say hi and then focus on a specific topic at 8:30. Join us if you can. Class meets every Thursday, from 8:30-9:15pm via Zoom.

We are working on other plans including a Halloween Trunk & Treat Drive Thru experience and an Advent kit filled with holiday activities for the whole family.

SPRC has been meeting as needed, to consider issues related to staff/parish relations.

Our last in person meeting was in January. However, when an issue has arisen, I have send out an email to each of the members.

Most recently we've addressed our custodial situation and will continue with the minimal staffing we currently have until we move forward to reopen the building. We also been working on our music staff situation.

Currently in final stages of upgrading the Sanctuary technology to allow us to live stream when worship resumes. The building requires continuing maintenance, including repair of leaks, installation and hookup of the solar panels (which is now completed and we are hooked up to and supplying electricity to the grid!), mowing and landscaping upkeep, and working with other agencies who have expressed a desire to rent space in our building for Emergency Services for Youth and Children's Programs (all still pending at this point due to CoronoVirus issues).  Recently put up BLM banners in front of Church.

Disabilities Connections Team is committed to make our church a comfortable, accessible place for everyone. We continue to work toward complete accessibility. We have disabled parking spaces, an automatic ground level front door, accessible restrooms, accessible pew spaces, assisted listening devices and large print bulletins with songs and hymns.

In 2019, we continued our work by developing a short training for ushers and greeters to make everyone's visit to Morningside more comfortable. We also met the criteria as a “Bronze/Basic” Church. Due in part to our input on the Audit, the scoring has been revised. We also presented our annual Disabilities Awareness Sunday service that fulfills one of the Audit's items.

2020 has changed the way everything has to be done, which makes it much more difficult for people who need personal assistance. Currently we are brainstorming ways that we can provide that needed aid and educate others about individuals with disabilities all from a safe distance.