West U Methodist 90 News

October 8, 2026

Feeding Body and Soul: 
35 Years of the WUUMC Men’s Breakfast

The WUUMC Mens Breakfast has been actively serving the congregation and community for about 35 years in its current form as we know it today. When preparing to write this short article, it was apparent that bible studies with a focus on the men in the congregation had been around for a longer period of time; however, they did not meet on any regular or continuous basis.

Mens Breakfast as we know it now was organized under former Senior Pastor Douglas Caldwell. At the time, Douglas encouraged active participation in congregation wide Mens’ and Women's group studies. As it was relayed to me, the Men’s Bible Study struggled in its early days, but then it was suggested that it meet early Wednesdays accompanied by a fresh, cooked breakfast. Adding “breakfast” to the program greatly aided attendance and has been a key part of the program now. During the past decades, the program has also benefitted from the regular attendance and very active support of Pastors John Collier and Charlie Hall. 

Although WUUMC organized and has supported the group over these recent decades, another important feature of the program has been that it has been well attended by men from the immediate community in addition to those who are members at West U Methodist. Among attendees are members of other denominations, several ordained pastors, and leaders of service organizations. 

Each Wednesday morning a small volunteer group has met at the Drummet kitchen to prepare a breakfast style buffet consisting of scrambled eggs, fried eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, biscuits OJ and coffee. For those desiring breakfast, it is served buffet style at 6:30 am, after a period of prayer where those in attendance are encouraged to lift up names of family and friends in need of healing or other care as well as needs within the community. Over the years, participants have also come just for the weekly lessons which commence promptly at 7 am.

With an emphasis on strengthening and nurturing the faith of all attendees, the group has been instrumental in encouraging both WUUMC members and community attendees to attend the “Walk to Emmaus” weekend program sponsored by a broader group of Houston area Methodist Churches. Many of our regular breakfast attendees have done so. 

We also have regularly assessed and altered the study topics and emphasis to ensure that attendees are being spiritually fed in addition to their morning breakfast. For many years, the group would select topics of both social and spiritual interest for review and discussion. Because many of these topics were “hit or miss”, were discussed lecture style from a podium, and did not work well for meeting our spiritual objective. We decided that the way we should conduct the morning lesson was to read directly from the Bible itself and discuss among the group. This format has been in place now for the better part of 20+ years. 

One very important aspect of our lessons is that we are group led in a way that encourages active participation from all attendees. As our topic is the Bible itself, we started reading from Genesis Chapter 1 Verse 1 about 15 years ago. After reading and discussing that first chapter, we have progressed generally reading and discussing 1 chapter a week. Occasionally a long chapter may take 2 weeks and 2 short ones can sometimes be done in a week. Although we have a discussion leader, typically his role is mainly to select and ask for someone to read. At times, the leader may choose to make his own comments, but most ensuing discussion comes from the members. This format has worked tremendously well since the change was made. We have now progressed into the New Testament and are currently reading from Paul’s Letters.

We encourage fellow WUUMC men to attend and you will be welcomed by the group. We typically average over each year around 15 participants each morning with Fall through Spring attendance mostly a little higher and Summer attendance typically a little lower. We never plan to miss any Wednesday except when Christmas Day falls on a Wednesday or if a major maintenance issue at the Church requires a cancellation. For anyone who wishes to participate in the future, we encourage you to just come to the rear door of the Drummet at 6:30 am for breakfast or at 7:00 am for the lesson.

Special thanks to:

Logo Designer, Kathy Meyn Chauvin

90th Anniversary Committee