Rev. McQueen Installed as District Superintendent

Yesterday Rev. Dr. Michael T. McQueen was installed as District Superintendent of the North Georgia Central North District – of which Faith became a member earlier this year. Due to safety restrictions associated with Covid-19 the event is available to our members online.

September 2020 Offering: Wellroot

For nearly 150 years, Wellroot Family Services (formerly called The United Methodist Children's Home) has nurtured the feeling of home for Georgia's most vul...

Our special offering for the month of September is Wellroot Family Services.

 It might be easy to take the concept of home for granted, but there are thousands of children and young adults in the state of Georgia who don’t know what a stable home feels like. Wellroot Family Services, formerly called The United Methodist Children’s Home, is dedicated to identifying, recruiting, training and retaining incredible foster parents who will answer the courageous call to welcome these children into their home. 

“Everything that was hard had a benefit on the other side. Everything that was difficult, painful, challenging or emotionally draining was worth the positive result. Our whole family came together to serve those boys, and it was truly rewarding.” – Michelle and Will Hardy (Wellroot Foster Parents) 

Learn more about becoming a foster family with Wellroot at fosternow.org. 

About Wellroot

For nearly 150 years, Wellroot Family Services has been leading the effort to transform the lives of children and families in Georgia. Through our four programs, Wellroot cares for and encourages the growth and healing of children, young adults and families in and affected by the foster care system of Georgia.

In-Person Services Paused

Much to the disappointment of our congregation, this past Sunday marked a return to quarantine measures for our church, pursuant to the North Georgia Conference’s recommendations that churches whose positive Covid test results number more than 10 cases per 100,000 people. Every day we consult a website created by the Harvard Global Health Institute to look for our county’s testing rate to drop below the dangerous threshold.

For the past week the rate for Clayton County has hovered around 25 cases per 100,000 people – still too far above the “safe-to-return” mark.

Provided below is a link to the website.

Covid Update from the Bishop

This week we learned that Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson issued an update last week regarding the North Georgia Conference’s guidance on the Covid-19 pandemic. The body of her email is included at the bottom of this update, and the original can be found on the NGUMC.org website.

The Bishop has directed churches in the North Georgia United Methodist Conference to consult a county-by-county “heat chart” on website globalepidemics.org. Counties shown in RED or ORANGE are urged to suspend meeting, and counties shown in yellow should take extreme care when meeting.

As of today Clayton County is in RED.

Due to our current low attendance Faith will meet this coming Sunday, July 19th, but will evaluate returning to online-only as we move forward.

Letter from Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson

7/7/2020

Dear North Georgia United Methodists,

Last week Governor Kemp extended Georgia’s Public Health State of Emergency and has banned gatherings of more than 50 people unless there is at least 6 feet of space between each person. (Read all executive orders at https://gov.georgia.gov/executive-action/executive-orders/2020-executive-orders)
 
We know that many of you have worked for weeks developing a plan for how to gather for in-person worship.
 
In light of the dramatic increases in COVID-19 throughout our region, we encourage you to review your plan considering these rising numbers. Churches in areas with rapidly increasing cases should prayerfully consider pausing plans to gather in-person until the numbers go down. Those in doubt should err on the side of safety.
 
The website globalepidemics.org offers a county-level risk assessment. We urge you not to gather if your county is red or orange-level risk and to take extreme care where there is a yellow-level risk.
 
We encourage and support you:

• If you have resumed in-person worship, but because of an increase of cases in your area you feel you need to pause and return to online worship.

• If you are considering gathering in person in July but feel you need to delay reopening.

• If you plan on focusing on online worship and stewardship for the foreseeable future.

For churches that are planning on gathering in-person for worship, we emphasize that congregational singing is extremely dangerous and that choirs should not be part of worship at this time. We reiterate the guidelines we have released (https://www.ngumc.org/guidelines-and-consideration-for-in-person-worship). Three variables to consider are:

• People: Confidence that members will be disciplined about social distancing (from car, to entering, to exiting, to return to car), wearing masks, and hand hygiene. Reports indicate that this might be the most critical variable.

• Place: The size and configuration of the space. Note that for many churches 25 or fewer is a safer number.

• Things: Availability of supplies (masks/hand sanitizer).

Inside gatherings of any size should be held only where the demographics, facilities, and the actual practices of members can reasonably mitigate the spread of the virus. If you want to talk this over with someone, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your District Superintendent or Conference Staff.
 
Our prayers are with you as we navigate how to share God’s love in the communities we serve in ever-changing circumstances.
 
Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson
The Extended Cabinet of the North Georgia Conference

Merry Christmas 2018

Faith United Methodist wishes you a beautiful and bright Christmas, with views from outside and inside our sanctuary. Music by our wonderfully talented Pianist, Gail Ayers.