Author: Secretary

BLOOMER AND NEW AUBURN UNITED METHODIST CHURCHES
United In Ministry Since 1958

Bloomer UMC
Est. 1898
1700 Main St
Bloomer, WI 54724
715-568-1971
www.bloomerumc.com
Mission Statement
To share the Good News of Jesus Christ, through our worship, our education, and our role in our community and the world.

New Auburn UMC
Est. 1883
129 N Central St
New Auburn, WI 54757
715-237-2933 or 715-568-1971
www.bloomerumc.com
Mission Statement
To spread the good news of Jesus Christ and the message of God’s grace.

A Message From Pastor Josh

Greetings and happy new year, my beloved sisters and brothers in Christ! I would like to start by saying thank you, to all of you for the hard work and ministry that you did in 2019. It is truly an honor to serve as your pastor and to see you share the love and grace of Jesus Christ in so many amazing ways. This past year I watched people dive deeper into their personal faith journeys through Christian education, start new ministries and expand existing ones. I have watched some people step out of their comfort zones and try new things, I have watched others work tirelessly behind the scenes making sure people are taken care of and that things run smoothly. We have seen an increase in giving and both churches paid more toward their apportionments than the previous year. We are moving in the right direction and God is blessing the work we are doing. I hope that you will take some time this month to reflect on your personal and our church’s journey over this last year. What are the positive things, what have been some of the challenges, what have we learned and how can we continually move forward? This leads me to my next point.
Many of you have heard me speak or reference that 2020 is going to be a year of visioning and goal setting for our churches. The leadership teams at both churches will be going through a much deeper reflection of the questions I just asked above. I am also going to ask you and them to spend special time in prayer this year asking for God to reveal his will for our churches, for us to discern and be obedient to the direction that he calls us to go, and that we will create a strong vision and system of goals that will keep us moving forward not only for the next year, or even the next three-to-five years, but for many, many years to come. So please be in continual prayer, be prepared to be creative and share your ideas and be ready to become a better disciple and to make new disciples.
I look forward to our journey together this coming year. I look forward to where God will lead and how we will respond. I pray that each of you have a blessed year.

Page 1

Experiencing the Word

Sunday Liturgy
Jan 5 Ecclesiastes 3: 1-13
Matthew 25: 31-46
Jan 12 Genesis 12: 1-9
Jan 19 Genesis 13
Jan 26 Guest Speaker - Jennah Kahl

Thank You, From Pastor Josh & Family
From our family to yours we want to say thank you for your caring, kindness and generosity during this Advent and Christmas season. Many of you took time to send cards, goodies and gifts. We have been so very blessed to call New Auburn and Bloomer our home and to be part of such amazing church families. There are simply not deep enough words to express our gratitude and love to you but please know that you have forever changed our lives. Thank you so much and God bless!

Worship Leader - Bloomer
Jan 5 David Olson
Jan 12 Debbie Wallsch
Jan 19 Maryann Gumness
Jan 26 Karin Olson

Liturgist - Bloomer
Jan 5 Pastor Josh
Jan 12 Pastor Josh
Jan 19 Pastor Josh
Jan 26 Pastor Josh

Human Relations Day
The first special offering Sunday of 2020 is Human Relations Day on January 19.
The Human Relations Day offering supports neighborhood ministries through Community Developers, community advocacy in the United States and Puerto Rico through United Methodist Voluntary Services, and work with at-risk youth through the Youth Offender Rehabilitation Program.
Watch for the offering envelopes in the January 19th bulletin or your can donate online at UMCgiving.org/giveHRD.
Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Acolyte - Bloomer
Jan 5 Judah Bourget
Jan 12 Dexter M/ Trevin R
Jan 19 Hazel C/ Ava O
Jan 26 Andrew Woodman

Liturgist - New Auburn
Jan 5 Pastor Josh
Jan 12 Pastor Josh
Jan 19 Pastor Josh
Jan 26 Pastor Josh

Page 2

Ministries and Missions

New Auburn Loose Coin
January’s loose coin offering will help to support the New Auburn after school lunch program.
This program helps children in the New Auburn school district that are food insecure have after school and weekend meals.
Please give generously. The food helps the children stave off hunger and this allows them to behave better and study better.
Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Save the Dates
‘Tis the season for meetings to start so mark your calendars…
*January 7th at 4pm - New Auburn Administrative Board meeting
*January 12th at 12pm - SPRC meeting in Bloomer
*January 13th at 5:30pm - Worship committee meeting for both churches at Bloomer.

Bloomer On Going Missions
Keep on bringing your...
...Aluminum cans...The money is used toward helping our youth with summer camp funding and such. Thank you so much for the donations and keep them coming!
...Pop tabs...We have one 5 gallon bucket full! Only 4 more to go. Remember the challenge goes through February. Bring those tabs that you collected from the holidays.
...Box Tops...The box tops go to help the area schools.
If you have any questions about these missions please feel free to contact Maryann Gumness or Juanita Fransway.

Bloomer Loose Coin
Mission Monies For 1st Quarter
The first quarter of 2020 will see the loose coin offering go to the Family Support Center.
Your generous donations will help to support programs for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. There are free programs for children, youth , women and men. Please go to https://www.familysupportcentercf.com/ to find out more about the programs that are offered.

Caps and Personal Hygiene
Do you have any brand new personal hygiene products or hats that you have knit that you would like to donate to various organizations? Talk to Juanita Fransway and she can help you get them to people in need. You can find her Sunday mornings at Bloomer UMC.

Ongoing Prayer Ministry
Please lift up our homebound friends in prayer.
Bloomer and New Auburn friends: Dick and Verona Donahue, Betty Kistner, Ellen Mark, Fern Meisner, Juanita Rufledt, Jim and Virginia Young, Betty Wallsch, Louise Hacker.

New Auburn Purse Ministry
A quick reminder that our All Church Purse Mission is on going. We continue to collect gently used purses to fill and donate to area Abuse Shelters.

Page 3

United Methodist Women and Christian Education

New Auburn UMW
Winter break has started! The next meeting will be April 1st at 1pm in the church basement.
Keep working hard on your mission projects until then.

New Membership
Membership Transfer Class
Are you interested in joining our church family? Wondering how you might serve the church in mission and ministry? Or do you simply have questions about what membership in the church entails? If so, I invite you to consider participating in our membership class. During this short class we will discuss the benefits and responsibilities of membership as well as how your God given gifts can be used to service and mission.
Alternatively, if you are a member of a different church and have been worshiping with us awhile, I invite you to consider transferring your membership here with us. If at any time in the future you wish to go back to your previous church, we can simply transfer your membership back. The transfer process is simple and we will help direct the process.
Class time and location determined by participants.
If interested, please contact Pastor Josh at umc@bloomer.net or call or text (715)864-1446

Bloomer Children and Youth
HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2020 sees all of the programming start up again after a 2 week break.
Sunday school will begin again promptly at 9am on January 5th.
Middle School Mission Unstoppable will be for the first time this year on Wednesday, January 8th at 6:30pm.
Both Kidzillion and High School Mission Unstoppable will begin on Wednesday, January 15th.
Kidzillion will be right after school until 5pm and we’ll pick them up at the elementary school by the flagpole.
Mission Unstoppable will be from 6:30pm until 8.
It’s exciting to see all of the kids again!

Love and Respect Class
It’s 2020 and it’s time to get 20/20 vision for your marriage! This 7 week course based on the best selling book “Love and Respect” will help you explore “the love she most desires and the respect he desperately needs.” This course is designed for couples who want a tune up, a drastic change, or are preparing for marriage. Led by Kyle and Erin Martin, each week the class will include a video lesson from the author, and insightful questions and discussion. The course will begin January 13, at 7pm and will be at the Martin’s house, 1607 Larson St, Bloomer. If you are interested in attending or have any questions, please reach out to Erin at 715-933-0581.

Mini-Church
Hopefully you were able to get out to the 9th Avenue park and see all of the displays but as promised here is a picture of the mini-church that Mission Unstoppable refurbished.
If you don’t watch the news you probably didn’t know that Ben Olson did an interview on WEAU about the park. If you missed it check out the Bloomer United Methodist Church Facebook fan page or in the new year check out the our website at bloomerumc.com. It will be posted under the Bloomer UMC tab.
Ben did a great job and the mini-church was featured in many shots.

Page 4

Charge Celebrations

New Auburn Anniversaries
20 Morgan and Desiree Mommsen
28 Ken and Sue Mullen

New Auburn Birthdays
06 Kristin Kouba
08 Mark Mullen
11 Jenna Super
12 Amanda Ebner
14 Kathryn Nelson
23 Snow Chase
27 Debbie North
27 Buckshot Trowbridge
31 Becky Breezee

Bloomer Anniversaries
03 Steve and Angie Woodman

Bloomer Birthdays
02 Dennis Snyder
04 Connie Krenz
04 Lisa Prince
16 Hailey Dachel
19 Analise Dryden
22 Sarah Bourget
31 Autumn Gray

Christmas Eve Thank You
Thank you so much to all of the musicians that performed during both Christmas Eve services...choir, bells, organ, keyboard, piano...all of you make the service even more magical than it already is.
Thank you also to all of the readers. All of your voices add depth and dimension and freshness to a story that is over 2000 years old. It also let Pastor Josh rest his cold riddled voice a bit too.

Santa’s Helpers Thank You
Thank You to all who donated to the 2019 Santa’s Helpers loose coin and gift giving mission to make our part in the Santa’s Helpers program another very successful mission. We were able to purchase and donate over 35 gifts plus 5 blankets. Your generosity is very much appreciated by the Santa’s Helpers Staff at Security Bank and the New Auburn School District. We do have a very generous church family.

Operation Christmas Child
Final Count for our Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Mission Project…….
Shelly Yohnk and Logan delivered 67 Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes to the Drop-Off Location in Eau Claire. Thanks again to all who participated!
God Is Good All The Time!

Page 5

January 2020 - BLOOMER AND NEW AUBURN UNITED METHODIST CHURCHES

Special Events this month:
January 7 New Auburn Ad Board Meeting
January 12 SPRC Meeting in Bloomer
January 13 Worship Committee Meeting
January 13 Love and Respect Study
January 19 Human Relations Sunday
JANUARY 20 NEWSLETTER ARTICLES ARE DUE FOR THE FEBRUARY 2020 NEWSLETTER

Newsletter Index
Page 1 Message from Pastor Josh
Page 2 Experiencing the Word
Page 3 Ministries and Missions
Page 4 United Methodist Women/
Christian Education
Page 5 Charge Celebrations
Page 6 Calendar

Bloomer and New Auburn Charge Office
Open: Monday - Thursday 9am-12pm
Phone: 715-568-1971
Email: umc@bloomer.net
Website: bloomerumc.com

Text Messages
The texting capabilities are up and running for both churches!
The number is 715-256-7033. If you would like to receive text messages from church to let you know when services are cancelled, special event reminders, etc please text your name and to which church you belong to 715-256-7033 and you will be put in the database. You will receive a confirmation text message back within 24 to 48 hours and then after that you will not need to text this number again. Please save it in your phone so you know it isn’t a scam.
This number is not Pastor Josh’s personal number so please do not text any questions for him to it. It also isn’t Michelle’s number. If you have questions for church you will need to call the church office number or email the church directly.

Bloomer UMW
Bloomer UMW is also on a break for the winter. Watch future newsletters and bulletins for details on the next meeting.