Next Steps
Lots of Ways to Belong and Grow in Your Faith.
Our number one priority at Epworth is everyone’s safety – spiritually, physically, and emotionally. From March, 2020, to March 2021, we shifted our worship focus to online platforms to keep everyone safe. Though we’ve resumed in-person worship at our 10 am Blended Sunday worship services (with masks recommended), we continue to livestream worship on YouTube and Facebook, as well as an ASL-interpreted worship service at 10 am on YouTube. During the summer months in 2020, we offered an outdoor in-person worship gathering in the Bayside parking lot (bring your own mask and chair) on Saturday evenings at different times based on the sunset.
Throughout the pandemic, we have combined and expanded Epworth’s four food ministries (Intake/Donations, Good Sam Mobile Pantry, Food Rescue, and the Food and Love Kitchen@Epworth ministry) to meet the growing needs of our neighbors. Many people donate as well as receive food during three weekly times, on Sunday and Thursday afternoons, and Tuesday mornings. Every month, a group of us partners with Beebe Hospital in driving food and care packages to food insecure folk identified by the hospital. Area individuals, groups, and business organizations have also collected food for us to distribute. You may have seen news stories celebrating these partnerships.
We also partner with DEMA, Beebe Hospital, and First State Delaware in providing our parking lot for free Covid-19 testing and flu vaccinations (as well as Covid-19 vaccinations).
- In-person and online worship Sundays @ 10 am (blended with ASL interpretation)
- Food donations and distribution Sundays: 1-3p; Tuesdays: 10-noon; Thursdays: 2-4p
- Volunteer drivers for Beebe Hospital’s food and care package distribution to food insecure patients and their families
- Ongoing Covid-19 testing for our community in our parking lot
- Masks recommended for in-person Worship, Meetings, Preschool supper programs and Support Groups
- Church Meetings in person, hybrid, and via Zoom
- Skate Park @ Epworth is Open! Boys & Girls Club Limited Program
At Epworth United Methodist Church, we celebrate God‘s call to explore faith and embrace community. Whether you have recently moved here, are considering moving here or simply looking for a church home, we invite you to join us on the journey as we follow Jesus with faith, hope, and love. All are welcome at Epworth and we celebrate being a part of the Reconciling Ministries Network since 2006, which welcomes and includes LGBTQ persons as part of our community.
We structure everything we do around four primary areas of ministry
- Inviting all to walk in God’s Way
- Belonging to God as we grow in love
- Connecting with God in worship
- Caring for one another
Step
A Hero’s Welcome
We’ve been waiting for you – we’re not the same without you. We believe that God’s love brings us together for a reason – and that together we are stronger and more capable of transforming the world through God’s love. Pastor Bo Gordy-Stith, our staff lead, and Bob Joynson, our lay leader, help to coordinate invitational ministries at Epworth that feed the hungry with good things, celebrate the diverse gifts of different races, genders, and sexual orientations, promote social and environmental justice, and collaborate with people of different faiths.
This ministry also includes Epworth’s Preschool, Skate@Epworth ministry, and church internal and external communications, including live and livestream worship sound, lighting, and video support.
Step
You Are One of Us
Any church can be a hard place to fit in if you’re new, but at Epworth we celebrate the many miraculous ways God’s love brings us together to explore faith and experience community where all are truly welcome. Regardless of how long any of us has been a part of what God is doing at Epworth, Jesus makes all things new every day – inviting us to take that next step toward giving and receiving God’s love and life more abundantly.
We would love to help you explore what God has in mind for you next in your faith journey, in a small group, on a mission team, or getting to know each other around a communion or coffee table. Membership begins with our Belongings Group. Our staff leader, Gwen Osborne, along with our ministry lay lead, Loretta Mahan, or church lay leader, Mike Tyler, among many others, will be happy to speak with you.
Step
Connect with God
Worship at Epworth serves as the foundation of our communion with God and inspiration for reaching out in love to our neighbors. And the foundation of every worship service at Epworth? The Good News of God’s love for us all un Jesus Christ! We always start with scripture, naming a key theme, and then wrap the music, art expressions, and message around this theme with the goal of inspiring and transforming everyone as we praise and glorify our awesome God.
There are many ways you can be involved in worship leadership. Our staff lead, Music Minister Doug Yetter, leads several music groups, including our Chancel Choir, Bell Choir, and Praise Team (accompanied by our Praise Band). Doug also schedules scripture readers and children’s time storytellers. And our Connecting Ministry lay leader, Murray Archibald, creates and coordinates banners and other visual interpretations of seasonal and weekly themes.
Step
Changing Hearts – for Good
Our pastoral care team includes our pastors, Caring Ministry staff leader Mickie McManamon, ministry lay leader Dee Speck, Stephen Ministry care team, and every member of our caring congregation. We offer pastoral counseling, Stephen Ministers, where appropriate, inclusion on our prayer list (shared each week – with permission – with our congregation), and stand ready to speak with you about your needs spiritual or physical needs.
Loving God and our neighbors involves many ways of reaching out to others in concern and love. Our signature love-gift to our community revolves around a graceful welcome and place at the Table for all.
