Announcements

PASTOR BRENNAN TO SERVE SUMC JULY 1ST.  It was announced on Sunday, March 21st that Rev. Brennan Hurley will be SUMC’s new pastor effective July 1st.  His wife is Jenna and their daughter-to-be is Caroline (due early-to-mid July).  Their four-legged family member is a dog named Max.  Brennan is currently finishing up his Masters of Divinity degree at Duke University’s Theological School (a great United Methodist seminary)!  He is currently serving two rural churches in North Carolina.  He will be returning to Illinois in early June and moving in to the Stonington parsonage around the second full-week of June.  Brennan is from Carlinville and Jenna is from Virden.  Brennan will also be serving at Taylorville First United Methodist Church as their part-time associate pastor even as he is our part-time “senior” pastor.  He writes: “It is a new season at Stonington UMC–a new building, a new pastor, and I hope, a renewed sense of mission and passion for the good news of Jesus Christ.  My family comes to you from North Carolina with hopes, dreams, and a calling to serve God and neighbor alongside you. . . . These are certainly strange times.  However, it is precisely these times in which the circumstances of life knock us off our horses (see Acts 9) that Jesus appears to us and beckons us to chart a new course in faith.  Our world needs good news.  The gospel of Jesus Christ offers that good news, and we get to be a part of it together.  

Please join our congregation in congratulating Brennan and Jenna on the birth of their daughter, Caroline Jo, who was born on June 29th.