Westview, DBA, and Discipleship Festival

Sunday morning, May 20, Sherry and I had the privilege of worshiping with Rev. Ryan Budde and the team at Jonesboro Westview Wesleyan Church. After bringing the morning message, I met briefly with the LBA and then hosted Pastor Ryan and Rachel Budde for lunch.
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​Westview’s new theme is to be a church “on the move.” They have a vibrant community soccer program, effective outreach to neighborhood children on Wednesday evenings and they just launched Celebrate Recovery. They’ve welcomed 11 new members in the past few months. Westview is one of our district churches that has taken advantage of both Maximizing Impact and StratOp.
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Last week began with staff meeting in Marion on Monday and lunch with Pastors Zack & Carla Working (Huntington), before heading to Rochester to meet with Pastor Mike Cloud and the building committee at The Cross.

​Tuesday morning, I was able to drop in on College Wesleyan’s Festival on Discipleship to hear Matt LeRoy and Dr. David Drury’s presentations before heading to Muncie to connect with Pastor Paul Kirk (New Castle Memorial Wesleyan) for our annual coaching conversation. Sherry and I finished off the day with a supper fellowship gathering that included Dr. Wayne & Jan Schmidt, and Dr. & Mrs. David Wright.
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Wednesday morning started off with a Zoom call from General Superintendent Schmidt as part of his round of conversations with every DS. Then I connected with Pastor Tim McClellan and ViceChair Jeff Boyce at Lakeview Wesleyan Church. I’m looking forward to serving their team with a StratOp planning retreat this fall. Wednesday afternoon, Rev. Chris Williams and I participated in a ReEquip Conference debrief with the terrific team that helped us make this redesigned event a positive experience.

​The final meeting of Wednesday was in Huntington with Pastor Zack Working and the leadership team at Etna Avenue. They’re making some exciting plans for the future!
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The highlight of Thursday was connecting with our District Board of Administration for our fourth quarterly meeting of the conference year. We shared a full agenda and finished the day by joining our spouses for supper at Grains and Grill in Fairmount. Special thank you to Pastor Mark Atkinson and Mrs. Cindy Horn for graciously hosting the DBA meeting at Gas City Eastview Wesleyan Church.

​Friday morning, I met with Duffy Smith, a retired CEO, who has been helping our team with leadership coaching following up from StratOp and Maximizing Impact consultations. My next meeting was with Rev. Jerry Alexander (Anderson Central) and Rev. Dr. Richard Schenck (Noblesville Lakeview) to review a proposal for a ministry partnership between their congregations.

Rev. Rick Carder met with me on Friday afternoon to share more about his new ministry role at White’s Residential and Family Services. Friday evening, Sherry and I connected for supper and fellowship with the Lafayette pastors/spouses. It’s always a blessing to connect with our leaders to hear how God is at work in their families and ministries.

This week, Sherry and I will be away on vacation as we head back to Canada to celebrate the marriage of our youngest son Joel and Christie MacPhee at her home in Prince Edward Island. We’re looking forward to this celebration with our family. We’ll have limited communications access until we return home next Wednesday. While we’re away, Rev. Chris Williams, Assistant DS, and the office team are available to continue providing their valuable assistance to our team.

Keep on making a difference in the cause that counts!

Your servant in Christ,
Mark Gorveatte

P.S. – Ordination is set for June 22 at College Wesleyan Church followed by District Conference on Saturday, June 23. Plan to join us for these significant gatherings!