Barbara Ross knows something about being a light in the darkness – of reaching down into the painfully hard places of the world.
Several years ago while serving a three-point charge in the Buckhannon area, a gentlemen unexpectedly walked into one of her churches during an evening meeting looking for help.
Plagued with alcoholism, he told Ross that he was just about to drink his last beer of the night when he noticed the church’s light was on, and that he “thought maybe that God was home.”
“I said, ‘You know what, sir? You’re very blessed,”’ Ross recalled during her Special Annual Conference retirement video. “Because God is here.”
The man not only stopped drinking, but gave his life to Christ – just one of many examples of how the 20 clergy who retired at the end of the 2019-20 conference year impacted lives, communities, and the world with the good news of Jesus Christ during the course of their faithful and fruitful ministries, showing the world that God is here in the West Virginia United Methodist Church.
“They have shown us how to make a statement in the world of bringing the light of Jesus into the hard places in the world, as well as how to bring the light, comfort, and love of Jesus into the people’s painful places,” said Joe Kenaston, dean of the cabinet, during the retirement celebration.
The celebration took place Aug. 1 in Wesley Chapel on the campus of West Virginia Wesleyan College during the Special Annual Conference’s Celebration of Ministry and Mission.
The event was live-streamed via the West Virginia Conference web site, wvumc.org, and featured Kenaston and Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball reflecting on the various ways the retirees shaped and influenced the conference and their colleagues for the better, and the huge legacy they leave behind.
A conference-produced video featuring the faces and names of each retiree also was aired. Follow this link to watch the 2020 retirement video, and individual videos featuring some of our retirees, produced by Dd Meighen for the West Virginia Conference.
Bishop Steiner Ball underscored how the group has “taught us many lessons” about how to carry Christ to a broken world and hurting and broken lives, as well as how their examples of ministering in new and creative ways has set the bar for those who are learning on the fly how to do ministry in this strange coronavirus pandemic age.
It was said that whether it is Ross reflecting the light of Christ, Jim McCune taking international students into the state’s “hills and hollers” to break down negative stereotypes, Alanna McGuinn leading her congregations outside of the church walls and into the community, Gregory Godwin’s work in Scouting ministry, G. David Calvert’s leading a young, struggling couple into discipleship, Charles Hicks’ mission work for Nicaragua, or a whole host of other ways this year’s retirees have creatively reached out with the love of God in Christ to the least, last, lost, and lonely, all have illumined the trail for the conference to follow.
“Even today I get e-mails, phone calls, and notes from our retirees,” said the Bishop. “And I give thanks for the love, care and support that our retirees give me, you, and all of us in this ministry together.”
2020 retirees
William “Brad” Blanchard, Jr.; G. David Calvert; Kenneth D. Caplinger; Pamela J. Everitt; Mary Ellen Finegan; Gregory A. Godwin; Timothy W. Halloran; Charles E. Hicks; Thomas J. Jeffrey; James A. McCune; A. Alanna McGuinn; Dennis A. Mehaffie; Charles D. Miller; Sharon J. Miller; Alan Randall Mitchell; Jeanie Nelson; M. Elizabeth Peters; Kenneth S. Peters; Barbara “Bobbie” Rogers; Michael D. Smith.
(those retirees in bold also have an individual retirement videos)
Follow this link to watch the 2020 Clergy Retirement Video.