6 Florida United Methodist Review Online

Gainesville church selected as resource center

By Michael Wacht

GAINESVILLE — With an 85 percent activity rate among members and a vital ministry in its community, Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church was chosen to be one of 25 Congregation Resource Centers for the denomination-wide “Strengthening the Black Church for the 21st Century” initiative.

The church was selected because it has demonstrated that it values “clergy and laity leadership” and engages in “vibrant and varied worship,” according to a news release from the United Methodist News Service.

Mt. Pleasant will be matched with other African-American congregations throughout the country that are in similar demographic areas. Laity and clergy from the churches will visit Gainesville to experience Mt. Pleasant’s ministries.

“We will provide them with a hands-on experience,” the Rev. Geraldine McClellan said. “They will see what we’re doing and be a part of the worship experience on Sunday morning.”

The church’s success comes primarily from the laity’s involvement in all aspects of the church’s ministry, according to McClellan. “The laity needs to be empowered…to learn not to rely on the pastors,” she said. “We try to empower the laity and pastors to be a team, not to work against each other. I cannot be effective without my laity.”

One aspect of the ministry that has been successful is the church’s outreach to its community, which McClellan described as a ghetto.

“We are situated in the ‘hood’ in Gainesville, Florida,” McClellan said. “We’re focusing heavily on outreach evangelism and how to involve the laity in moving beyond the four walls…to be involved in kingdom building. We’re often afraid to venture out because it doesn’t look safe.”

One of the church’s outreach programs is an after-school program for children in kindergarten through 12th grade that’s run by the laity. Sixty-five children are currently enrolled.

The church also offers four different worship services each month to meet the community’s varied needs. The first two Sundays of each month the church holds both traditional and gospel services. The men’s choir leads the third Sunday’s service, and the youth choir leads a service on the fourth Sunday that is open for testimonies and personal witness. McClellan says the church is starting a contemporary service this January.

Although Mt. Pleasant is making itself available as a resource center for African-American churches, McClellan says anyone can stop by to see what the congregation is doing. “All other churches, whether they’re Hispanic or Anglo, are perfectly welcome to come and visit,” she said. “Our doors are open to anyone.”

There is, however, one condition McClellan puts on anyone who wants to learn from her church: “We hope the congregations that visit us are open and willing to change and recognize that the clergy cannot do it by himself or herself.”