Bishop Timothy W. Whitaker of the Florida Conference announces the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Joseph R. MacLaren Jr. as senior pastor of University Carillon United Methodist Church in the Orlando District effective April 17.

The church has been without a full-time pastor since Dec. 1 when its two pastors were suspended based on complaints of sexual misconduct. Both have since surrendered their credentials.

MacLaren was serving as a General Evangelist and executive director of Celebrate Jesus, an evangelistic ministry based in Orlando. Karen Taylor became executive director of Celebrate Jesus April 15.

The Rev. Candace M. Lewis, founding pastor of Jacksonville’s New Life Community United Methodist Church, was the keynote speaker at Bethune-Cookman College’s (B-CC) Senior Consecration Services April 18. The services began commencement activities for the United Methodist-related college’s graduating class of 2001.

"The single, African-American woman…is an excellent teacher and preacher of God’s word," an article from B-CC’s Office of Public Relations said. "God has given her a powerful message that she delivers under the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit."

Lewis is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida and completed her graduate work at Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta.

The Florida Conference’s new bishop, Timothy W. Whitaker, will be installed at a special worship service the first night of the Dare to Share Jesus 2001 Florida Annual Conference Event May 29-June 1 in Lakeland. The service, which includes Holy Communion, begins at 7:30 p.m. in the George Jenkins Arena at the Lakeland Center. Whitaker will preach at the service, followed by a reception for him and his family.

The May 30 worship service will honor the memory of the late Bishop Cornelius L. Henderson, who died Dec. 7. His widow, Dorothye, will also be honored and is expected to attend the service.

The service will feature information on the Council of Bishops’ Initiative on Children and Poverty and Hope for the Children of Africa, including the Bishop Cornelius L. and Dorothye Henderson School in Mozambique, Africa.

Bishop James R. King Jr. of the Louisville Area, which includes the Kentucky and Red Bird Missionary Annual conferences, will preach at the 7:30 p.m. service.

Much of the information related to the Dare to Share Jesus 2001 Florida Annual Conference Event is available on the conference’s Web site at http://www.flumc.org/conf2001.  This year’s event is May 29-June 1 at the Lakeland Center in Lakeland.

Lay and clergy delegates and anyone interested in the event can download the workbook, which contains the agenda, speaker biographies, the proposed Constitutional amendments, a recommended conference budget for 2002 and reports by many conference committees and ministry teams. The agenda, general information, Journal order form, and Dare to Share Jesus logos and song are also available.

The documents are provided as Adobe PDF files and require Adobe Acrobat, a free program available from http://www.adobe.com,  to access them.

Worldwide relief efforts will be a focus at the Dare to Share Jesus 2001 Florida Annual Conference Event May 29-June 1 in Lakeland as delegates are again asked to donate items for Flood Buckets and School Kits.

A Flood Bucket is a collection of household cleaning supplies packed into a five-gallon bucket. The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) delivers them to disasters sites around the world to aid survivors in their clean-up efforts. This year’s goal is to collect enough supplies to fill 500 Flood Buckets.

A School Kit is a 12" x 14" cloth bag packed with pencils, paper, crayons and other items a child needs at school. These kits have been sent to Africa, the Balkans and other countries where families are too poor to afford the basics. The School Kits collected this year will be given to children in Mozambique, where the conference is building a school dedicated to the memory of the late Bishop Cornelius L. Henderson and in honor of his widow, Dorothye.

For more information on School Kits and Flood Buckets, contact Bill Rhan, the Florida Conference’s Disaster Response Coordinator, at 863-602-4224 or TheDisasterGuy@aol.com,  or Larry Rankin, director of the conference’s Missions Ministry office, 1-800-282-8011, extension 131, or LRankin@flumc.org.

For a complete list of the contents of each kit, visit the Florida Conference’s Web site at http://www.flumc.org/conf2001/   or the UMCOR Emergency Kit Web site at http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/kits.html.