Endless Mountains Cooperative Ministry

Cooperative Ministry

•enhances and builds up the identity and strength of local churches

•affirms the value of all congregations

•helps churches move beyond maintenance

•helps churches develop strong ministries of witness and outreach in their communities

COOPERATIVE MINISTRY by A. Clay Smith

Hinton Center

Cooperative Ministry Focuses on these questions:

•What would happen if we envisioned the whole county as the arena for our ministry rather than just the small community around each United Methodist church?

•Are there some things we can do more effectively together than we can do alone?

•Can we do some training together that would enhance the strength and identity of each congregation and at the same time strengthen our total witness in the wider community?

•Are there some needs in our community that no one church alone can meet?

•What are the issues, problems, dreams, and visions common to all our congregations?

•How can we work together on these?

Pastor Cathy Wilcox is a consultant in the North Central Rivers District focusing on Rural Ministry Faith Formation and Outreach in the Endless Mountains area of the District. The Endless Mountain Cooperative Ministry includes rural United Methodist churches surrounding the greater Tunkhannock area of Wyoming and Susquehanna Counties.

Pastor Wilcox is called to:

develop small faith formation groups

in rural churches

raise awareness of community needs and injustice
develop relational/dialogical evangelism and discipleship

Cathy Wilcox currently serves as pastor of the Lemon and East Lemon United Methodist Churches and is a Candidate for Deacon in the Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church.

The Church to World project that Cathy submitted to the Board of Ordained Ministry was a vision of a “Circuit-Riding Deacon” working with pastors at rural churches to encourage people out of their pews and into relationship with their communities. Having been an active lay person at South Gibson UMC, she recognized that pastors are incredibly busy with congregational duties and small congregations struggle to find enough people to organize ministry efforts. She proposed the development of a cooperative ministry team composed of laity and pastors from churches in a cluster or adjacent clusters. This Endless Mountains cooperative ministry is an outgrowth of that vision.

Churches in the Endless Mountains Cooperative Ministry participated in "Christmas in Our Hometown" in Tunkhannock and were ready to hand out candy canes and Bibles and meet neighbors of the United Methodist Churches of Wyoming County.

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