Why CONNECTIVITY?

Rev. Steve Casteel
Director of Connectional Ministries
steve@mississippi-umc.org
601/354.0515 ext. 21

Connectional Ministries is about making the connection between the local church, the community, the worldwide church and the world. Why? Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. To do that we must communicate well at all levels.

“Connectivity” is a tool to help us do that.

Our dream is that we can create a real time dialogue about what God is calling us to do and what God is doing around and among us. We invite you to join us as we explore ways to connect in conversation, action, and relationship. Together we are much better than we are alone. Please take time to read this first edition and give us your feedback. We want this to be a helpful platform to link us together in this great mission. Share your ideas and visions with us as we seek to be connected to you and to this great God of ours.

Lived Loved,
Steve

The Class of 2026
Sometimes in the process of deciding where God would have us in ministry I get overwhelmed. There are so many BIG problems and I feel so little. What can we do? There have been massive efforts by many groups to “change the world.” Maybe the solution doesn’t begin with a massive plan. Maybe it begins with people. We are in a new year. Every day children are being born around us. They are new in the broken world. They have no control or power to change any thing. Or do they?

A couple weeks ago Jim Beam-Ingram shared a sermon with our Course of Study group at Milsaps. He was talking about Boz, their newly adopted son. He asked the question, "What are babies good at?” He shared a couple of ideas…crying, pooping, eating, and then he shared the one that nailed me, and they are good at being loved. WOW! Good at being loved. It hit me. What if our plan was to love these babies? What if each community looked at this class of 2026 (Year many will graduate High School) and tried to help them do what they do best? What would that look like? Hey, maybe this isn’t a new idea. Maybe God was thinking the same thing when out of love we received Jesus!

Could we love every child? Could we try to surround them with grace and care? Could they be the motivation for us to clean up our act and our world? Here is our plan…”change a life, change the world”. It is gloriously complex and simple. How does it happen? One child and one act of love at a time. The genius of this is that only each of us and our local churches can know where these kids are and how to love them. It means we have to get out of our comfort zones and our buildings and make new friends. We must find out who our neighbors are and figure out how to love them. We all used to be good at being loved…what happened? Maybe this is what Jesus wanted when we were invited to be childlike!

My personal motto is “Live Loved”. I am prayerfully seeking how to live into that. I am so hopeful that this class of 2026 will let us love them into a new world. The key to it all is to know you are loved and to live out of that. Now there is a plan! Want to be a part? Contact us. Better yet, get out and find you a baby to love…some are bigger and older than others.

Discipleship:
Connectional Ministries is in the process of developing some practical tools for discipling. We invite your input. We want to give congregations and families helpful resources to provide everyday guidance in this transformational process. To speed this up and to bring leadership to it, we have asked Michelle Foster to join us full time (She is now serving part time with Safe Sanctuaries). She will work on family systems faith development. Please be in prayer for us as we seek to accomplish this critical mission.

If you have a successful program or resources you would recommend, please let us know.