Monday, August 3, 2015

Welcome, Tim Wiegenstein!


We have someone new on staff at St. Paul UMC! 
Welcome, Tim Wiegenstein, our new Family Ministry Coordinator!  

Here's a word from Tim...
Hello! I am pleased to introduce myself to you and to begin my role as Family Ministry Coordinator. As a result of intensive, prayerful and heartfelt discussions about the life, growth and community of St. Paul, the Staff Parish Relations Committee approved the creation of the role of Family Ministry Coordinator, and I am honored to have been selected as part of this exciting and vital vision of a healthy church in transition. 
 
I join St. Paul from my previous career in education. I began my career as an art and technical education teacher, and soon transitioned into counseling, which makes up the bulk of my experience. In Knox County, I moved into administration in 2003, where I served students and parents at Cedar Bluff and Halls Middle Schools. 

As a counselor, I began several programs, including a successful peer mediation and peer helpers program, an Alateen program and collaborated with several agency providers, most notably a teen pregnancy prevention program through the Knox County Health Department and a program to promote cultural understanding through Teaching Tolerance. 

One thing I have learned from my work with families, as a counselor and administrator, is that as a general rule, the relative health of the family is demonstrated through a shared balance of community and independence, self versus the whole, and freedom vs responsibility. In other words, we are both dependent on our family and our family is dependent on us, but never to the exclusion of either. I believe the church family is similar, in that we need community and community needs us. A healthy church community nurtures relationships, accepts us as we are, and gives us the opportunity to both care for others and to be cared for. People long to be connected with others. Perhaps through the Family Ministry efforts, St. Paul UMC can continue to live into what it means to live out the United Methodist motto of "Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Doors." 

I look forward to meeting each of you and beginning the work of family ministry we have begun together! 


Join us soon and meet Tim!  God is doing a new thing at St. Paul, enabling us to more effectively reach families in our church community and neighborhood, and we hope you will be a part of it.  Worship is on Sundays at 10:45am, and Sunday School for all ages precedes it at 9:30am.

St. Paul UMC- Fountain City

St. Paul UMC- Fountain City