Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. It is time now for our community connection and we've got some great friends in the house today. We have Pam Builger and also John Ford and I just wish the weather was a little bit nicer today, but we do have some transition coming on, transition in the weather, transition overall. John tell us about this changeover that's going on with first United Methadist Church.
Tom, I would love to and Pam and I are here today to represent the first United Methodist Church that's the one on Price Road. But we are in the process of what we're calling the changeover zone. And for those athletes in the area are like to watch athletics, it's a track title and it's in a relay and you have about a twenty meters section where one runner passes a baton to the other and we are in
that fast paced zone. But if you're having a track meet, and if you're a relay team, that is a critical part of your success. At the church, we're actually going where we're transitioning from one pastor to another pastor, and we think it's important that we plan that transition because it's good for the church.
It's good for the members, it's good for the community.
Greg Teiner has been our pastor for the last seven years. He's been a pastor for thirty two years. Greg Andy's wife have decided it's time to retire. They're headed to Oklhoma City area to be with their family. And he's done a wonderful job for our church and we want
to give him a very positive sendoff. I know when I retired from Phillips, it's been a big part of your life and you're going into a new endeavor, but you really like what you've done, and we just want to make sure we send him off the right way. And it's interesting one of his goals in retirement is to read three hundred books.
A Year's admirable goal. Wow.
But then we're also welcoming Terry Keenan, who is our new pastor, and he's coming to us.
We're gonna talk.
A little bit about Terry, and it's interesting. I have some background, and this is kind of what Terry said, let people know about him. He said, I am a left handed, adopted, working class Generation X Pentecostal preacher's kid reared in northeast Oklahoma, I have two grown children, both are adopted as he was adopted, and three grandchildren. And he said, I am one of about twenty siblings and he says no seriously, but the youngest of seven in his adopted family.
Wow.
So that's a story. I'm looking forward to the story. But other background, he grew up in Oklahoma City. He got his undergraduate degree in Biblical and pastoral studies from Southwestern Christian University in Bethany. That's also where he met his wife. He got his Masters of Divinity from Saint Paul's School of Theology in Kansas City. He got his doctorate from Ashland, Ohio Theological Seminary, and for the last six years he's been the district superintendent of the church
for Northeast Oklahoma. And he said, I'm an ou fan. I like to watch NASCAR or any races, and I'll talk at length about Riach sixty six.
Well, that is an interesting background.
That is that crosses a lot. Yeah, a lot.
So we've got a lot going on.
We're welcoming the new pastor, we're honoring in our retiring pastor. What kind of things we have coming up here to honor?
Yeah, Well, first of all, I am excited to be here with John. He is a longtime member and I'm a newer member, so it's been fun to get to know others in our church and planning this has helped us do that as well. Greg has, like you said, been at our church for seven years, but in the ministry for over thirty, and that's a calling and that's definitely definitely worth celebrating.
Do you understand that in your family?
Absolutely? My dad was a minister, so I understand the ministry a little differently than others. But it is not just a Sunday job. It is all week calls, all the time meetings. You have to be very hush hush about things because a lot of things are confidential, and to be a good minister is a tough thing to do and it is definitely calling. So I do understand that Greg has been a great spiritual leader at our church.
And we just hope to really celebrate Key and his wife and hope that they have a great send off. And I know they're excited about being in Oklahoma City with their family, but it's bittersweet for sure. And we are going to have a big celebration on June first, which anyone's obviously invited that would like to come, but we as a church are going to celebrate him and have a big all church dinner and John's helped with some of that planning. But it is going to be
really fun. There's going to be entertainment, there's going to be some surprises, and just hope it's a great day for Greg and Judy.
So well, it's immediately following the service that morning. Yes, wow, service. See that's great.
Great, Yeah, And so that's the plan for for you know, kind of saying goodbye like I said, bittersweet, and then then we kind of transitioned to welcoming Terry, our new other new minister, and once again there's no better way than to bring people together than food. So on his work for me, I mean it works for everyone.
Yeah.
Yeah, So June twenty ninth will be his first Sunday, and once again we're going to celebrate with having everybody after church and sure have a nice meal for him and start to get to know him and find out his journey and how we're gonna just continue to grow our church.
Wow, this is this is going to be a great time. You know, like you said, a little sad, yeah, for sure, but also wow, what a great beginning too. I guess that kind of launches us into the future here. What about the futures?
Well, some of the things when Terry gets here that he wants to do, and he's kind of given us a list, and he calls it his group of seven. And on the first few days, right after he gets here, he wants to meet with the church staff. That's very important because they're going to be a team that's leading us. He wants to meet with the youth, including their parents, get to know them, and also the children's ministers, and
that's going to be in that first few days. But then starting July first, he's got four other main areas that he wants to get involved in. One, he wants to go out and meet our homebound members. It's important that he see them in their home and understand their issues and make sure in their minds that they know him and that we're there to serve them.
Secondly, and this is going to be fairly large. It's what he calls his cottage groups.
We're going to divide the congregation in to random groups or about ten people, and we're going to meet in individuals' homes and we'll have.
Fifteen or twenty of these.
But this gives everybody an opportunity to meet Terry, and he considers this more of a listening time. He's not telling those groups what he wants. He's trying to learn from them.
Wow, it's important. One like that.
And the other thing that he wants to do he calls what he calls the top ten of Bartlesville or regional leaders.
Sure top ten is just it's not a number, but.
He wants to reach out the people that are involved in the businesses and the nonprofits, learn the people in this community, learn what their needs are. And then secondly, for his last is the who's who in areas of and he's listed poverty, homelessness, and other areas of local concern. He truly wants to understand our community and what the needs are, who the leaders in trying to enhance some of those needs in what he and our church can
do to help. So I am very impressed with his goal for getting started understanding our community and wanting to be part of the community.
As we get ready to wrap up, how can people find out more about what's going on at the church. Do you have a little website or a Facebook page.
Yeah, it's Bartlesville United dot com and we would love there will be lots of information on the website. Are lots of information about what time services are, about him and BBS, etcetera.
Oh nice. Are you gonna have it all together? You gona have a bug summer? Yes we are.
I want to thank you both for coming in today on this on this rainy day and giving us some sunshine.
Think about to thank you thank for Radio for hosting this.
This is so important for our community and we really appreciate.
You ladies and gentlemen you have been watching and listening to our community.
Connection from dal
Thomas Comming to is brought to you by Values through media now Here