Our Pastor
Kathy King
(507) 382-2483
June
A message from Pastor Kathy...
Be Bold
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 23: 34-35 NIV
Preparations are underway for your representatives to attend this year’s Annual Conference. Minnesota United Methodists will be back in St. Cloud for this year’s gathering. I am happy with our return to St. Cloud. Last year’s drive through rush hour traffic from our hotel to the Hennepin Avenue UMC was something I do not want to do again. The theme of this year’s conference is “Created to Love Boldly.”
Your Worship Team met recently to plan for our 2025 joint worship services. The joint services are some of my favorite (next to Christmas and Easter of course) worship experiences of the year. It is good to see our parish church members come together to praise God as the larger community. A high point of the joint services are our pop-up choirs that provide heartwarming music. Seeing and hearing the voices harmonizing brings the Holy Spirit’s fire in our midst. We begin at Janesville UMC on June 29th where our focus will be “Love Boldly.”
Our 2025 Minnesota Annual Conference and our joint worship themes support our denomination’s new vision statement, “The United Methodist Church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local
communities and worldwide connections.” As our denomination lives into our call to do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God, we look to the Gospel of John and Christ’s call to follow a new command: “love one another. As I have loved you, so must you love one another.”
Friends, we live at a time when it isn’t always easy to distinguish a professed disciple of Jesus Christ. We must each focus our living to be that example to others that following Jesus Christ makes a difference in this world. May we have the courage to love boldly.
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Enjoy these days of late Spring and early Summer. Thank you for being the wonderful community I am blessed to serve.
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About Pastor Kathy...
Kathy King serves as the Pastor of the Prairie Lakes Parish - a three-point charge consisting of the Blooming Grove, Janesville, and Waterville Evangelical United Methodist Churches.
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Pastor Kathy lives in Janesville with her husband Jerry. Kathy and Jerry have three sons - Clint (and Julie), Jeremy (and Tiffany), and Aaron (and Trista), eight grandchildren, and one great-grandson.
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Pastor Kathy has a degree in English and Communications, and in 2022, completed the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship Course of Study for Licensed Local Pastors. In 2024, Pastor Kathy became an Associate Member of the Minnesota Conference of the UMC.
Kathy has a heart for the rural church and the relationships made possible through the example of love shown through Jesus Christ.