Check Out Colleen Wierman’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Colleen Wierman.  

Hi Colleen, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My call to ministry story is an interesting one. As I was working in the television sales business as a sales manager at WZZM TV-13 in Grand Rapids, our first daughter was born. My husband and I both said, “We can’t do this on our own. We need God’s help.” We moved back to Northern Michigan, Kingsley area, to raise our children around family. After working remotely in Kingsley as a Special Projects Manager at WZZM, we decided one of us should be at home to help raise both our daughters. I retired from WZZM after 13 years as a career woman and now was a stay-at-home mom with two young children, which lasted about four years. Upon searching for a home church, I walked into the Kingsley United Methodist Church and met my first female pastor, Rev. Char Minger. I ask, “I need to go back to work. Can you use me here?” Pastor Char’s eyes lit up, and she hired me as Children’s Ministry Director and Communications Director. After working at my home church, I heard the call to ministry but ignored God’s call for four more years. Because God is known as the “Hound of Heaven,” my ministry call only got stronger. I ignored the call and decided God said, “You should be a teacher.” After one year of teaching classes and crying through them all, I realized I misunderstood God’s call for me. God said, “Preacher not teacher.” Working part-time as a teaching assistant at Kingsley Area Schools, I was appointed to a small rural church in Brethren, Michigan, called Epworth United Methodist Church. The church was wonderful and located just a few blocks from the school. The elderly saints said, “We want kids in this church, but there aren’t any.” I said, “Yes, there are. They’re just down the road at the school.” With lots of prayer, gracious support from the congregation, Epworth UMC started an afterschool program to feed kids, help with homework and share the love of Jesus. After the economy tanked and being bumped out of my teaching assistant position, I found myself without insurance for the family. God provided another little rural church in Buckley to supplement insurance. The Grant UMC church was a diamond in the rough. The people loved God and loved kids. They were small but mighty, sending 35 kids to church camp free. Through fundraisers and support of the saints at Grant UMC, the lives of these kids were changed forever. As our children grew busier with activities, it was becoming even more difficult to travel 80 miles round trip to the Epworth church from Kingsley. God provided another part-time church at Grawn UMC. Again, the loving elderly saints wanted kids in the church, so we promoted a new weekly VBS through the local trailer park and monthly community meals, all free. By the grace of God, the church grew, and the lives of families in the area were forever changed. At this point in my vocational call, I was working part-time at Grant and Grawn UMCs as lead pastor and Kingsley UMC as associate pastor specializing in youth. All three churches worked together to send children and youth to camp, retreats, and weekend Christian concerts to grow both in faith and with each other. When Kingsley UMCs lead pastor retired, the bishop appointed me full-time to Kingsley UMC as lead pastor. My call to ministry came full circle bringing me back to my home church as their lead pastor. Kingsley UMC has a heart for helping those in need. We offer our Kinglsey UMC Feeding Programs by housing the community food pantry, preparing 160 afterschool grab-and-go lunches to high school students, providing Intergenerational lunch to ask risk students twice a month, monthly community meals free and open to everyone, Monday Nite Out hotdog meals, crafts for kids and games every Monday at the local park during the summer and so much more. We helped make Christmas a little better by providing 25 families and 72 children with a traditional fresh Christmas meal, hygiene products, and $100 gift card for each kiddo. At Kingsley Methodist Church we are on a journey sharing the love of Jesus. 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One of the main struggles is volunteer development. In small rural churches, servants are working full-time jobs (usually more than one) just to make ends meet. This leaves very little time to volunteer at the church. We prefer to call our volunteers servants of God, using their gifts to bring glory to God; however, the term volunteer is more recognizable to the unchurched or Nomally churched. Many of the small rural churches are situated in 100-plus-year-old buildings that need frequent improvements, which can become quite costly. One of my small churches had a fuel oil furnace that was working at 50% efficiency. At the time, gas prices were through the roof, and the fuel oil furnace was costing us $800 per month. Quick calculations meant we would be out of money in 3 years. After talking through the situation with older rural farmers who tend to not throw anything away, we purchased a heat pump and air conditioner, which saved us well over the $800 per month. 

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
The Kingsley United Methodist Church is known in our community as the “Helping Church” that “Prays” for anybody that needs prayer. We move people, take people to medical appointments, put in ramps, decks, doors, windows, closets, and do small remodel jobs. Our church family is known for being very welcoming and casual in worship, wearing jeans, and bringing in our travel mugs of coffee. What sets us apart from others is that we recognize that we are all learning how to live and love like Jesus every day and that the church is a hospital for the broken, where they can be healed and transformed into God’s Son. 

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
COVID-19 enabled our church to finally more forward on LIVE streaming our worship services, which opened the door to more viewers. We continue to reach people well beyond our four walls with prayer, daily LIVE stream devotionals, worship, and small online groups. 

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kingsleymethodistchurch.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/KUMCofNM
• Youtube: @journeywithjesus-kingsleyu8074