Key Points:
- When a Georgia high school winter guard team needed a place to practice ahead of the regional championships, a South Carolina United Methodist church stepped up to help.
- Susan Clark, chief communications officer for the United Methodist boards of Global Ministries and Higher Education and Ministry, says St. John’s ‘radical hospitality’ showed the denomination’s connection at work.
- “The experience reminded me that connectional ministry is not just a structural feature of The United Methodist Church — it is a lived expression of God’s love,” she writes.
Photo courtesy of the author.photo.
Commentaries
This past weekend, while serving as a chaperone for my daughter’s high school winter guard team, I witnessed once again the power of United Methodist connectional ministry — this time, in unexpected circumstances.
On Friday, Feb. 27, I traveled with the Decatur High School Varsity Winter Guard from Decatur, Georgia, to Rock Hill, South Carolina, for the Winter Guard International Southeastern Regional Championships, a two-day competition for an indoor sport derived from military ceremonies. Before we even reached our final destination, the United Methodist connection was already at work. A family member of one of our coaches arranged for the team to rehearse at Marvin United Methodist Church in Martinez, Georgia, where the girls were welcomed into the church’s gym for a three-hour practice session.
But the heart of the story unfolded after we arrived in Rock Hill.
A last-minute change
The competition was taking place at Northwestern High School, with teams traveling to Rock Hill from all over the Southeast. When we arrived, our coach shared that the National Guard Training Facility — a designated warmup space for many teams — was no longer available. No teams could use it that weekend, and everyone was scrambling. She had secured our team a new practice site for Saturday morning, but if we advanced to finals on Sunday morning, we had nowhere to warm up.
By mid‑afternoon Saturday, good news arrived: We had won our performance round and made finals! Our excitement was tempered by nervousness. Where would the girls work out their pre-performance jitters? Our coach asked the chaperones for any local leads. Calls to area YMCAs yielded nothing; they were closed or already booked.
I turned to a familiar source: our United Methodist network, texting colleagues at the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry to see if anyone had ties in Rock Hill. One colleague suggested that St. John’s United Methodist Church had a gym, but he didn’t have any current contacts there.
It was a long shot, but worth trying. Around 5 p.m., I emailed the church’s general inbox with a subject line that captured my desperation: “Sunday am favor for out-of-towners.” I explained who we were, why we needed help, and that I knew it was a very unlikely request for a Sunday morning. Then I put my phone away and returned to watch the competition.
A couple of hours later, my phone buzzed. To my surprise, I had received a text from Emily Bell, director of Children’s Ministry and Fellowship at St. John’s.
She told me that she was confirming with the senior pastor (the Rev. Cam Treece), but she was 99% sure we could use the gym at 8 a.m. the next morning. She even invited us to stay for their 9 a.m. worship service.
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Her message left me stunned — and deeply grateful. I shared the news with our coach and the team sighed with collective joy and relief.
A warm welcome on Sunday morning
When we arrived at St. John’s the next morning, Emily greeted us. As the team warmed up in the gym, several church members were lured by the unfamiliar music to investigate. They asked about winter guard, this lesser known “Sport of the Arts” as Winter Guard International refers to it — a blend of dance, theater and equipment work performed indoors during the winter season.
Although we could not stay for the 9 a.m. service, we departed feeling the congregation’s prayers and well-wishes in our hearts.
That afternoon, the Decatur High School Varsity Winter Guard placed 12th in finals, securing a position in the top half of similar groups nationwide heading to the WGI World Championships in April.
The United Methodist connection at work
On its website, St. John’s United Methodist Church proclaims its commitment to radical hospitality. This past weekend, that commitment was made tangible to an out-of-town group of teenagers and their chaperones — some of them United Methodist, many not, but all of them touched by the gracious welcome extended by a church family they had never met.
The experience reminded me that connectional ministry is not just a structural feature of The United Methodist Church — it is a lived expression of God’s love. Sometimes it looks like a sanctuary. Sometimes, like a mission site. And sometimes, on a Sunday morning in Rock Hill, South Carolina, it looks exactly like a gym.
Susan Clark serves as chief communications officer for the United Methodist boards of Global Ministries and Higher Education and Ministry. She often spends her weekends driving her high school junior to competitions.
News media contact: Julie Dwyer, news editor, newdesk@umnews.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
