Featuring the recognition of 2024 Licensing School graduates, 2024 Course of Study graduates, 2024 retirees, and newly certified lay pulpit supply and ministers. The Passing the Mantle ceremony in which a 2024 retiree passes the mantle of spiritual leadership to a member of the 2024 commissioning class also takes place within this service.

Preacher: Rev. Karen Shearer, Grace UMC(Madison)
Worship Music: Platte Woods UMC Music Team

Rev. Karen Shearer

Karen Shearer is a bi-vocational licensed local pastor serving Grace United Methodist Church in Madison, Missouri, while working as a hospice chaplain with Compassus Hospice and Palliative Care. Since entering these ministries in 2017, she has experienced both the abundance and the challenge of striving to live into God's call. Raised in a small rural church that nurtured and loved her, her passion continues to be for the small-membership, rural church and the vibrant ways in which small-membership churches make a lasting impact in their communities.