Leadership Board Update - February 15, 2026

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February 15, 2026

10 Minute Read



PASTOR CHRIS :

And we were going to do this after the song, but since y'all are sitting, I don't want to have y'all stand up and sit back down. Pam has an update she wants to give to you about what's going on in the life of our church. Pam just became our board chair January 1st of this year and has already made a huge impact, and that impact is important and has happened, not all because of her, although she is wonderful, but because all of us have started to say it's time. It's time for us to use the abundant gifts that God has given us to move the church forward. So I'm going to let Pam give her little talk now and then we'll close our worship together with song and the benediction. So Pam, go for it.


PAM DAVIS:

Thank you. I'm humbled to stand before you and represent people that are working for all of us and for our mission, and we have a mission. We have a mission statement, and it's on your bulletin. It's on the front page. It's at the bottom, and it's on the screen. Royce City Methodist Church exists to glorify God and make disciples by serving together to be renewed and rooted in Christ. That's what we're about. That's what we decided as a fellowship of Christian brothers and sisters we're going to do. And so, Pastor Chris asked me to answer a couple of questions, and so I'm going to answer these questions, and I hope I remember that I answer them in the vein of this mission statement. First of all, the laws of Texas require that we have a charter and we are a business, and so there's a group of people that are elected by this body to serve the business of our church. Pastor Chris and his worship team are in charge of our spiritual well-being and growth in the ministries of the church. The governing board and leadership board is charged with the business of the church, and so sometimes I put on the business hat that I wore for a long time, and I step in a different box, but I need to remember that my business is this, and I want to thank, first of all, before we go any further, Aaron Stringfeller, John Woodford, Austin Pelley, Shirley Magnus, and Jay Chesser. They just rolled off our board, and ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters in Christ, they did a great work for us that board last year because we had some really hard times, and they had to make some really difficult decisions. Now, some of the people are still on this board, and I thank you for serving because they are fired up, ready to go and get to work, and so the question we ask, how did we get here? Well, we know the answer. We got here because our church just literally burned to the ground, and everything we had ever planned and decided we were going to do as a body of Christ revolved around that sanctuary, and where we were going to build and what we were going to do was always, we are not leaving this building. Well, it left us, so we're meeting in this school. We're meeting in Glenda Arnold. You know it was offered up to us by the school district. They've given us a wonderful deal to be here. We have plenty of parking. We have great access. We can seat 200 people in here comfortably. We have facilities available to us. We have classrooms available to us on Sunday morning, so we can do Sunday school under the same roof. We have air conditioning that works. We don't have to clean it. We don't have to fix the light bulbs, and so we're blessed to have this wonderful place together, and so that's why we're here, and you know, we're still here, but you know what? We're not going any place either because we're still here as the body of Christ called to serve him in this location and in this body, and that's what I mean by we're still here. We did go out and hire a real estate firm. That firm is called Ridge Point Commercial Real Estate. If you drive around our church, you might see their sign if you want to know. Why we picked them was the previous board put together a task force to select a realtor to represent us, and they looked. We interviewed three different groups, and Ridge Point has done a lot of commercial real estate in Rockwall County, Hunt County, Collin County, and in this area, and they've worked with a lot of churches or a number of churches, let's say. They've also worked with big corporations. They helped bring Costco into Rockwall, so they've got their hand on the pulse of what's going on in our area, so why did we hire a realtor? Well, as a collective body, we voted 102 to 29 people to move away from our current site, and we did that because of a lot of different considerations, so we hired this realtor group to help us, and David and Grant English have been very helpful to us. They brought us probably over 25 properties to look at, and we've looked at them, all different sizes, shapes, different things. We haven't exactly found what we're looking for. We think we have found a parcel of land that we like. It's right down here on 66. It's on the side of the police station, and you go back a little bit. There's a developer back there that is putting in 450 homes. He's also putting in a school, and he would like to have a church, so that's attractive to us right now. We have not put any money down. We have not signed any contracts, and part of that reason is the developer is working with the city of Royce City on a land swap. He has some land that the city wants, and the city has some land that he wants, but they haven't worked that out yet, so we don't have a defined parcel. We don't have more information than that. Our realtors check with them at least once a month. They'll see where we are, but we haven't done anything, but remember this. No contract to buy a piece of property will be executed without a charge conference. A charge conference is a vote from the body of our church, our congregation. Why are we looking at this piece of property? First of all, we thought we'd like to be on 66. We found quite a few properties, but what they don't have is the infrastructure to the property. That means no streets, no water, no sewer, no electric. We can do that if we purchased a piece of property that doesn't have those things there, but we have to put them in, and that's going to be at our cost, and so that's one of the considerations that we're looking at this particular piece of property. We found another property close to 66 that looked really good until it had no water, no sewer, no electric. It had an easement from the Highway 66, and it had an easement from the railroad, so it just shrunk, and it was very defining on what we could use, so that's where we are today. We are continuing to look when the right piece of property comes along at the right price. You'll hear about it, but I'll keep you informed, and then where are we on selling our property? Well, it's listed. The realtors have brought several different lookers, but it hasn't sold yet, but I'm thinking at it this way. For 40 years, I managed office buildings, and one of my jobs was buying the highest and best use for a piece of property, and I think back, and I think, oh, Lord, you're making me think about that stuff again, but you know what? We have buildings that are paid for. We have buildings that we do need to maintain, but they're paid for. We don't have a mortgage, and we're not having to pay rent, so maybe it's a blessing that God hasn't brought us the right buyer yet for our property. Also, things are changing in Royce City, and as they grow, our value also increases of our property, so I guess the word is we're still here. We're still waiting, and then the board. Could the board members stand up again? The current board members, you're here. I know you're here. I saw you. Thank you. All right. You know, Pastor Chris told us something. If we are going to succeed, if we are going to make it, we can fold. We can fold, and I'm sure Satan would be so happy if we walked out these doors and never came back, but I'm not going. I'm here, and you know what? The people that have gone before me for 120 years are standing behind me, and they push me in directions I don't want to go because we're still here, and so if you have questions about what our church is doing, ask these board members. We've put an email out there. If you have a question and you want to ask, write an email on there. We will answer it. Over here is a basket. There's some cards. There's some pens. There's a sign that says Leadership Board Questions and Suggestions. Fill those out. How do we know what we're doing well or not if you don't tell us? If you have an idea, tell us. We can't do it and be successful if you don't tell us. If there's another way we need to communicate to you as a body, please let us know. We're working hard to do that, and lastly, we've established some new working groups, so if God is calling you, even if you don't want to come and he wants to use you for something, please speak to one of us about it. We do have a working finance group now that's working with Nancy and our church treasurer, who is Michael Dana back there. We have a working trustees group that is working with Andy Weir back there in our facilities. You know what? These people volunteered and said, I want to serve. I had another person this week come to me to talk about something else, and she said, God is calling me to help in an area, and tomorrow night when the board approves it, she's going to be working. You know, it's not just Michelle's job to set up our worship service. It's not Pastor Chris to take care of the chairs and the facilities. It's up to us if we're going to make it, and I'm moving on. I'm not turning back, and I'm not giving up. (Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

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From this Collection: Leadership Board Updates
June 28, 2026 • 4 Minute Read
Leadership Board Update - June 28, 2026
PASTOR CHRIS: Thanks to God for that, because it's always good to be reminded, as we sing, of who God is and who we are. That God loves us and cares for us and desires for us to be in relationship with Him. And that comes through the good times and the bad times. And you know that we've had a lot of bad times in our lives, and we have some good times in our lives. So as we talk about some good times in our lives, I'm going to invite Pam Davis forward. She has a little bit of an announcement that she would like to make. A little. We're going to call it a little announcement, because it's not a huge amount announcement, but at least a little announcement is better than no announcement at all. In my opinion. She wants me to be quiet now, so she can talk. Before Pam talks, we do have something on our website. If you go to our website, roysecitymethodist.life, and at the top right, there's a little three-bar icon, and you go on there, and you click on what's going on. It's now a place where you can find out a bunch of different information that we have in there. We're waiting for a subscription thing where you can subscribe to it to get it to your inbox, but there's a place where I have just a weekly calendar that you can click on there, and you can see everything that's coming up for the upcoming week. There's also a place for board, leadership board updates as well. We've had three updates this year so far. This will be our fourth update. After worship, I clipped that out and I put the video up online. I also do a transcript as well, so you can look back and see exactly what is happening in the life of our church. We'll be updating that more and more, but I'm going to turn it over to Pam and turn it on and take it away. I'm back. PAM DAVIS: Honestly, I hope for the next few months I'm back frequently or some member of the board is back. Recently, and Pastor Chris would not allow me to rest, or would my fellow board members allow me to rest without standing up here and tell you today, we have located a piece of property that we really think is going to work for us. Praise God. Now, in this day and age when we're all used to instant gratification and instant information, whether it's true or not, we're wanting that. I don't have a lot of information to give you today. What I have to tell you is our realtors that we've been working with for a year, they're currently working on this property for us. What will happen next is they will, when they feel they have everything together that we're interested in, the board will vet it and we will do our research on that property. If it looks like it's going to work for us, then we will be bringing it to the church for a vote. Remember, the church does not buy or sell property unless the church votes on it. So you do have a say, but we want to make sure what your say is full of information that you need to know so we can move forward. So I, you know, we want to move out of a cafeteria. We want our own spot, but you know what? God has given us this spot and he has called us to worship him and to be patient as he prepares the way. And every day this week, everything that came up on my Facebook, I wish that person would quit reading my mind, whoever it is, the prayer has been, Lord, let me wait on you. Let me do your will today. Let me serve you today and let me be patient for you to work behind the scenes for everything that I need. And I'm praying that with you. I'll ask you to pray with us. As soon as we have something else to tell you, you may rest assured the board members will, we'll have it together for you. One last thing because they're all smiling at me and they're nodding their head at me. Would y'all please stand up board members, board members, stand up. We don't always agree. We have difference of opinion, but every single one of these people love the Lord and want to do his will and glorify God and serve this congregation, this fellowship in this place. Thank you. (Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

Christopher Everson

Sr. Pastor

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February 15, 2026 • 10 Minute Read
Leadership Board Update - February 15, 2026
PASTOR CHRIS : And we were going to do this after the song, but since y'all are sitting, I don't want to have y'all stand up and sit back down. Pam has an update she wants to give to you about what's going on in the life of our church. Pam just became our board chair January 1st of this year and has already made a huge impact, and that impact is important and has happened, not all because of her, although she is wonderful, but because all of us have started to say it's time. It's time for us to use the abundant gifts that God has given us to move the church forward. So I'm going to let Pam give her little talk now and then we'll close our worship together with song and the benediction. So Pam, go for it. PAM DAVIS: Thank you. I'm humbled to stand before you and represent people that are working for all of us and for our mission, and we have a mission. We have a mission statement, and it's on your bulletin. It's on the front page. It's at the bottom, and it's on the screen. Royce City Methodist Church exists to glorify God and make disciples by serving together to be renewed and rooted in Christ. That's what we're about. That's what we decided as a fellowship of Christian brothers and sisters we're going to do. And so, Pastor Chris asked me to answer a couple of questions, and so I'm going to answer these questions, and I hope I remember that I answer them in the vein of this mission statement. First of all, the laws of Texas require that we have a charter and we are a business, and so there's a group of people that are elected by this body to serve the business of our church. Pastor Chris and his worship team are in charge of our spiritual well-being and growth in the ministries of the church. The governing board and leadership board is charged with the business of the church, and so sometimes I put on the business hat that I wore for a long time, and I step in a different box, but I need to remember that my business is this, and I want to thank, first of all, before we go any further, Aaron Stringfeller, John Woodford, Austin Pelley, Shirley Magnus, and Jay Chesser. They just rolled off our board, and ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters in Christ, they did a great work for us that board last year because we had some really hard times, and they had to make some really difficult decisions. Now, some of the people are still on this board, and I thank you for serving because they are fired up, ready to go and get to work, and so the question we ask, how did we get here? Well, we know the answer. We got here because our church just literally burned to the ground, and everything we had ever planned and decided we were going to do as a body of Christ revolved around that sanctuary, and where we were going to build and what we were going to do was always, we are not leaving this building. Well, it left us, so we're meeting in this school. We're meeting in Glenda Arnold. You know it was offered up to us by the school district. They've given us a wonderful deal to be here. We have plenty of parking. We have great access. We can seat 200 people in here comfortably. We have facilities available to us. We have classrooms available to us on Sunday morning, so we can do Sunday school under the same roof. We have air conditioning that works. We don't have to clean it. We don't have to fix the light bulbs, and so we're blessed to have this wonderful place together, and so that's why we're here, and you know, we're still here, but you know what? We're not going any place either because we're still here as the body of Christ called to serve him in this location and in this body, and that's what I mean by we're still here. We did go out and hire a real estate firm. That firm is called Ridge Point Commercial Real Estate. If you drive around our church, you might see their sign if you want to know. Why we picked them was the previous board put together a task force to select a realtor to represent us, and they looked. We interviewed three different groups, and Ridge Point has done a lot of commercial real estate in Rockwall County, Hunt County, Collin County, and in this area, and they've worked with a lot of churches or a number of churches, let's say. They've also worked with big corporations. They helped bring Costco into Rockwall, so they've got their hand on the pulse of what's going on in our area, so why did we hire a realtor? Well, as a collective body, we voted 102 to 29 people to move away from our current site, and we did that because of a lot of different considerations, so we hired this realtor group to help us, and David and Grant English have been very helpful to us. They brought us probably over 25 properties to look at, and we've looked at them, all different sizes, shapes, different things. We haven't exactly found what we're looking for. We think we have found a parcel of land that we like. It's right down here on 66. It's on the side of the police station, and you go back a little bit. There's a developer back there that is putting in 450 homes. He's also putting in a school, and he would like to have a church, so that's attractive to us right now. We have not put any money down. We have not signed any contracts, and part of that reason is the developer is working with the city of Royce City on a land swap. He has some land that the city wants, and the city has some land that he wants, but they haven't worked that out yet, so we don't have a defined parcel. We don't have more information than that. Our realtors check with them at least once a month. They'll see where we are, but we haven't done anything, but remember this. No contract to buy a piece of property will be executed without a charge conference. A charge conference is a vote from the body of our church, our congregation. Why are we looking at this piece of property? First of all, we thought we'd like to be on 66. We found quite a few properties, but what they don't have is the infrastructure to the property. That means no streets, no water, no sewer, no electric. We can do that if we purchased a piece of property that doesn't have those things there, but we have to put them in, and that's going to be at our cost, and so that's one of the considerations that we're looking at this particular piece of property. We found another property close to 66 that looked really good until it had no water, no sewer, no electric. It had an easement from the Highway 66, and it had an easement from the railroad, so it just shrunk, and it was very defining on what we could use, so that's where we are today. We are continuing to look when the right piece of property comes along at the right price. You'll hear about it, but I'll keep you informed, and then where are we on selling our property? Well, it's listed. The realtors have brought several different lookers, but it hasn't sold yet, but I'm thinking at it this way. For 40 years, I managed office buildings, and one of my jobs was buying the highest and best use for a piece of property, and I think back, and I think, oh, Lord, you're making me think about that stuff again, but you know what? We have buildings that are paid for. We have buildings that we do need to maintain, but they're paid for. We don't have a mortgage, and we're not having to pay rent, so maybe it's a blessing that God hasn't brought us the right buyer yet for our property. Also, things are changing in Royce City, and as they grow, our value also increases of our property, so I guess the word is we're still here. We're still waiting, and then the board. Could the board members stand up again? The current board members, you're here. I know you're here. I saw you. Thank you. All right. You know, Pastor Chris told us something. If we are going to succeed, if we are going to make it, we can fold. We can fold, and I'm sure Satan would be so happy if we walked out these doors and never came back, but I'm not going. I'm here, and you know what? The people that have gone before me for 120 years are standing behind me, and they push me in directions I don't want to go because we're still here, and so if you have questions about what our church is doing, ask these board members. We've put an email out there. If you have a question and you want to ask, write an email on there. We will answer it. Over here is a basket. There's some cards. There's some pens. There's a sign that says Leadership Board Questions and Suggestions. Fill those out. How do we know what we're doing well or not if you don't tell us? If you have an idea, tell us. We can't do it and be successful if you don't tell us. If there's another way we need to communicate to you as a body, please let us know. We're working hard to do that, and lastly, we've established some new working groups, so if God is calling you, even if you don't want to come and he wants to use you for something, please speak to one of us about it. We do have a working finance group now that's working with Nancy and our church treasurer, who is Michael Dana back there. We have a working trustees group that is working with Andy Weir back there in our facilities. You know what? These people volunteered and said, I want to serve. I had another person this week come to me to talk about something else, and she said, God is calling me to help in an area, and tomorrow night when the board approves it, she's going to be working. You know, it's not just Michelle's job to set up our worship service. It's not Pastor Chris to take care of the chairs and the facilities. It's up to us if we're going to make it, and I'm moving on. I'm not turning back, and I'm not giving up. (Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
March 22, 2026 • 5 Minute Read
Leadership Board Update - March 22, 2026
MICAHEL DANA - Good morning, church family. If you don't know my name, again, I'm Mike, and I'm on the board. I'm currently serving as the treasurer for Royce City Methodist. We did have a board meeting this past week, and we've had some things happen and discussed, and we feel, and this has come up before, is we want to be completely transparent with anything that's going on. So our meeting almost went like three hours. So basically, the big news is that we had two separate letters of intent on the properties, on the church properties. And as you all know, the properties have been set for sale for about a year now. We debated on whether or not to say anything because we really don't have a lot of information, but we felt like we needed to say something because we don't want rumors taking over. We wanted everybody to know that, you know, we are starting to get offers. Just to give you a little bit of information about it, one offer was for, basically, there's five parcels of land. So we had one offer was for four of the five parcels, and then another one was two of the five parcels. Now, this is the most important thing I can say. We have not signed anything, so we don't want rumors running around that, hey, we're going to do this, and you guys are not going to know anything about it. So we are discussing a response with the realtor, and we'll be meeting with the realtor this week. And again, we have very limited information, so we encourage you, if you have any questions, to ask us about anything going on with the church. But if you ask us about that specific thing right now, well, it's really in flux. It's in play right now, so we don't really have a lot of information. I will say this, is how many people have ever sold their house or sold a house? Okay, so you list your house, and someone gives you a half-price offer. Would you be excited? No. So that's pretty much one of the words I heard in the meeting. I didn't say it, but it was what I thought was, well, that's a lowball offer. But we have to respond. We have to accept any offer, and this will continue in the future, I'm sure. But if anything, this is the most important thing, and I'm going to read this. No property sale will be conducted without a church meeting and a vote. So again, anything we're doing as a board, we're going to come to you guys when something looks really good, or we're going to move on. Some of the other stuff, just related to that real quick, is during our meeting, we discussed acquiring Bell Street from the city and getting all five church properties zoned as commercial to enhance our listing. So again, we do have five properties. They're not all zoned as commercial from my understanding, and just feel that it would enhance the listing a little more if all the properties are listed as commercial. And then Bell Street, if you're not aware of it, runs right through the center, but it would make it continuous. So again, that would make it probably a little more attractive in selling. Some of the other things that come out, and again, this is just discussion, is just that you could see all the work that's going on around downtown. So when those improvements are done, I think that the situation, and I think that's what the realtors are going to say, is things are going to improve for the properties. I think everybody could see that. Again, please reach out to me. We do have some other board members here, and again, I don't want to put them on the spot, but if they would just raise their hand if you're a board member. Anything else that's going on that you are concerned about with going on, you have questions, we want to be approachable to you. Whether you want to put something in the basket and write it down, put it on a card, or go to the website, I'm usually here late putting tables together. Please come up and ask us. One of the things that still comes up is, one of the things I heard some people were saying is, well, why don't we just build on the existing property? My first answer to that would be, you know, we did do a church vote on that one, and I think the vote was 102 to 29 to move on. I'm still more than happy to discuss that. Again, I've already used too much time right now, but there's reasons that we shifted and started looking, and then, of course, we did the church vote to move on. We're still looking at the property over by the police station. I believe that there's a land swap involved in that, but that's still in play, but we really don't have a lot of information on that. If you have questions like that, I'm more than happy to talk about that because I'm kind of familiar with some of the things that led to that decision or why people voted the way they did. I guess the last thing I'm going to say is just thank you all. We love you all, and we look forward to basically being renewed and rooted in Christ and all that we do at the church, so thank you. (Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
June 21, 2026 • 4 Minute Read
Leadership Board Update - June 21, 2026
TRANSCRIPT - PASTOR CHRIS: Thank you, Pastor Dretha. Before I have the ushers come forward, I want to invite our board chairperson, Pam Davis, who is right over here. No, she did not leave. She's right here. We had a board meeting on Monday, and we thought it'd be good to give just a little bit of update of what's happening. And before we do that, if you are serving on our leadership board, would you please stand real quick so we can thank you for the work that you do? I know we have a lot of people who are out of town. Awesome. Thank you for all that you do. And I'm going to let Pam have the microphone for a while, and she's going to share some updates. PAM DAVIS: Well, thank you all for all of your prayerful support for this leadership board that we have. We can feel your prayers. It seems like we spend an awful lot of time working on things, and then all of a sudden we think, well, where are we going? And hopefully we feel like we're going where God is leading us. I'd love to tell you today that, hey, I've got some great news. I think we're going to be doing this and that. And we do have some good news coming soon. I just don't know exactly what it's going to look like. But we're working on a couple of things, and what happens is when we get ready to do things, you know, we have to have a church meeting. And everybody gets to decide what we do. So we're working on those things. Hopefully we can get them together soon. We're spending time going over the ideas that you gave us in the town hall meeting. And we will be working on our way forward using your comments, and we'll be sharing that with you too. There's a little bit of work to do on that. You gave us plenty to think about and work on, which is great. And we thank you for that as well. One of the things we're waiting on, we've had to survey all of our property. And Andy Weir, thank you so much. He calls the surveyor twice a week saying, where's our surveys? Because our realtor needs them. And we have a couple things hopefully in play, but we can't do anything about it until we get the surveys. So pray that we'll get the surveys soon. And we'll have those done so we can move forward with some things that we have. A lot of work going on around the facility still. Thank you to the trustees. Those gentlemen have gotten out here and done a ton of work on our properties. We keep having water issues. They're working on those, trying to get the water out of the good place. And in front of where we go in at Wesley Hall, we've had electrical panel issues. They've worked on the roof. We had our fire inspection this week with the city. We came out really well. So that's good. A few minor things. So we're getting those worked on, but no big issues. So thank you to our Daily Bread and the Good Place. Those folks worked really hard making sure we had everything ready for the fire marshal to walk through. And also the staff over at Wesley Hall. They had that all ship shaped. So thank you. You know, you go, well, big deal. You haven't told us anything. Well, we're working on it. And I think it's coming faster than we'll be ready for. By the way, God is good all the time. (Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)