First Connections Fall 2025

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Welcome Jen Swygard ... and more!

Carol Marsh

A HALL OF FAME SERVANT

By Forrest White

In the hallway between the sanctuary and the fellowship center at First United Methodist Church, photographs of pastors who have served the church dating back to 1885 hang upon one wall, but the other wall remains empty.

What if that space became a spot for photos of outstanding servants, a hall of fame for those who have devoted so much time and energy to building God’s kingdom through the ministries of this church?

If that were to happen, the first class of inductees would, without question, include Carol Marsh, whose dedication to First UMC has spanned decades and paved the way for transformative ministries and, more importantly, transformed lives.

She might well deserve to be in a class by herself.

“Carol, like John Wesley, believes in doing all the good you can, all the times you can, whenever you can, wherever you can, as long as you can,” said First UMC member Nancy McEntire.

“She is amazing.”

The church’s thriving Neighborhood Ministries, with its immeasurable impact on children through afterschool and summer programming, began when Marsh formed The Sandwich Club outreach back in 1989.

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Rev. Charley Reeb Senior Pastor

From the Editor

Forrest White Director of Mission Ministries

Dear Church Family,

n this month’s edition of First Connections, we shine a spotlight on some individuals and initiatives that reflect the far-reaching impact of our church. First, we celebrate the remarkable achievements of Carol Marsh, our former Director of Children’s Ministries, whose impact on our church community is immeasurable. Carol has woven herself into the very fabric of our congregation, profoundly influencing countless lives through her innovative ministries. Her dedication in various roles has left an indelible mark.

We are also thrilled to welcome Azure Gipson as the new principal of Philip O’Brien Elementary, our partner school. Azure’s leadership is set to invigorate the school community, and we’re excited to support her vision.

Lastly, we are excited to introduce Jen Swygard as our new Director of Young Adult Ministries. With her fresh perspective and enthusiasm. She is poised to engage and inspire our young adults, fostering a vibrant community of faith and fellowship.

Together, these stories reflect our church’s commitment to nurturing relationships, serving our community and celebrating the transformative power of ministry.

With Great Expectations,

Pray Without Ceasing

Across the middle weekend of August, I moved my youngest child, Kerrigan, from Virginia to Chicago for her first “big girl” job.

The destination, at least, created a full circle moment.

In the summer of 2013, Kerrigan and I made the drive from Richmond to Chicago in a 15-passenger van, moving luggage and supplies for a mission team from the church I served at the time so all they had to do was fly in and work with some of the city’s urban ministries.

It began a seven-year summer tradition that saw us take road trips around the country, just the two of us.

The best of times.

The recent Chicago journey was a whirlwind. It began when I flew out of Tampa on Thursday at 6am and ended when I returned on Sunday at 3pm. With Kerrigan riding shotgun, I drove a rental car packed with her things from Richmond to Indianapolis on Friday, then onto Chicago early Saturday morning.

After dropping the rental at Midway Airport Saturday afternoon, we took the “L” train back into the city.

As we weaved through the crowded streets, I noticed people walking around in bright, yellow t-shirts.

A group of them passed by and I barely caught a glimpse of the question on the front of the shirts.

“Can I pray for you?”

Up ahead, I saw a man in yellow praying with a couple of people and walked directly towards him.

It startled him when he turned around to see me right there.

I asked him to pray for someone close to me fighting stage 4 cancer.

So there, on the streets of Chicago, Kerrigan and I made a tight circle with a stranger who didn’t look like us. He offered a powerful prayer, claiming the healing power of Jesus and declaring victory over the cancer.

I thanked him and gave him a hug.

Funny how God works.

A few weeks ago, I was looking at shirts that asked the same question – Can I pray for you? – or a similar one –How can I pray for you?

I felt God calling me to get a shirt and open myself up to praying with strangers who stopped me, wherever that might be.

But I didn’t order one.

Some people see coincidences.

I choose to see God at work.

Now, I have a shirt on the way.

As a teen I remember climbing into my closet once to pray, after reading what Jesus said in Matthew’s Gospel.

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:5-6)

Jesus wasn’t speaking out against prayer locations, but rather prayer motivations.

I’ve shared before about the whiteboard I turned into a prayer board in my apartment. It has been a visible reminder for me to pray faithfully for a couple of years now.

Thinking about embarking on prayer journeys in my new t-shirt made me remember prayer journeys of my past.

Prayer walks – Back in Virginia, I led these from time to time on campus of the church where I served. At First UMC, such walks might include stops at: the buses to pray for Neighborhood Ministries, Connect Youth Ministries

mission trips and outings and our ROAR friends at Noah’s Landing; the preschool to pray for those children and their families; the facilities building to pray for the staff who work tirelessly behind the scenes; the Missions Depot to pray for kidsPACK, first Sunday food collections, and disaster recovery efforts; every pew in the sanctuary for those who will sit there at worship. The possibilities are plentiful. Walks could happen on Sunday mornings or at any time of the week.

Prayer tours – This is where you take prayer to the streets. I first learned this practice when serving with urban ministries around the country. I vividly remember praying just off the Supreme Court grounds in D.C. I was blessed also to be on prayer tours in Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver and Philadelphia. Here in the Lakeland area, tour stops might be: schools, including our partner schools, Philip O’Brien Elementary and Redlands Christian Migrant Academy in Mulberry; ministry partners like VISTE, Dream Center, Talbot House, Lighthouse Ministries, etc.; police, fire and rescue stations as well as hospitals. The possibilities are endless.

Prayer meetings – Back in my newspaper reporter days, there was a faithful man who led Monday night prayer meetings at my church. It was usually a handful of folks gathered in the chapel. In my student ministry days, we had a “prayer cave” ministry where a half dozen high school youth gathered in a basement room to pray during the 11am hour each Sunday.

Prayer was foundational to Jesus and his earthly ministry. Yet, it seems – not just at First UMC but at most churches – prayer is something we touch on briefly at worship then hurry through at the start or close of meetings.

“You can tell how popular a church is by who comes on Sunday morning … But you can tell how popular Jesus is by who comes to the prayer meeting.” (Unknown Author)

Like Jesus, we need our lives to be built upon prayer.

The Apostle Paul spoke to this mindset, urging the Thessalonian Church – “Pray without ceasing.” (I Thes 5:17)

Perhaps God is calling you to focus on prayer, as a spiritual discipline for your life or even as a new ministry.

What if that calling changed the trajectory of your life? What if it changed the trajectory of the church’s life?

“The value of consistent prayer is not that [God] will hear us,” William J. McGill said, “but that we will hear Him.”

All the best,

Carol Marsh

“I saw from the beginning the vision, the impact of what it could do for the youth living around the church,” said Russ Rhoads, who served as chairman of the education committee when The Sandwich Club formed and was there faithfully when it began meeting each Wednesday.

“It wasn’t just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a place to play. We were giving them the opportunity to know the Lord. It changed lives. That was evident and obvious from the beginning.

“Then, it grew and grew to what it has become. Carol was the driving force, the one who had the vision, the one who had everything organized. She was the person who made it all happen.”

Marsh and Mary Anne Zimmerman felt called to bring a bookstore to First UMC while attending a leadership summit. Our Giving Tree opened in 2009. Since then, it has raised more than $50,000 for mission partners around the world while supporting global artisans, advocating for fair trade and offering unique inventory to church members and visitors. Marsh has worked tirelessly, day in and day out, to run the store since she retired from the church staff in 2012.

“Carol knows not just how – but why – to get things done,” Zimmerman said.

Marsh seems uncomfortable talking about herself during an hour-long conversation. She deflects questions about her legacy and doesn’t seem to think

she has done anything more than what a follower of Jesus should do.

She has been connected to First UMC for 55 years, having arrived at age 10 with her family. Life took her elsewhere for college and for a few more years after, but she returned in 1981 to begin decades of absolute devotion.

Her fingerprints are everywhere you turn.

Marsh served on the First UMC staff from 1981-2012, first in children’s ministries, where in addition to The Sandwich Club and programming like Sunday School, she directed vacation Bible school and started a puppet ministry.

Darcy Shinn met her husband, Frank, through a singles ministry Marsh began in the early 1980s.

“Carol is one of those people who enters a project to get her feet wet and pretty soon is up to her knees and finally totally immersed,” Shinn said.

After 20 years in children’s ministry, Marsh shifted to adult Christian Education, coordinating Sunday School classes and small groups.

She remains a staunch advocate for both, participating in a half dozen small groups herself.

“I don’t believe church is all about the sermons. I don’t think it’s all about the buildings,” Marsh said. “My passion is developing relationships within the congregation. The relationships in this church have always kept me grounded.”

Pastors’ Executive Assistant Nicole Wood remembers how Marsh warmly welcomed her family when teaching her son, Nick, in third-grade Sunday School back in 2009.

“She was one of the first people here to embrace us,” Wood said. “Nick loved her as a teacher.”

More than 15 years later, she describes Marsh as “a strong advocate for anything she believes in.”

“She doesn’t shy away from difficult conversations,” Wood said.

“ SHE IS SOMEONE WHO LOVES OTHERS AND IS ALWAYS WILLING TO PUT HERSELF OUT TO HELP.”

During her last six years on staff at First, Marsh worked in the areas of connections, discipleship and missions in addition to launching Our Giving Tree.

A HALL OF FAME SERVANT

Along the way, she became a Deacon in the United Methodist Church, spending 13 years taking seminary courses during summer and winter sessions to earn her master’s in Christian education from Garrett Seminary.

Marsh never wanted to preach or do baptisms.

“I am not an upfront person generally,” she said.

Her most cherished role might well be the one far removed from the spotlight – as a longtime children’s Sunday School teacher.

Her impact wasn’t merely on the children.

Marsh invited First UMC member Bev Lindsey to teach Sunday School in 2011. She agreed but first wanted to observe Marsh as a teacher.

“I watched how she taught church rituals to the children,” Lindsey said. “She emphasized reverence for Christian symbols and provided explanations of their importance to our faith. To this day, I incorporate those ideals into Sunday School lessons. Carol has touched the lives of countless children and adults over the decades. Carol was my teacher too.”

The Road to First UMC

Born May 7, 1951, to David and Eleanor Matthews, Marsh lost her father to stomach cancer when she was two. Her mother kept Marsh and brother David in Prattville, Alabama, a dozen miles northwest of Montgomery.

With her mother going to college and graduate school to become a medical technologist, she spent much time with her maternal grandparents – Marshall “Big Daddy” Pickard, a Methodist minister who loved to build things and fix cars. He was also a beekeeper. But he was not a people person, Marsh said, so her grandmother “Mur” (pronounced “Muh”) did the congregational visits. They were also in Prattville.

“Their ceilings were so stained with roof leaks that I used to make ‘pictures’ of the stains like we see pictures in clouds,” Marsh said in a short autobiography she wrote for her five grandchildren.

After working at a hospital in Prattville, Eleanor took a job in Atlanta. She met and married Sam Luce. He, too, had lost a spouse to cancer.

They moved to Lakeland when Marsh was 10 and began attending First Methodist Church (which became First UMC in 1968 when the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged).

She got involved quickly, ultimately serving as president of the youth group and as a youth conference officer.

After graduating from Lakeland High School, Marsh set out for Huntingdon College in Montgomery, her mother’s alma mater, but grew tired of the small college experience. CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

Carol Marsh

Children's Disciple class September 1997

“There was a lot going on in the world and this college on one square block was not where it was happening,” she said.

She transferred to Florida State University, earning a degree in Religion with minors in child development and education.

Marsh worked three summers while in college at the Florida United Methodist Youth Camp in Leesburg, which is now Warren Willis Camp. For

“There are things I learned in Leesburg that you would never learn anywhere else,” Marsh said. “When you’re a team member there, you mingle with people you don’t know. You strike up conversations. That was the holy grail of being a team member. You learn how to mingle and not be selfconscious. That was big for me.”

Even the small lessons stuck.

42 years she has been gathering for a week each year with six other women who were also camp counselors with her there. They call themselves “The Big Chill Chicks.”

“Warren Willis used to teach us that you never walk over a piece of trash,” Marsh said. “I still don’t do that now because that’s what he trained me to do.”

From FSU, Marsh landed on staff at Lake Magdalene UMC in the Tampa suburbs, hired by Rev. Clint Logan who remembered her from his time as a seminary intern at the church Marsh attended while in Atlanta. She taught preschool, coordinated children’s Sunday School and led the youth group. She loved it, but after two years she was “ready to

go on an adventure.”

She had four criteria for a destination – evergreen trees, clean water, environmentally aware and liberal politics.

The Rev. David Hortin – senior pastor at First UMC from 1971-1980 –suggested Western Oregon and off she went.

Once there, she wanted to work secular jobs.

“I had been in the cocoon of the church all my life,” Marsh said.

She worked as a waitress at a Chinese restaurant for a few months.

“I wasn’t particularly good at it, but I made friends. It paid the rent.”

Eventually, an employment agency found her a job at Pontiac dealership, but its “shady” business practices prompted her to move to a Chevrolet dealership.

“It had a reputation for honesty, which was important to me,” she said.

Meanwhile, a man she knew in Tampa moved out to Oregon. Marsh had invited him. They married in 1977 and had a son, Aaron, in 1980.

“From the time I met him, I knew he was a drinker, and he was a pot smoker,” she said of her first husband. “He had always told me that he would become a churchgoer, but as time went on, I figured out that wasn’t going to happen. It’s not that he didn’t believe in God. It was that from his Southern Baptist upbringing he needed to ‘get right with God’ before entering church. His vices needed to be set aside, and he wasn’t ready to do that.”

Marsh doesn’t share that image of God.

“The God that I know wants us to come into God’s house with all our faults and ‘warts,’” she said. “That’s where we can heal and be nurtured. Whether we are moving forward or backward, we need to walk with God.”

When Aaron was 10 months old, Marsh packed up and returned with him to Florida, divorcing and landing that initial role on staff at First UMC.

Role Model for Serving

In 1983, she met Charles Marsh, a divorced father of Tim and Jessica who were in children’s church with Carol. They married in 1985 and formed their blended family. Charles would later adopt Aaron.

“ CAROL KNOWS NOT JUST HOW – BUT WHY –TO GET THINGS DONE.”

“When I try to tell people about Carol, I almost find it beyond what I can do justice,” Charles Marsh said. “She is someone who loves others and is always willing to put herself out to help.”

Perhaps nothing illustrates Marsh’s devotion to serving than her role with Our Giving Tree. She took a break after retiring but then told the Rev. David McEntire she would come back to manage the store but only as a volunteer. She felt it was more important to model service without pay for the team of volunteers required to run the store.

It isn’t a full-time job, she said, but it is an everyday job.

“Carol is always the first to pitch in when it comes to serving, but just as importantly, she wants to make sure that others have the opportunity to serve,” Nancy McEntire said. “She is constantly making sure that everyone knows that there is a place for them to serve, either in or out of the church.”

That’s one thing Marsh loves about Neighborhood Ministries – it employs college students while engaging them in ministry.

“I know it’s making a big difference in the lives of the kids,” she said. “But it thrills me to no end that there are college students who are not only getting trained but also earning a paycheck. They have a way to grow in leadership and get paid.”

She smiles.

“That’s super cool.”

Marsh sees everyone as capable of changing the world when they allow God to work in and through their lives.

“When I look back over Carol's employment and involvement with First Church, I see a person who is in love with the work of the Lord and recognizes how the laity's involvement can be transforming,” Charles Marsh said.

Over their 40-year marriage she has been, he said, “ my personal role model.”

When no one showed up for the first gathering of The Sandwich Club, Carol Marsh took to the streets and personally invited children playing outside into the church. Jesus said to let the little children come to Him, but He didn’t say wait.

Even now, she remembers the names of the first three children who walked with her through the doors.

“Carol is firm in her faith, strong in her beliefs and true to our Lord,” Lindsey said.

“To me,” said Barbara Cavanah, friend and Marsh’s Our Giving Tree Lieutenant, “her greatest gift is a heart of service.”

n a Friday morning in late August, Azure Gipson spread her positivity around the campus at Philip O’Brien Elementary School, first in the cafeteria as students arrived for breakfast then in classrooms where she observed instruction.

First UMC Ministry Partner

HOMECOMING

Azure Gipson Returns as Principal to the School She Loves

There was a high five from her for a third grader working on a group project, a word of encouragement for a first grader after Gipson squatted beside her chair to look into her eyes.

by Forrest White

In the hallway she listened to a frustrated staff member and gently encouraged him to consider a different perspective on the situation.

“You’re right,” he said, with a smile.

Back home at the school where she began her education career as an intern in 2016, Gipson, in her first year as principal, is busy reminding the entire O’Brien family each day …

Mindset is Everything.

Those words are on a poster in the hallway outside her office along with an image – a lion cub standing in front of a puddle with a strong, adult lion reflecting up from the water.

The message: See what you can become.

On any given day you might see a teacher or staff member wearing a t-shirt with “Mindset is Everything” and the image of a goldfish wearing a shark fin.

The message: Don’t see yourself as small, as less than.

Gipson wants the students here to dream big and to work hard to make those dreams come true, paying attention to the details.

A fifth grader walked toward Gipson.

“Thank you for keeping that shirt tucked in,” she said. He quickly obliged.

“Mindset matters,” Gipson said. “What we do, what we project. Not only here, but what are we doing outside of here, how do we talk about our school.

“I know this is tough work. I know that there are certain pressures. We must bridge those gaps and get students to make gains. But attitude is everything. And it starts from the top.”

Jane Stauffer has served at O’Brien Elementary for more than 25 years, the last 20 as the principal’s secretary. She has worked with five principals – Philip O’Brien (when it was Lime Street Elementary School), Merri Crawford, Charlie Huntley, Beth Smith and now Gipson.

But there isn’t a get-to-know-you period with this transition in leadership.

Gipson, 42, was a second-grade intern at O’Brien in the spring of 2016, then was hired to teach third grade at the school starting that fall. She stayed in third grade through the 2018-2019 school year, then spent two years teaching fourth grade before serving the school as a reading interventionist for a year. She left in the fall of 2022 to be assistant principal at Inwood Elementary in Winter Haven.

Smith announced last spring she was leaving O’Brien after a year as principal to work in the Polk County School District office.

Philip O’Brien Elementary School

When Stauffer got word Gipson was coming home, she was elated.

“She’s very passionate about everybody getting on the same page, working together for a common goal,” Stauffer said, when asked to describe the new principal. “If she doesn’t know how to do something, she’ll ask. She wants to know how. She does not get flustered.

“She delegates very well but wants to know what’s happening. She’s great about providing feedback, little things like that. People say all the time, ‘Nobody has ever showed me that before. Nobody’s ever told me that. Thank you.’ Those kinds of things. She has such a strong work ethic, too.”

Strong work ethic indeed.

Gipson completed her degree in elementary education from the University of Central Florida while interning at O’Brien. She completed a master’s degree at the University of South Florida while teaching at O’Brien.

All that as a married mother of three boys – now 18, 21 and 24.

Crawford hired Gipson after the internship at the school.

“Mrs. Gipson is excellent at building a strong sense of community with all stakeholders,” said Crawford, who sent Gipson an encouraging note and a potted plant before students returned for the fall. “She is very authentic and has a servant’s heart. Her leadership skills are outstanding, and she is truly committed to making a difference in the lives of those she serves.”

Crawford said Gipson was “a dynamic teacher” and predicts that kind of success for her in the principal’s role.

You can see Gipson’s teacher roots during her visit to the classrooms as principal.

At every stop on campus, she worked with students individually or in pairs.

“I am a teacher still,” Gipson said. “So, I want to make sure every teacher and staff person has what they need to be successful.

“I know the stress, the trials that come, but also the great joy in teaching.”

In Florida, schools are graded “A,” “B,” “C,” “D” or “F.”

The school grading system focuses on a formula based on student success measures:

• Achievement

• Learning gains

• Graduation

• Acceleration success

• Maintaining a focus on students who need the most support

Schools must test at least 95% of their students.

Based on last year’s data, O’Brien earned a “C” rating, but barely. If its score – 40.6 – had been 40.4, the school would have had a “D” rating.

In addition to focusing on excellent classroom instruction, the “mindset is everything” mentality comes into play here.

Among the school’s challenges: student absenteeism and turnover in the teaching staff.

On the ninth day of this school year, 59 of the O’Brien students were absent or slightly more than 10 percent.

Gipson wants parents to understand the cumulative effects of chronic absenteeism, how instructional minutes add up over time.

“At the end of the year, when we add up the time missed, it might approach an entire nine weeks of instruction for some students,” she said. “We had some students miss 40 or more days last year. And then we’re wondering why they aren’t being successful?”

O’Brien’s leadership has been checking in daily with students who were chronically absent last year and they’ve already seen the proactive approach yielding better attendance.

As far as teacher retention, “we’re going to make a big push over the next couple of years to reduce turnover among the teachers,” Gipson said. “We want students and families to really get to know the teachers.”

One new initiative at the school –library days for students and parents on the third Saturday of each month. Gipson brought it with her from Inwood Elementary.

“It’s a way for us to bring parents in and talk to them while volunteers read with students and students take AR (Accelerated Reader) tests,” she said. “Students are improving their literacy

skills while we’re able to connect with parents who may not be able to come to a family night because they’re at work. We’ll be offering them resources they can try while they’re with us, then take them home to work with their children.”

Keeping with the “mindset is everything” theme, Gipson wants every potential school volunteer to know – you don’t have to be a retired teacher or administrator to impact the life of a student.

“A lot of our students are just looking for that connection, that relationship, someone they see they look up to,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be coming here to teach reading. They look for that constant, that person who is there for them. I hope that’s what our teachers can be, but it’s always nice when you have volunteers who come and come faithfully.”

When Gipson began the interview process to become a principal last spring, she didn’t know the O’Brien job was opening. She found out she would be a principal this year before learning of her assignment.

What was her reaction to the news she would be going to O’Brien?

“I jumped up and hugged the lady who told me,” Gipson said.

She was on her way home, to the school she loves.

SAY HI TO A NEW FACE!

Jen Swygard Director of Young Adult Ministries

Start date: July 2024

Best part about serving at First UMC: meeting so many incredible people, creating and hosting events

Favorite scripture: Romans 8:38-39 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Hobbies: walks in nature, picnics, kayaking, scrapbooking, beating my husband in board games, crafting, listening to audiobooks, watching movies

Favorite food: Mexican dishes

Favorite movie or book: movie: The Sound of Music, book: Anne of Green Gables

Interesting fact: I have an identical twin sister (Are you really saying hi to me? Maybe not!)

72 Lake Morton Drive Lakeland, FL 33801

863-686-3163

Written

by

Forrest White

Designed by Anne Powell

PASTORS

Charley Reeb

Senior Pastor

Andy Whitaker Smith

Associate Pastor Kim DuBreuil

Associate Pastor

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