Church Women United Plan Bible Study February 4

The Rev Sue Klein of the Newtown United Methodist Church in Sandy Hook will lead a Bible Study Friday morning, February 4, at 10:30 am in the parlor of her church on Church Hill Road. The study is sponsored by the Newtown/Bethel unit of Church Women United (CWU). Guests will be members of the Greater Danbury Unit of CWU. The public is welcome to attend the study of Mark 5:21-23, 35-43.

“Talitha Kumi: Young Woman, Stand Up.” will be the theme of the March 3 World Day of Prayer that will be celebrated worldwide and upon which the Mark Scriptures are based. The March service was written by women of Indonesia and will be celebrated in the United Methodist Church by the local CWU unit. Again, the public is welcome.

Rev Klein, who is secretary of the local unit of CWU, was ordained a permanent deacon in June of 1997 under a new order in the Methodist Church that established deacons as fully ordained clergy. Rev Klein has been a deaconal minister in the Methodist Church since 1978. That is a consecrated lay office that is being phased out. She continues to serve as a minister of music in the local church, continues a music ministry at Garner prison with Chaplain Gail Paul, and leads numerous Bible studies.

Rev Klein began playing the piano at age five and for church services at 12. She holds a degree in music from Wesleyan University and has many continuing education unites in music and workshop.

In 1997 she was named Valiant Woman by Church Women United and thus listed in the national book of outstanding leaders of this ecumenical movement. The local chapter of CWU was founded in 1958 to bring together women of the Newtown churches. The international movement began in California in December 1941 as a Christian women’s peace effort. There are 2000 local units in the 50 states and Washington D.C. The units work, study, and advocate for improving conditions in prisons, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, half-way homes, child care centers, job training programs, and food service programs, and to affirm the status of women as full equal participants in today’s world.

The Newtown unit’s particular local mission is to work through the Newtown Fund to provide financial assistance to displaced homemakers.