A Friendly Little Church at the Bend of Route 25A
North Shore United Methodist Church sits on Route 25A in Wading River, a stretch of Long Island's north shore between Port Jefferson and Riverhead, where the road carries travelers past wooded lots, the outskirts of Hallock State Park Preserve, and the cluster of small communities that make up the Riverhead area. The congregation is small enough to be called "our friendly little church" in its own words, and large enough to staff a thrift shop, a food pantry, two musical ensembles, four weekly Bible studies, and a youth mission trip to Rwanda. Its motto, painted for years on the roadside sign that passing drivers read as they go by, sums up the posture it asks of itself and of every visitor: Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.
The church is open and affirming, regardless of gender, race, age, class, ethnicity, culture, country of origin, ability and disability, or sexual orientation. All are welcome at worship, and "the joyful sound of children" is actively encouraged. That welcome is lived out in a building put up in 1995, on a site that has belonged to this congregation since its earliest days, and in a partnership with three sister Methodist congregations on the north shore that the church calls the North Shore Villages Cooperative Parish.
From Twenty Charter Members to a Cooperative Parish
North Shore UMC was founded in 1970 with twenty charter members who came out of the First United Methodist Church in Port Jefferson. They envisioned a church between Riverhead and Port Jefferson and began to worship God with nothing except faith in Jesus Christ. By 1975 the growing group had built a church building in Wading River. In 1993, that first building was almost completely burned down by a fire. The congregation lost the building, but not their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in 1995 the current building rose on the same location.
The fire and the resurrection of the church afterwards are remembered as one defining story. The congregation "boldly says, like the apostle Paul, 'We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose' (Romans 8:28). A good thing comes not from a bad thing itself, but through a bad thing like Jesus' death on the cross, came the resurrection."
Today, in addition to the traditional partnership with the Long Island East District and the New York Annual Conference, the church is "blessed to be able to partner in Christ's ministry with three other local churches": Port Jefferson First United Methodist Church, Stony Brook Community Methodist Church, and Setauket United Methodist Church. Together the four have "embarked on a new-new thing," exploring how to better serve their communities and use their resources to make disciples and transform the world in the image of Jesus Christ. Each of the four campuses of the cooperative parish preaches every Sunday, with three services scheduled in the morning and one at 11 AM.
Worship at 11 on Sunday Morning
Sunday morning at the Wading River campus is the heart of the week. Worship begins at 11 AM in the sanctuary, and the service is described as alive with singing and music from the Praise Band and the Choir, personal testimonies of God's grace, spoken and silent prayers, and the scriptures and sermon. The congregation is open and affirming, and "all are welcome."
Children are part of the service rather than separated from it. After the Children's Moment, children in grades K through 5 are invited to Sunday School, and nursery care is provided for the youngest. Older children in grades 6 through 8 meet for confirmation classes. Worship is on-site in the sanctuary and is also streamed to Zoom; meeting links are posted on the church calendar, and recordings are kept on the Facebook Feed so that anyone who missed the morning can catch up later.
Fellowship Hour follows the service in a space called Fellowship Hall, with light refreshments or a potluck lunch where joys and concerns are shared. The three sister campuses each have their own Sunday schedule: Setauket UMC at 9 AM, Port Jefferson First UMC at 9 AM, and Stony Brook Community Church at 11 AM. Pastors from the cooperative parish preach at least once a week at each of the four locations.
A Pastoral Team of Three
As the cooperative parish has taken shape, NSUMC has built a pastoral team of three. The lead pastor is the Reverend Dr. Claire Wu, who arrived in 2026. Pastor Claire was born in Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to the United States at 25. She earned her Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry degrees at Drew University. Her call to ordained ministry came while she was helping to plant small group ministries, and she has spent her ministry in spiritual disciplines, discipleship, evangelism, small group fellowship, and church planting. She has the gift of design, and assisted churches in being more relevant to today's culture through IT skills. She also served as a chaplain resident at North Shore University Hospital, providing pastoral care to people in distress and in need of a compassionate touch. Pastor Claire is married to Philip, and they have two children, Bryan and Kristy. She lives with the assurance of Romans 8:38-39: nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Associate Pastor Okema Diaz came to ministry through a road of twists and turns. After enrolling in seminary, Minister Okema intended to be an academic who trained others to interrupt systems of oppression, dehumanization, and subjugation. Often told by her salon clients that she had been ministering all along, within six months of field education with the Reverend Melissa Hinnen at Park Slope United Methodist Church and time observing her mentor, Pastor Michael Walrond at First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, she inquired about the ordination process. Currently pursuing ordination as an elder in the United Methodist tradition, Minister Okema looks forward to expanding the Kin(g)dom, liberating people from harmful theologies, and sharing her witness as a disciple of Jesus and the gospel.
Associate Pastor Lynn Hazel was born and raised on the island of Aruba in the Dutch Caribbean, the daughter of Mabel and Enrique Hazel and the fourth of five siblings. She migrated to the United States in 1982 and joined Grace United Methodist Church in Brooklyn. She has earned a Master of Divinity from Drew University, a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the College of New Rochelle (magna cum laude), an Associate degree in Secretarial Science from Aruba University, and one unit of Clinical Pastoral Education from Catholic Charity Hospitals, Queens General Hospital, where she worked as a chaplain. She served as assistant to the senior pastor at St. John's United Methodist Church from 2009 to 2011, and received her Local Pastoral License from the United Methodist Church of the Rockaways in July 2011. She has one daughter, Sharlisa. She is a woman of faith who demonstrates her faith in everyday life, believes God's Word, trusts God's grace, and stands firm in encouraging others to pray without ceasing through the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus.
Choir and Praise Band, Side by Side
Music has long been one of the most visible ministries at NSUMC. For the last decade the church has been blessed with both a traditional Choir and a contemporary Praise Band. The Choir often provides an anthem and a foundation for traditional hymns. The Praise Band prepares a song each week to help the congregation raise its voice in communal praise; these days the band includes a guitar, piano, keyboard, cello, and one or two flutes. Instrumentalists are welcome to join. Music ministry has been led over the years by a series of gifted directors, including Stephen Gamboa, who left for the Artist Diploma program at Yale School of Music, and Fady Deeb, an organist, pianist, and keyboard player whose arrival was described by one choir member as "like an angel fell from the sky." The current music minister, Phuc Phan, leads the choir and praise band, including the annual Christmas Cantata.
The Worship Team works closely with the pastor in planning and preparing each service. Team Leader Mary Lutz has described the work as balancing the preferences of members who love traditional hymns with those who prefer contemporary praise music. The team also handles the appearance of the sanctuary: the banners on the walls, the seasonal colors of the liturgical calendar, the poinsettias at Christmas, and the lilies and hyacinths at Easter. Communion steward Jean Bono prepares the bread and grape juice and keeps the altar candles trimmed. Joan Arata coordinates the schedule of acolytes, liturgists, and ushers. Jolaine Watson prepares two PowerPoint presentations each Sunday, one carrying the script for the entire service and the other looping announcements before and during the service.
Sunday School, Confirmation, and a Free Vacation Bible School
Children in grades K through 5 gather for Sunday School after the Children's Moment. Becky Sereno leads a team of teachers that includes Jen McClintock and Deb Shrey, dividing the scheduled curriculum from September through June. At least twice a year the children present a special program to the congregation; a recent Christmas program included an original song Becky wrote about the birth and life of Jesus, sung by the children to the tune of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
Confirmation is a three-year program that children enter as they graduate from Sunday School. First and second year teachers rotate through fifteen classes each, with five sessions per teacher, while in the third year confirmands meet individually with an adult mentor throughout the year until they are confirmed on Pentecost Sunday. Confirmands serve in worship as acolytes, ushers, and readers and become involved in the life of the church. Confirmation teachers have included Sue Briska, Kathy Bruno, Tricia Littlefield, Michelle Plitt, and Laura Trebilcock.
Vacation Bible School is held during the summer for children entering grades K through 5 in September. The program is free and runs weekday mornings from 9 AM to noon, with Bible stories, songs, crafts, games, a daily snack, and a mission project that has raised money for ministries like Living Waters for the World, which partners with communities in Latin America to provide clean water. Past themes have included Camp Discovery, Surf Shack, Everywhere Fun Fair (a trip each day to a different country, with a mission project for Imagine No Malaria), and Workshop of Wonders. Judy Meserve has been VBS Director since 2012.
Youth in Mission, from Long Island to Kigali
The Methodist Youth Fellowship, or MYF, has been a longstanding presence at the church. NSUMC is blessed, the congregation writes, with an "absolutely amazing bunch of young people," who over the years have gone on mission trips and retreats, helped at the food pantry and Maureen's Haven, and enjoyed fellowship outings such as an afternoon at Citi Field when the first place Mets hosted the Colorado Rockies.
In 2025 the youth took the biggest mission trip yet: to Kigali, Rwanda, where they deepened a relationship with the Art with a Mission Orphanage, a small home in the Kiyovu neighborhood. They had previously raised funds for art materials for the children at the orphanage and, in July 2025, traveled to be with them for a brief time, July 7 to July 18. They are also installing a Peace Pole in front of the Wading River sanctuary.
The wider youth network, the North Shore Clericus Christian Youth, or NSCCY, brings young people from several area churches together for events like movie nights.
Four Bible Studies for Four Campuses
There are four regular Bible studies in the cooperative parish, scheduled at different times and led by different pastors:
- Mondays, 10 AM to noon on Zoom. An ongoing Bible study out of North Shore UMC, hosted by Diane Burkhardt.
- Wednesdays, 2 to 4 PM at Setauket UMC. Pastor Cathy leads a book study on Wesleyan Vile-tality by Ashley Boggan, exploring how John Wesley had to do ministry differently to reach people outside the walls of the churches.
- Fridays, 7 to 9 PM at Stony Brook Community Church, in the Sullivan House. Pastor Okema leads a Bible study on Practicing Midrash: Reading the Bible's Arguments as an Invitation to Conversation by F. Timothy Moore.
- Sundays, 2 to 4 PM at Port Jefferson First UMC. Pastor Josh leads a Bible study on Jesus on Leadership: Timeless Wisdom on Servant Leadership by C. Gene Wilkes.
Long-running Bible communities at North Shore UMC include the Monday morning women's study that grew out of a church-wide study of Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life more than ten years ago. The women have worked their way through all the books of the New Testament, not in order, and have grown close friends in the process. BUCK, or Brothers Under Christ's Keeping, is the adult men's group, meeting every Wednesday morning from 7 to 8 AM to read and discuss books of the Bible or other small-group studies. A Young Adult group, originally formed by former high school youth of the church, also gathers for Bible study and occasional bake sales.
The 24-Hour Prayer Circle
Once a month, on the first Saturday, two teams of individuals have committed to spending an hour in prayer for each hour around the clock. Suggested prayers and topics are provided. Anyone is welcome to join; the conviction behind the ministry is that prayers can change both us and the world.
The Thrift Shop on Route 25A
The Thrift Shop is one of the church's most visible ministries, and it has grown steadily since it opened in March 2011. It began with a twofold mission: to serve the community with reasonably priced goods and to do so with dignity, compassion, and friendliness. The shop occupies more than twice its original space, with one room for clothing, another for children's toys, another for houseware (dishes, glasses, cookware, lamps, small appliances, and miscellaneous household items), and a smaller room for books, stationery, bedding, and linens. The hallway holds jewelry, games and puzzles, CDs and DVDs, vintage items, sports equipment, and tools. Each fall one of the sorting rooms is magically transformed into the Donna Eddy Christmas Room, with decorations and moderately priced gifts.
The shop is open three days a week, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM, from February to mid-December. Donations come in one small bag at a time or in trunkloads from the congregation and the wider community; the team cheerfully accepts everything. Volunteers sort, price, and display each week. Thirty regular volunteers staff the shop, with about a dozen core team members attending a Tuesday work session each week.
The shop gives back in many directions. It has donated clothing and household items to victims of flooding, fire, or other tragedies, and has given sheets, blankets, and winter jackets to Maureen's Haven. Kent Animal Shelter receives towels, blankets, and sheets that will not be sold. Big Brothers Big Sisters makes a weekly pickup. Over its first five years, the Thrift Shop earned more than $90,000, most of which went to the church, with additional gifts to the Good Samaritan House building project, the church's Haiti Mission, and the Helping Hands Fund that assists families in need. Team Leader Diana Mullady highlights the spirit of cooperation within the volunteers: "There are a lot of different jobs, and they all matter... Everyone finds a task that suits them. Everyone contributes and everything gets done."
Helping Hands and the Food and Toiletries Pantry
The Helping Hands Fund and the Food and Toiletries Pantry are the congregation's primary direct-assistance ministries. Through them, the church assists families and individuals in Wading River and the surrounding communities with basic needs. By volunteering with Maureen's Haven, the church serves Suffolk County's homeless population: the Outreach Team cooks and staffs dinners, with dates and times posted on the calendar.
Maureen's Haven protects and supports the east-end homeless by providing shelter, supportive services, and compassionate care for individuals.
Crafty Ladies, Lunch Bunch, and Other Fellowships
The Crafty Ladies meet on Tuesday mornings from March through December for the dual purposes of creating crafts and enjoying fellowship. With the goal of producing unique handmade items for the annual Christmas Craft Fair in December, the group considers ideas for a variety of projects and gets to work sewing, crocheting, knitting, designing, drawing, painting, cutting, gluing, decorating, polishing, and completing. Their finished work includes floral arrangements, wreaths, aprons (both practical and fancy), centerpieces, greeting cards, gardening accessories, baking kits, ornaments, tablecloths, candle holders, and gift baskets. New members of all skill levels are welcome; "just show up on Tuesday morning with a willing spirit."
Lunch Bunch gathers for friendship and fellowship in Fellowship Hall. Members bring their main course, and desserts and beverages are provided. It is usually held at noon on Tuesdays.
The Embracing Justice Study Group meets via Zoom to study and act on social justice concerns. As the church describes it, "Not being racist isn't the answer. Working for justice is what we are called to. Join us and learn how."
Stewardship of the Earth
The church has a vision to promote green living practices and to provide a recycling ministry in stewardship for the Earth. Activities include a weekly collection of household recyclables for inclusion in the regular town recycling program, a separate collection of refundable bottles and cans, and special recycling cans available to borrow for parties.
What the Church Believes
North Shore UMC is part of the United Methodist Church and shares a common heritage with other Christians:
- Conviction that God has mercy and love for all people.
- Belief in a triune God: the Father/Mother, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
- Faith in the mystery of salvation through Jesus Christ.
- Celebration of the sacraments.
The congregation seeks to be in ministry with all God's people, regardless of gender, race, age, class, ethnicity, culture, country of origin, ability and disability, and sexual orientation. Through prayer, Bible study, open dialogue, and fellowship opportunities, working together as a community of faith, members encourage and challenge one another to deeper spiritual growth and stronger faith in the power of Jesus Christ to transform the world. In times of isolation, loneliness, and widespread injustice, the church writes, "we are called to bring the Grace of God into the world."
Wider Connections
Beyond its immediate community, the church walks with other congregations and ministries. It participates in the Brookhaven CROP Hunger Walk each fall, joining walkers from Setauket Presbyterian, Mt. Sinai UCC, and others in support of Church World Service. It has a community garden built in partnership with scouts from Troop 221 in Manorville. It has supported the Good Samaritan House building project through golf outings at Baiting Hollow Golf Club and Rock Hill Golf and Country Club, a Variety Talent Show, and other fundraisers. Its Haiti Mission has gathered supplies after disasters like Hurricane Matthew. It has ties to the Long Island Council of Churches and to Living Waters for the World. Together with its three sister campuses in the North Shore Villages Cooperative Parish, it is exploring "a new-new thing" of shared ministry across the north shore of Long Island.
Joining the Congregation
Visitors are warmly invited to come for Sunday worship at 11 AM at 260 Route 25A in Wading River, with the Children’s Moment, Sunday School, and a fellowship lunch waiting afterward.