About

Milan Methodist Church was first established in 1845. The current sanctuary was built in 1893. An addition, which contains Sunday School classrooms and a fellowship hall, was added in 1964. The membership is currently at 125. The worship attendance averages around 60.

Pastor Lisa

My name is Lisa Wiedman. My husband, Bill and I have been married for 31 years. While do ministry here in the quad cities, he holds down the home front in Rantoul, Il.

We have 2 adult children.  Leigh Ann has 3 children, Lydia, Jayson and Kyler. And her oldest has gifted us with our first great -grandchild, Loralai While our oldest grandson is in the Marines. The youngest Kyler is in high school.  Our son Ricky is expecting his first child.

I grew up in SE Kentucky deep in the Appalachian Mountains. My father was a coal miner and my mother was a postmaster for USPS. I have a brother and a sister.  My father passed a way over 30 years ago.  I will admit I am a recovering Baptist.  Mother attended Missionary Baptist, but not on a regular basis.  The biggest influence on my life was my grandfather.

After graduating high school, I enlisted in the US Air Force and worked in Missile Maintenance.  I spent 14½ years in and was stationed in North Dakota, California and Illinois.  My last duty assignment was at the now closed Chanute AFB as an instructor.  That is where my husband and I met.

After leaving the Air Force, we bought a home in Rantoul and I worked as management in various manufacturing jobs.

I realized that I was missing something and was never comfortable wandering from church to church. The death of one of my husband’s best friends brought me back to the church that I had left years ago.  It also brought Bill, someone who was not brought up in the church.

We went from 2 people who showed up on Sunday mornings, to becoming very involved in the church.

Fast forward a few years and we were looking at buying new Harleys and to find a way to combine our love of God and our love of motorcycles.  We joined a motorcycle ministry.  From there my call to ministry evolved to jail and prison ministry and holding drug/alcohol recovery meetings.

I was pretty content with that, but God had bigger and better things planned.  If you had told me 15 years ago, I would go into ministry, I would have told you that you had lost your mind.
I have served churches in rural setting and in areas that have a metropolitan area close by.  One of the communities I served was hit by a tornado for the next year and I was the disaster case manager and worked with both UMCOR and the Red Cross.

Years ago, the UMC used the phrase the least, the last and the lost, these are the ones we, as God’s children, should be embracing and bring them to know Him.
I love what I do, I love sharing God’s word, and am so thankful that God uses someone like me to serve Him.