Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church

Four Areas of Focus for the UMC

May 27, 2008

I realize that news coming from General Conference can sometimes be so sketchy that you may miss some important issues decided by the delegates. There were four focus areas lifted up that I want you to know about and send me comments on.

1. New and Renewed Congregations
   • Find people on the edge of society not now being reached by United Methodist congregations
   • Start 400 new churches outside of the United States by Dec. 31, 2012
   • Recruit 1,000 new church planters to start 650 new churches in the United States with 50% of these being racial/ethnic congregations
   • Develop new international churches and revitalize town & country and urban churches
2. Global Health Initiative
   • Work with international partners to reduce by 66% malaria related deaths of children under the age of 5
   • 60% of all our annual conferences involved in health care advocacy around health care access, disease prevention and infant mortality
   • Deploy 53 new missionaries for global health for Africa, Asia and Latin America
   • Expand our ministry to substance abuse and related violence ministries by 20%
3. Address the eradication of Poverty
   • Increase by 25 % our ministry to the poor through our existing 102 mission groups
   • Place 50 indigenous leaders in poor locales to be in ministry with children and women
   • Develop 5 Pilot Projects to address poverty in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the US
   • Train at least one advocate for the poor in every annual conference.
4. Developing Christian Leaders
   • Short-Term Mission experiences for 100 young persons
   • Train 9,500 persons in Africa and Asia in theology, church administration, evangelism, discipleship formation and mission outreach.
   • Develop a network of 100 prophetic clergy and laity around the world to speak for and work for social justice
   • Increase by 25 % the number of candidates for ordained ministry under the age of 35
   • Increase by 20 % the number of women senior pastors serving large membership churches in the US.

These are ambitious goals, but I believe we are called in this time to stretch ourselves. The opportunity to build the Christian Community within the United Methodist Context is greater than ever before. We dare not miss these opportunities.

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