Announcements

The next session of the Annual Conference is set to be in Greenville, North Carolina at the Greenville Convention Center. The conference will run from Wednesday, June 11th through Saturday, June 14th. 

The Duke Endowment is celebrating 100 years of impacting healthcare, higher education, rural United Methodist churches, and children and families through their four focus areas. 

Bishop Connie Mitchell Shelton invited the body to stand as she named organizations and initiatives where The Duke Endowment intersects with local churches. From hosting students in field education at Duke Divinity School to local building projects to the Summer Literacy Initiative, churches feel the investment of The Duke Endowment across the NC Conference. It was impressive to see the number of folks touched by the work of the endowment. 

Rev. Rob Webb, Director of the Rural Church initiative for The Duke Endowment, came to the stage in the midst of a shower of balloons to share the story of Mr. James B. Duke and his 100 years of philanthropic influence in North Carolina. He said, “Mr. Duke’s fingerprint is all over the North Carolina Conference.”

Rev. Webb went on to share that, “Formation matters. How we gather and how we form matters. Mr. Duke said if it weren’t for his father and a Methodist minister, he wouldn’t amount to anything.”

He went on to describe how Mr. Duke created the endowment with the input of 10 of his closest advisors. When creating the endowment, Mr. Duke emphasized rural churches as the “bone and sinew of our country” and knew that “economic development would get communities to a certain point but philanthropy would be required to fill the gap.” 

Rev. Webb concluded by saying, “Our roots are tied to your roots. How grateful we are to be in ministry with you. We give thanks for our partnership in ministry together!”

Dail Ballard, director of NC United Methodist Camp and Retreat Ministries, took the stage to share the impact of these ministries with the annual conference and how the three United Methodist camps — Don Lee, Rockfish, and Chestnut Ridge — create opportunities for leadership development. 

At a recent gathering of camp staff, Ballard asked her team what leader-forming they have witnessed at camp. While enjoying fun activities and God’s creation at camp, the staff have also seen young people learning invaluable, lifelong skills for living in Christian community that include: inclusivity, compromise, confidence, listening, flexibility, patience, and diversity. 

Ballard shared that over 25,000 folks experience camp in our conference every year! Through survey feedback, they know that 81% of those who visit one of the three camps experience significant growth in faith relevance and self confidence. Also, 87% of campers say they made friends with campers who are different from them and their friends at home. Feedback from the camp staff themselves shows that 90% of them felt more confident in their faith and leadership after serving.

Citing scripture from Matthew, Ballard emphasized the importance of servant leadership development and challenged everyone gathered to consider ways that camps and churches can partner to capitalize on the “mountaintop” experiences at camp so that those pivotal faith moments can help transform everyday life in the church. In this way, camp experiences can translate into daily servant leadership and legacy-building.

Ballard invited the body to visit camp for a retreat or to experience sabbath. Each camp has facilities for respite and formal or informal gatherings for your church group. Put camp on your church calendar this year!

As always, Ballard brought a moment of joy and play in the midst of the worshipful work of the annual conference. Neon-colored frisbees flew across the conference hall, and smiles abounded in the middle of the colorful chaos.

Rev. Jeff Campbell, who serves as Chief Executive Officer / General Secretary at Discipleship Ministries, shared insights during the afternoon “Disciple Making” plenary session. He shared that the team at Discipleship Ministries is available to help and support United Methodist Churches through ministry focus areas including church planting, stewardship/generosity, fresh expressions, age-level resources, worship planning, disciple-making, and evangelism. 

In addition to offering the well-known Upper Room devotional, Campbell suggested other resources including a devotional called Disciplines, and announced the creation of a Center for Healing and Resilience focusing on the fatigue and burnout present in clergy and laity. Campbell pointed out, “You can’t make disciples if you’re not whole yourself.” He encouraged those gathered to remember their “why” in disciple-making because understanding why helps us return to a movement based on the belief that the world would be a better place with more followers of Jesus.

SeeAllThePeople, a resource billed as: “A movement of United Methodists who have decided to keep our focus on the main thing: making disciples of Jesus Christ” is available for churches who do not currently have an intentional disciple-making system. Citing surveys, Campbell said that only 2% of churches already have a discipleship pathway and emphasized SeeAllThePeople as a uniting tool. He shared Paragraph 121 from The Book of Discipline: “Whenever United Methodism has had a clear sense of mission, God has used our Church to save persons, heal relationships, transform social structures, and spread scriptural holiness, thereby changing the world. In order to be truly alive, we embrace Jesus’ mandate to love God and to love our neighbor and to make disciples of all peoples.” Campbell said that using the calling defined in that passage offers churches a clear missional focus. 

Based on the scripture from Matthew 9:35-38, the system gives United Methodist churches a way to address the spiritual, mental, and physical needs of the people in their churches and communities and helps give meaning to people’s lives. Because it was developed by and for disciple-making within the denomination, Bishop Connie Mitchell Shelton encouraged churches to make use of the resource – calling it “an extraordinary gift to The United Methodist Church.”

Discipleship Ministries is now developing storytelling video resources churches can use to help their congregations see that “not just the pews are sacred” and live their faith in the day-to-day. He asked everyone gathered to take a survey on the meaning of baptism and to review the new “Belong” series, which includes resources on Baptism, Membership, and Communion. 

At the close of his presentation, Campbell presented the One Matters Award to Ware’s Chapel UMC in Washington for their inspiring work connecting within their community and offering hope and welcoming new visitors every week. The church celebrated professions of faith and baptisms after a period of time where they previously had none. 

“With the One Matters Discipleship Award, we want to lift up the importance of discipleship and help interpret across the connection what zeros in professions of faith and baptism mean and what moving away from the zeros means. Each ‘one’ in those categories represents a transformed life – a life that matters to God, and a life that should matter to us,” said Jeff Campbell, General Secretary.

Every year, Discipleship Ministries partners with Annual Conferences by offering the One Matters Award to one eligible congregation at each annual conference. The award, consisting of a commemorative plaque and a check for $1,000, is delivered to the congregation during the annual conference session.