By: Dwayne Stinson
At the June 2022 session of the annual conference, the Holy Spirit moved the members to pledge funds to support children’s and youth ministry at the conference level. Over $65,000 in pledges came from districts and churches across our conference. To date, the conference office has received $34,983.72.
Because this was a spontaneous outpouring of love and support for conference ministries with children and youth, there was not a clear mechanism in place to ensure faithful oversight and stewardship of those funds. The intent of the funds, as clarified in the Daily Proceedings of the June conference, is to fund new, conference-sponsored initiatives for children and youth. At the March 30, 2023 meeting of the Common Table for Church Vitality, the Common Table approved a new policy for oversight of these funds.
For use of funds related to children’s ministry, the Board of Discipleship will authorize, or may designate a sub team to authorize use of these funds to support new conference-level ministries for children.
For youth ministry funding, the Conference Council on Youth Ministries (CCYM) or its successor or, in the absence of a youth council, the Board of Discipleship will authorize or designate a team to authorize the expenditure of funds to support new conference-level ministries for youth.
The Common Table authorized the Board of Discipleship to determine the proportion of funds designated for children’s ministry and for youth ministry.
As new staff join the Connectional Ministries team, these funds will be a blessing to support innovative new ministries with children and youth, so thank you to the churches and districts that provided funds.
If you or your church would like to contribute, please send your check to the conference office, attention Dwayne Stinson, and place “AC Youth Gift” in the memo line.