Interested in engaging in learning opportunities while at Annual Conference, where you can take practical concepts back to your local church context? Sign up now to register for “Lunch & Learn” workshops offered on Thursday and Friday of the Annual Conference.
Shuttle transportation will be provided from the AUBC to the Hotel Madison and back.
$25/person
You can find descriptions of all six Lunch & Learn sessions below.
Thursday
Love as a Ministry Funding Strategy
Speaker: The Rev. Claudine Leary, Fund Development Director, UM Discipleship
Love is not what you do to get people to give. It is what forms people who cannot help but give.
Love is the reason Christ was sent (John 3:16) and, therefore, the reason the Church exists. Jesus summarizes the Law and the Prophets in one call: love God and love neighbor. And he leaves his disciples with this defining mark: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Not members. Not attenders. Disciples. People formed in love, by love, for love, and from that formation, generosity flows.
This workshop, grounded in the United Methodist call to love boldly, reclaims agape as the theological foundation of sustainable ministry funding. Clergy and lay leaders will leave with a discipleship framework for generosity, practical tools for building authentic relationships, cultivating trust, and inviting people into God’s ongoing work in the world.
Discipleship produces disciples. Disciples give.
Contextual Evangelism and Community Engagement
Speaker: The Rev. Isaiah Park, Director of Church Planting, Innovation & Diversity, UM Discipleship
This workshop is designed for laity, clergy, church teams, and ministry leaders who want to help their congregations move from inward-focused ministry to outward-facing mission. Participants will be equipped to listen deeply, engage faithfully, build meaningful relationships, and share the good news of Jesus Christ in ways that are authentic to their community. Churches are invited to rediscover evangelism not as a program to manage, but as a way of life rooted in love, shaped by context, and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Introducing Acompañamiento Congregations
Speaker: Margarita Hernandez, Conference Immigration Response Team
At our Lunch and Learn, the Conference Immigration Response Team will introduce the concept and key principles of Acompañamiento congregations. The purpose of Acompañamiento is to equip congregations with theological grounding, congregational tools, and practical advocacy and care strategies to accompany immigrant communities with compassion, courage, and faithfulness.
Friday
Reclaiming the Heart of Mission: From Transaction to Transformation
Speaker: Elizabeth McCormick, SEJ Global Ministries Liaison
What if mission is not primarily about what we do for others, but who we become with one another?
Many of us entered mission because we wanted to help. Yet sometimes our best intentions can unintentionally create distance rather than connection. In this Lunch and Learn, we will explore the difference between transactional mission—focused on projects, needs, and outcomes—and transformational mission, which begins with relationship, mutuality, and God’s ongoing work in every community.
Through personal stories, Wesleyan theology, and practical examples, we will reflect on how shifting from “doing for” to “being with” can reclaim the very heart of Methodist mission. Together we will consider how mission can become a place of shared discipleship where everyone is changed, where dignity is honored, and where we more fully join God’s work of reconciliation in the world.
Whether you lead mission efforts or are simply wondering what faithful mission looks like today, this session will invite honest reflection and offer practical ways to engage in mission that transforms both our communities and our own hearts.
How the Church has Pushed People Out of the Doors
Speaker: The Rev. Jeremy Steele, Nooma
Church leaders often assume people left because they stopped believing, but the data and real stories tell a different story. This workshop combines leading research with firsthand insight from hundreds of thousands of interactions within the Nooma Community to reveal why people are actually walking away and what they still long for spiritually. Participants will see the patterns behind disengagement, understand how current church approaches are unintentionally pushing people out, and learn clear, practical ways to reconnect with those who are not coming back on their own, both in person and online.
How Can the United Methodist Foundation Serve Your Church, Mission, or Ministry? We Know We Can!
Speaker: The UM Foundation
The Virginia United Methodist Foundation’s Lunch and Learn is designed to help you discover practical ways to strengthen your church’s financial future and expand its ministry impact. We will teach you how the Foundation can support your local churches and ministries with investment management, endowment development, planned giving resources, gifts of stock, donor-advised funds, and other charitable giving strategies that help you turn generosity into lasting ministry impact. We will also share about our growing ministry expansion into philanthropy and development, including how the Foundation can walk alongside churches, donors, and ministry partners as they cultivate resources for mission, legacy, and long-term sustainability. In addition, participants will learn more about the Virginia United Methodist Development Company (DevCo), our lending ministry that provides loans for church construction, expansion, renovation, refinancing, land acquisition, capital improvements, and other ministry-focused needs. Together, the Foundation and DevCo seek to strengthen local churches and related ministries by providing an innovative ecosystem of investments with integrity, empowerment through lending, and engaging leadership excellence, all in service to the mission of Christ and the future vitality of the Church. This Lunch and Learn will also offer an opportunity to ask questions and explore, together, how the Foundation can best partner with the ministry needs of our churches and other ministry settings.