News and Views

Between now and Nov. 1, local churches can apply for BWC grants of up to $5,000 to transform some of their vision into reality. See a listing of previous grant recipients.

Last year, Mt. Nebo UMC in Boonsboro applied for and was awarded a $5,000 Missional Innovation grant from the Baltimore-Washington Conference. The impact of the grant surpassed everyone’s expectations as the youth in the church found a distinct voice and grew in discipleship.

 Donald Doyle shared a bit of the congregation’s excitement about the grant with conference leaders.

“Thank you again for providing us with this amazing grant,” he wrote. The title of our grant application, God’s Work Through Our Youth, couldn't have been more on-point.  The youth’s hard work and dedication provided 14 youth-designed fabric banners, enhanced space for the youth to meet, pray, and break bread.  They said it best, ‘a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into completing the task,’ but they were so excited to be given an opportunity to show the Conference what they can do". 

 According to Doyle’s after-action report, Mt Nebo’s 18 youth had an original idea to create space to meet on the unfinished third floor of the church. “But after the youth’s creativity came alive,” they presented to the church trustees the option to utilize space in an old church-owned house next door, called the Clopper House.

“The youth tirelessly worked on painting, cleaning, and prepping the house for their new space. The youth challenged one another to learn new life skills while painting and prepping the space,” Doyle reported “The space allowed the youth to have a large living room, a conference table room, and the kitchen to be able to learn and break bread with their peers and hopefully community members once fully completed.

According to Doyle, it didn’t take long for the youth to expand their vision.  “They have already begun thinking of new ways to fundraise locally to go after more of their visions for their new space. And, they are working on collaborating with other ‘arms’ of our church to providing the preschool with a breakroom, working with a homeless breakfast kitchen to compile snack bags for them, and working with our wellness coordinator to bring in families for meal prep and to cook together so that they can ease the busy work week for families who want to participate.”

The young people themselves offered these words about the grant:

• “It's really helped the youth accomplish their goals by providing a better space for us and the ” – Lilly
• “The grant provides the youth an opportunity to praise God, learn and teach his word, and a place to collaborate on how the spread his word through the ” – Anna
• “Sometimes I still think getting this grant was a dream!” – Finley
• “I could stay here all the time!” – Brody

 If you or your congregation would like to apply for a Missional Innovation grant, visit https://www.bwcumc.org/resources/grants-and-awards.