| Frederick District to begin campaign By Erik AlsgaardUMConnection staff  The Frederick District will kick off a new kind of capital campaign Sept. 1 based on a plan presented at its district conference June 1, by the Rev. Wayne DeHart, district superintendent.
While helping to achieve conferencewide objectives, the Funding Future Ministry campaign is district based and managed. And that is not the only difference. This campaign begins from the ground up, said DeHart. It will be unique in that we give every local church an opportunity to accept a part of the annual conference goals but set local goals, too. The campaign design is a result of a feasibility study conducted over the past year. Each local church will identify its own objectives, adopt its own goals and control its own campaign, DeHart told the gathering at Trinity UMC in Frederick. More than 120 people attended. Local financial objectives determined by each church will be funded proportionately with district and conference objectives adopted by participating churches, he said. An example DeHart used in the meeting was that a local church could adopt a goal of raising $5,000 for itself, plus another $5,000 for district and annual conference objectives, for a total campaign goal of $10,000. Once the church has raised this amount, it will be encouraged to retain 90 percent of any excess funds and tithe the rest for conference missional support. Annual conference objectives are two-fold: raising money for new church starts and church redevelopment, and retreat and camping centers. Local church campaigns will be conducted over an 18-month schedule, divided into three segments of planning, stewardship education, and implementation. The pledge period of each district campaign will be three years.  It costs a ton of money to start a church, said the Rev. Matthew Poole, pastor at Faithpoint UMC in Urbana. He should know. Faithpoint just celebrated its one-year anniversary as a new church start.
Weve doubled in size in that time in worship attendance, Poole said. Weve grown from 75 to 150. Its exciting to see the fruit of that ministry, not so much the numbers but how peoples lives are being affected and changed with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Baltimore-Washington Conference has supported Faithpoint since its beginning, said Poole, in three ways: funding his salary for three years; providing grant money to get the church off the ground; and offering prayers, support and encouragement. I think this campaign is important for a couple of reasons, Poole said. It begins to broaden our perspectives as a district and a conference. This isnt something that the district is doing, not something that Matt is doing. This is something The United Methodist Church is doing, something that everyone is doing together. Its important for us to do something bigger. Another difference in the campaign, according to DeHart, is the stewardship education component of the campaign. Were going to help churches understand what it means to be good stewards. The educational component for this program and the training for clergy and laity will benefit the local church for years to come, he said. Doing the campaign now is important, said DeHart. We should have done this about three years ago. If we had, wed have the money to help purchase land in places like Urbana, he said. Costs just keep going up, Poole said. The longer we wait the more that land is going to cost for us to build a church on. The campaign, for me, is a kingdom issue, he said. Are we using our resources to build Gods kingdom? If this capital campaign is not about building the kingdom, we shouldnt do it. | 
Login/Register to leave comment