| National campaign to focus on Baltimore ministries By Melissa Lauber UMConnection Staff This June the United Methodist Church will launch a comprehensive advertising campaign to alert the city of Baltimore to its ministry. The campaign is unprecedented in its scope, said the Rev. Dean Snyder, conference communications director. It will include ads on television, in newspapers, radio and appearances by conference leaders on a number of area radio programs, direct mail, and door hangers that will be distributed in the neighborhoods that will host Saving Station tent ministries. The award-winning advertising campaign is intended to raise awareness of the United Methodist Church in Baltimore as the Baltimore-Washington Conference launches its summer Saving Station ministries. These tents ministries, which focus on evangelism, deliverance from addictions, and providing social services to those in need, will be held at nine locations around the city this summer. The ads are being run in conjunction with a national appeal from Bishop Felton Edwin May for volunteers around the nation to come and minister on the streets of Baltimore. The ads will help us say a relevant word to the people of Baltimore about the peace of God. They will speak in terms people understand about how God brings that peace, said Associate Council Director Tim Warner. The ad being run, which was produced by United Methodist Communications, is entitled Diversity. It features a number of diverse faces and voices speaking about religion. The print version of the ad begins, I believe no one who asks for help should be turned away. The ads close with the tagline: The people of the United Methodist Church believe in Baltimore. The ad campaign will start June 10 and run through Sept. 3. It is expected to cost approximately $97,000, said former conference Associate Director of Communications Larry Hygh Jr. The campaign will be financed jointly by the conference and United Methodist Communications. Hygh pointed out that the general church has also allowed these ads to be run out of their regular Christmas, Lenten and back-to-school cycle of ads because of the importance of the Saving Station ministries. In the first round of Igniting Ministry television ads in the region last fall, church attendance rose by 55 percent on the first Sunday in September, Hygh said. These ads are effective. Earlier this spring, the National Drug Control Policy Office began a Baltimore Believe television campaign, aimed at moving people to join in the fight against illegal drugs in the city. According to government statistics, the epidemic of illegal drugs has turned 60,000 city residents into addicts, enslaved by chemical substances. Baltimore is the heroin capital of America and fifth in the use of cocaine, Baltimore Believe ads state. The United Methodist Church is in a unique position to lend assistance, said Warner. Last year almost 200 people came forward at Saving Stations and were provided entry into detox programs, Warner said. Volunteers are needed because the need is great. Its urgent, Warner said. The city is in a state of chaos and we are called to replace it with the peace of God. The television ads are expected to appear 100 times each week on news programs throughout the summer. Twenty radio ads will run each week on WERQ-FM, 92.3; WWIN-FM, 95.9; and WBAL-AM, 1090; and shorter spots will be broadcast on WYPR-FM, 88.1. Ads will also appear on the religion page of the Saturday issue of the Baltimore Sun. | 
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