| 'Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors.' — four more years By Nancye Willis
UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE The United Methodist Church will share its Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors. messages with a wider audience in 2005-08. But it will have to do so with less money than proposed. Delegates to General Conference, the churchs top legislative body, overwhelmingly approved May 5 a proposal from United Methodist Communications to expand its successful media effort. The vote paved the way for the denominations communications agency to add 18 weeks of additional airings of TV advertising to its established schedule and to develop a youth component. However, the amount of funding made available for the core TV advertising was reduced from a proposed $33.5 million to $25 million. Proponents of the increased airings argued that inflation had significantly reduced the amount of time that can be bought with the funds. The youth strategy survived the initial vote with its proposed $5.4 million funding intact. A proposal to reduce the amount to $3 million in view of tight finances was narrowly defeated by a vote of 488-440.  | MIKE DUBOSE/UMNS | The Rev. Larry Hollon, left, top staff executive of United Methodist Communi-cations and the Rev. Sung-Ja Lee Moon monitor voting on the agency's Igniting Ministry television advertising campaign. |
'I cant stand here and not speak against the possibility of money that would be voted for going to youth ministry be moved ... into another ministry,' said Tom Price, the Baltimore-Washington Conference director of youth ministries, during the debate. However, the General Conference Council on Finance and Administration later decreased the funding to $500,000. Delegates also defeated a proposed amendment that would have allowed shifting funds among the youth strategy, an expanded core program of television advertising and a communications initiative in churches outside the United States. Sue Mullins, Corwith, Iowa, proposed an amendment specifying that no approved funds 'will be used to promote the slogan Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors.' Arguing against the amendment, Mike McCurry, a first-time delegate from the Baltimore-Washington Conference, and former White House press secretary, said, 'No one single issue defines open-mindedness; no single painful controversy can break an open heart.' The slogan, he said, serves to 'remind the world who we United Methodists are and who we can be.' | 
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