| Stewardship center, capital campaign affirmed By Erik AlsgaardUMConnection Staff In the span of a few minutes, months of work came to fruition late in the evening June 14 when the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference approved the report of the Stewardship Transition Team and created The United Methodist Stewardship Center and Foundation. The new center consolidates the Conference Endowment Fund, the Board of Financial Stewardship Development and the United Methodist Foundation. Both the Endowment Fund and the Development Board will cease to exist. As of July 1, the transition team will become the new board of directors of the center. The conference also affirmed the transition teams recommendation to establish a district-based conference-wide capital campaign, designed to support local church and district objectives and two conference objectives: new church starts and church re-development, and retreat and camping ministries. The capital campaign has a goal of raising $12.7 million at the conference level, according to the Rev. Mark Smiley, chairman of the Feasibility Study Task Force. Of that amount, $10 million is earmarked for new church starts and church re-development, and $2.7 million would go to retreat and camping ministries. Within the new church starts and church redevelopment area, one half of the money would go towards an endowment fund for loans and grants. The other half would be a capital fund for land, buildings and construction, Smiley said. The West River Retreat Center south of Annapolis would receive $1.3 million, he reported, while Camp Manidokan near Harpers Ferry would receive $700,000 and Camp Harmison in West Virginia would receive $670,000. Each church will be invited to participate by conducting its own campaign, according to the transition teams report. Churches will identify their own objectives, adopt their own goals and control their own campaigns. The conference will assist churches in planning and implementation and in development of campaign materials. People give because they are called by God to give, said Smiley. W e learned today that someone gave $5.1 million to Africa University. Why? Because the need was explained, the case was made, and the Holy Spirit spoke. One of the goals of the center is to lead the conference in stewardship education. Prior to the vote, Donald Cooney, associate vice president for development at Gettysburg College, spoke on a Trinitarian theology of giving. Giving is not something to be done after all other things have been taken care of, Cooney said. Neither is what we give to be taken from our excess resources. Gods gifts of creation and grace have not been given to us out of what God had left over, but out of Gods very being. How can we learn to give as God gives? he asked. Coone y, son of the late Rev. Douglas Cooney, who died Feb. 14, and brother of the Rev. David Cooney, pastor at Towson UMC, spoke of his motivation for stewardship of Gods gifts. Certainly gratitude does motivate some of my giving. But the experience of the gift of Gods grace is far more determinative. Most of my giving, and most of my desire to give, grows out of thanksgiving for that gift of grace. | 
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