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Indiana Area Office of The United
Methodist Church
1100 West 42nd Street Suite #210
Indianapolis, IN 46208
317.924.1321 (Voice)
317.924.4859 (Fax)
May 21, 2001
RELEASE AT WILL
CONTACTS:
Lynne DeMichele 317/924-1321 765/496-2091 on-site newsroom (May 31-June 2)
Steve Burris, Conference Director, 765/6645138
United Methodists to celebrate new members during annual meeting at Purdue U.
Red balloons, 3,770 of them, each representing a new member of the United Methodist Church, will be released from the rafters in Elliott Hall at around 10:50, Friday, June 1. "It's a way of celebrating and welcoming all the new Christians who have joined our faith family over the past year," said Indiana Bishop Woodie W. White.
Approximately 2,000 clergy and lay members representing the 580 United Methodist congregations of North Indiana Annual (regional) Conference will gather in West Lafayette May 31-June 2. Their meeting place will be at Elliott Hall of Music on the campus of Purdue University where they will worship, celebrate ordinations and conduct church-related business.
Special guest preacher this year will be Bishop Janice Riggle Huie, episcopal leader of the Arkansas Area. The services will include praise and worship music in a variety of styles and from a variety of choirs.
The Rev. Phillip Klinger, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Anderson (who retires in June) will preach at the Memorial Service and Communion on Thursday, May 31 at 7:30 p.m.
At 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 1, at Elliott Hall, Bishop White will conduct the high, holy Service of Ordination in which seven new elders and one new deacon will be ordained. At the same service four probationary clergy will be consecrated. The bishop will preach and the event is open to the public. Earlier in the day, at 10 a.m. that Friday, a combined 532 years of pastoral service will be celebrated for the 19 North Indiana clergy members who are retiring.
During the three-day session, members will review programming reports, and plans for ministries for the next 12 months will be refined and approved, along with a proposed $9.9 million budget. The Annual Conference budget, funded by local churches, supports overseas missions, ministries of the conference, local-church building and support programs, and administrative costs. In addition, the annual budget provides support for the church's benevolent agencies in Indiana which include three children's homes, four camps/conference centers, three universities, five hospitals and six retirement homes.
Interspersed among regular business items and other activities will be a series of 22 video-taped personal faith testimonies from lay and clergy around northern Indiana. In addition, conference members will view the television spots which will be a part of the Church's national advertising campaign to be launched this September.
A special focus this year will be the church's Initiative on Children & Poverty; children will be an integral part of worship and liturgy this year. Saturday morning, June 2, a mass children's choir representing the churches of Gary will sing.
Key business agenda items this year will be approval of newly defined core values for the conference, along with new priorities for ministry. In addition, the body will consider ratification of 11 Church Constitutional Amendments approved by The United Methodist General Conference last year in Cleveland, Ohio. It is the General conference, meeting every four years, that sets church policy on social and religious issues and approves programming for the world-wide church.
During the Annual Conference session at Purdue, trucks will be parked outside Elliott Hall so as to collect school kits and relief supplies for refugees of war-torn Sierra Leone where United Methodists have an ongoing educational and medical mission program, "Operation Classroom." In addition, conference attendees have been asked to bring new pairs of gym shoes which will be donated to projects locally and worldwide by the Bishops' Task Force on Children and Poverty.
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