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Discipleship Ministries

General Agencies
Christ is depicted in a stained-glass window at the Upper Room Chapel in Nashville, Tenn. Discipleship Ministries, which includes The Upper Room, is working to unite into one organization with the United Methodist boards of Global Ministries, Higher Education and Ministry, and United Methodist Communications. The agencies are working together to send legislation to form such a union to General Conference. Photo by Kathleen Barry, UM News.

4 church agencies propose unifying into one
Four general agencies — United Methodist Communications, Discipleship Ministries, Global Ministries and Higher Education and Ministry — are making plans to become one. Legislation to unify the agencies will be going to General Conference.
Disaster Relief
Richard Mushitu, the Tanganyika Episcopal Area’s Disaster Management coordinator, helps distribute bags of flour during an emergency humanitarian aid distribution organized by The United Methodist Church. The project, funded by the United Methodist Committee on Relief and local resources, provided food and essential non-food items to 700 people affected by devastating floods and forced displacement in the Nyunzu and Kalemie territories of Congo. Photo courtesy of the Disaster Management Office of the Tanganyika Episcopal Region.

Church brings aid, hope to Tanganyika
The United Methodist Church, with support from UMCOR and local resources, has provided food in the Tanganyika region, which has been challenged by devastating floods and the fallout from conflicts in eastern Congo.
Worship
Norma Villagrana of the Western North Carolina Conference prays at an altar in the General Conference prayer room in Charlotte, N.C. The “Cultivating the Garden of the Heart” prayer room is sponsored by The Upper Room and includes prompts and Scriptures in Portuguese, Korean, French, Spanish and Kiswahili. Photo by Mike DuBose, UM News.

Prayer room available to General Conference attendees
Open to all, “Cultivating the Garden of the Heart” includes prompts and Scriptures in Portuguese, Korean, French, Spanish and Kiswahili.
Mission and Ministry
Participants at the first national Fresh Expressions conference, an effort for church revitalization that is part of United Methodist Discipleship Ministries, compete to see who can make the structure with the highest marshmallow during the Feb. 7-9 gathering at Providence United Methodist Church in Charlotte, N.C. Panelists said new approaches to ministry require new approaches to funding those ministries. Photo by Jim Patterson, UM News.

Fresh expressions needed in funding, too
In a time of declining church membership and giving, the way money is collected for United Methodist ministries could use a wider net that includes grants and being more entrepreneurial, say members of the denomination involved with the Fresh Expressions movement.

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