If The United Methodist Church were to reflect the ministry of Jesus in our life together, we’d be doing the things he did:

 

Jesus discipled those who would lead his church
Jesus welcomed those who didn’t know his Father, and those who did
Jesus met the physical and spiritual needs of the poor
Jesus healed the sick

 

 

The people of The United Methodist Church are engaging the world by imitating the ministry of Jesus—and the World Service Fund makes our Christian outreach possible.

 

The UMC is building leaders, like Jesus did. We’re sharing his love with those who hunger for it and shepherding those who’ve already tasted it. Like Jesus, we’re ministering among the poor. And we reflect his healing touch as we battle disease and fight to improve global health, all through the World Service Fund. 

 

The World Service Fund is one of seven apportioned funds of The United Methodist Church and is the cornerstone for the funding of the connectional system of the United Methodist Church. The World Service Fund provides basic financial support to general agencies, which are especially important to the common vision, mission, and ministry of The United Methodist Church. Through World Service funding, agencies support annual conferences and local congregations in living out God’s mission for the worldwide Church. General agencies also provide essential services and ministries beyond the scope of individual local congregations and annual conferences through services and ministries that are highly focused, flexible, and capable of rapid response.

 

Vital congregations reflect God’s transforming love into their communities and around the world. As United Methodists, we will challenge and transform broken systems and structures that create and perpetuate poverty. Leveraging connections and partnerships within and beyond The United Methodist Church, we can transform communities and open doors for children to a more promising future. Through the apportioned giving through the World Service Fund we envision the people called United Methodists engaging in at least 400 partnerships that focus on ministry with poor people and communities.

 

One of the four areas of focus for the United Methodist Church is Abundant Health for all. This initiative has a vision to reach 1 million children with life-saving interventions. We believe every child is a life filled with promise and potential, yet, every five seconds a child dies from preventable causes. The United Methodist Church has a sacred calling to ensure abundant health for all children, engaging disciples to be agents of God’s healing transformation in the world by educating, administer direct health services to those in need, and increased access to medical care. There is a global movement to significantly improve health for all people by 2035, with a specific goal of saving the lives of 15 million children by 2020. This work can be reached through the World Service apportioned funds.

The United Methodist Church needs leaders – clergy and laity – to fulfill God’s mission for the Church and the world. United Methodist believe nurturing God’s call to Christian leadership is essential. One on the four areas of focus for the Church is the calling and shaping principled Christian leaders. We celebrate the many innovative approaches to developing principled Christian leaders, but also see the need to strengthen a culture of call throughout the Church so that every disciple’s leadership potential can be realized. This work is supported through the World Service apportioned funds.

Creating new, vital, faith communities is critical to the task of making new disciples and transforming the world. One of the four areas of focus for the Church is to create and sustain new places for new people with a vision of 1,000,000 new disciples who profess their faith through renewed and new faith communities around the world. A faith community is a group that gathers under the lordship of Jesus Christ to worship, engage, and send. It is within faith communities that we receive new disciples through professions of faith and increase professions of faith. Some of this work is accomplished through the World Service apportioned funds.

 

World Service dollars provide funds for the administrative structure of our church. It represents the minimum needs of the denomination’s general agencies which serve as a resource to local churches and as an extension of local churches in ministry and mission on a conference, national and world level. The major thrust in mission giving in our church begins here. Because our contributions to World Service cover overhead expenses for our general agencies, every dollar given to relief efforts goes directly to people in need and every dollar given to support the work of mission personnel goes directly to that personnel.

Your faithful giving makes the heart-changing and world-transforming ministry of Jesus possible today. Because of your generosity, The United Methodist Church continues to share good news with the world God loves. Bishop Mary Ann Swenson explained why the World Service Fund is so very vital to the ministry of the UMC, “It is a way in which neighbor helps neighbor, and it helps Christians reach out all around the world.” She continues, “World Service Fund is everything that defines our church. It is the way that we connect together, the way that we become powerful in our response to injustice and to poverty, and to tragedy, and to need.”

 

When you contribute to the Doylestown United Methodist Church, two percent of your giving goes towards the collecting United Methodist Church apportionment funds.  One of those funds is the World Service Fund.  If you feel called to help, please click the button below.

 

 

 

Articles provided by United Methodist Communications