NEW PHONE NUMBER 517-258-0038 | To care for UCC clergy and churches in Michigan.
NEW PHONE NUMBER 517-258-0038 | To care for UCC clergy and churches in Michigan.
Basic Support of Our Church’s Wider Mission
When it comes to church giving, I love financial transparency and I assume you do too. If you don’t, feel free to skip this monthly missive, but not before reading the next sentence. If I haven’t said it to you in person at your church yet, let me say it here in writing:
Thank you for your church’s financial support of “Our Church’s Wider Mission,” and in particular, for what we call your “Basic Support,” which funds our work in the Michigan Conference, as well as the National Setting.
Those Basic Support OCWM dollars function for us in the same way that pledges do in a congregation or any other organization. They fund our ministry to recruit the best pastors (in the midst of a historic clergy shortage), to nurture people with a call to ministry (through scholarships and vocational encouragement amidst the hardest religious landscape I can remember), to care for the pastors we already have (many of whom are preaching at more than one church, or working other demanding jobs), and to support our amazing volunteer lay leaders with practical programs that address the specific questions I hear you asking when I visit your churches.
It is your Basic Support that allows our staff to do all they do; whether it is a scheduled Sunday visit from me as your Conference Minister, or a late night call to an Associate Conference Minister who jumps in her car to provide care and a last minute sermon to a church whose pastor has passed away. This past year, I was honored to revive the Michigan Conference practice of making clergy Emergency Assistance grants for medical expenses and other crises, and also to tend to the creative spirits of our pastors with a three-day Preaching Retreat this past May. READ MORE
Expressing deep gratitude on behalf of the Michigan Conference for the generous annual contributions made by 85 local churches in 2023 totaling just over $333,000. We do not take it lightly that churches are willing to trust in the abundance, possibility and capacity of our collective generosity. These 2023 contributions made our shared ministry possible.
At the Annual Meeting, 19 Leadership Givers were recognized. These churches either gave an amount equivalent to more than %5 (^) of their reported operating expenses or contributed more than $5,000.00 (*) to Basic Support.
2023 Basic Support Leadership Givers
^Chinese Community UCC, Southfield
*Church of the Good Shepherd UCC, Ann Arbor
*Edgewood United Church, UCC, East Lansing
*First Congregational Church, Kalamazoo
*First Congregational Church of Rockford, UCC
*^First Congregational UCC, Saint Clair
*^First Congregational UCC, Saint Joseph
*First Congregational UCC, Alpena
*First Congregational UCC, Charlevoix
*First Congregational UCC, Rochester
*Haslett Community Church, UCC
*Park Church Congregational, UCC, Grand Rapids
*^Pilgrim Congregational UCC, Lansing
*^Plymouth UCC, Grand Rapids
*^Portage United Church of Christ
*Saint Paul UCC, Chelsea
*Trinity UCC, Northport
*^United Church of Christ, Midland
*^Zion United Church of Christ, Baroda
Our Church’s Wider Mission
Your contributions make our shared ministry possible
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