Sowing The Seed

At the 2014 Annual Conference session, Wisconsin United Methodists Sowed the Seed as we continued our theme of Live the Fruit of the Spirit. Bishop Hee-Soo Jung delivered a moving message during the Opening Service. Bishop Donald Ott, who dedicated almost 30 years of ministry to the Wisconsin Conference before serving as Bishop for the West Michigan and Detroit Conferences, gave a heartfelt sermon during the Ordination Service. Rev. Dr. Dianne Reistroffer, an elder in the Wisconsin Conference and former dean of Louisville Theological Seminary, led an inspiring Bible study.

We Celebrated and Conducted Business

In addition, we celebrated missions and ministry around the Conference and the world, elected delegates to General and Jurisdictional Conferences, adopted a budget, recognized and congratulated retirees, learned from speaker Jim Griffith, and took home new ideas and strategies from Learning Day workshops. We also passed a redistricting proposal, which revamps our current 8 districts into 5 new districts and adds one additional district superintendent for a total of 5.

We Launched Imagine No Malaria

And, we introduced Imagine No Malaria, an international United Methodist campaign with a goal of raising $75 million by 2015 to help end malaria. This year's Annual Conference session officially marked the beginning of Wisconsin's effort to raise $1 million towards this campaign. During the session, we raised more than $10,000, with an additional matching grant of $10,000 from the Wisconsin United Methodist Foundation.

We Imagined Wisconsin Anew

All of this was part of our focus to Imagine Wisconsin Anew with ongoing efforts to transform our congregations into vital centers of spiritual growth, Sow the Seeds of new faith communities, develop relationships with new and diverse people, and engage communities and people with life giving opportunities.