New dates announced for 2011 West Michigan Annual Conference

By Mark Doyal, West Michigan Conference Director of Communications

The West Michigan Annual Conference Program Committee has announced new dates for the 43rd Session of Annual Conference.

The 2011 Annual Conference session will now open on Wednesday, June 1 and conclude on Saturday, June 4, 2011 on the campus of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.

As part of the schedule change the Program Committee also announced that Saturday’s Annual Conference session is being redesigned to attract more than 5,000 laity from across the conference.

Each local church will be invited to welcome 12 additional members to attend an exciting “drive-in day.” Saturday’s session is expected to offer amazing worship, top speakers, fellowship, workshops and more.

“Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world will be more effective as we share this incredible time of worship, fellowship and growth with more of our members,” commented Program Committee Chair, Rev. Bill Johnson. ”The committee believes anytime there is the opportunity to grow our connection, our faith and church grows stronger too.”

The West Michigan Conference Director of Connectional Ministry, Rev. Benton Heisler agrees, stating the focus of the 2011 Annual Conference will be to engage in ministry with the poor. “

We have faith that this new schedule for Annual Conference will allow us to welcome many new faces to this important mission.”

The dates and times for Ordination, the Memorial Service and Marking Sacred Time during Annual Conference have not been established.

Details and a new schedule for Annual Conference will be released in the coming weeks.

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West Michigan Annual Conference 2010: There are spaces, bring on the faces

By RJ Walters, Editor

Register for the West Michigan Annual Conference here.

The late American author/speaker Dale Carnegie seemed to be dead on with the mission of the 2010 West Michigan Conference Annual conference, when over 70 years ago he said, "The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.”

The goal of the annual conference committee for the 2010 conference, at Calvin College June 3-6, is to create an experience for clergy and lay members that makes them think outside the box about how to “create new places for new faces”, the theme of the event.

To facilitate that type of thinking the conference is welcoming friends from “that state to the south”, in Rev. John Edgar, George Howard and Donita Harris from the West Ohio Conference.

The trio has been instrumental in taking a corner store that opened in downtown Columbus in 1999 and shaping it into a United Methodist congregation and hub for human services, as well as a free store that now serves over 100,000 in a city of around 750,000 people.

West Michigan Director of Connectional Ministries Benton Heisler said their cutting-edge contemporary ministries are something that should excite the crowd and get people thinking.

“We tried to bring in presenters who could create an atmosphere that places a greater emphasis on the teaching and learning about what it means to be a transformational church creating new places for new faces,” he said. “We don’t want people dreading annual conference, or getting bored by it, or make it all about these different committees — and with these speakers I think we’ve accomplished that.”
Edgar is the lead pastor at the United Methodist Church for All People, Harris is a lay pastor at the church, and Howard is the Director of Connectional Ministries for the conference.

They have mastered the art of taking basic human needs, reaching out to people and incorporating the love of Christ each step of the way.

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