In the midst of a pandemic, when many of the members of our congregations are not meeting in the church buildings, questions arise regarding how to conduct the annual finance campaign. As with many aspects of church ministry in these past months, we literally can't do it the way we have always done it. How do we adapt the annual campaign in the midst of a pandemic?
The title of Session 1 of the Academy was Adapting Annual Financial Campaigns in a Pandemic: Ten Key Considerations. The session was held on October 1.
Rev. Dr. Ken Sloane, Director of Stewardship and Generosity for United Methodist Discipleship Ministries will present for Session 1. He is the UMC's Director of Stewardship & Generosity housed at Discipleship Ministries (GBOD) in Nashville. Ken is a clergy member of the Greater New Jersey Conference, where he served 20+ years in local church ministry (including a successful new church start) and 5 years as the Director of Connectional Ministries. In 2006 he was appointed to serve as Director of Communications Ministry at United Methodist Communications, and traveled extensively across the denomination doing presentations on how to interpret connectional giving to our local churches. He moved into his Stewardship role on October 1, 2011. He is the author of the 2017-20 Local Church Guidelines for Stewardship (Cokesbury), and a collaborator on the 2017-20 Guidelines for Finance and the Lay Servant Advanced Course, Connectional Living, Connectional Giving, Most recently he has written the content for an inter-agency collaboration, The Generous Church Leadership Course. Ken lives in Nashville with his wife Bridget; they have four grown children, some of whom may be living with them depending on when you ask.