Mother’s Day
Offering benefits children in AfricaThis year members can honor their
mothers in a way that lasts for generations. On Mother’s Day, May 14, Florida
Conference churches are urged to take a special offering to benefit the United Methodist
Council of Bishops’ Initiative on Children and Poverty (
BICAP).
Over the past four years, gifts to BICAP in the Florida Conference have funded 104
local church projects through grants totaling $375,154. That ministry will continue
another four years, but the task is growing larger.
Through the "Hope for the Children of Africa" initiative, Bishop Cornelius L.
Henderson has challenged Florida Conference churches to help build an orphanage/school to
nurture the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of children in Mozambique, Africa.
The offerings collected should be taken to the Dare to Share Jesus 2000 Florida Annual
Conference Event May 30-June 2 in Lakeland.
Contact Carol Sue Hutchinson, director of the conference’s Discipleship ministry
office, at 1-800-282-8011, extension 140, or CHutchinson@flumc.org.
Celebrate Jesus seeks mission team members
The newly-formed Celebrate Jesus ministry will hold its first two Celebrate Jesus
Missions this summer.
Similar to the Share Jesus Missions previously held in Florida districts, the missions
involve teams of 15 visiting volunteers going into each of 28 churches in two districts to
help those churches begin intentional evangelism programs.
The two week-long missions will take place in the DeLand District June 10-17 and the
St. Petersburg District June 24-July 1.
More than 400 lay and clergy team members are needed to register for the summer events.
Seminar rescheduled
The third "Grantwriting and Resource Development" seminar originally
scheduled for May 2 has been changed to June 29, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m., at the Wolfson
Campus of Miami Dade Community College.
The information is intended for clergy and lay directors, staff and volunteers of
smaller organizations, churches and faith-based groups that help strengthen families,
offer holistic services and are based in their communities.
The seminar will focus on creating evaluations that measure a program’s
effectiveness in the community, developing evaluations appropriate for organizations and
funding sources, and step-by-step evaluation of specific projects.
John Bare, director of evaluation for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and
Maxine Thurston, president and CEO of the Thurston Group, will be the featured speakers.
The cost is $20 including lunch. Prepaid registration is required, and the deadline is
June 23. Contact Dr. Carol Hoffman-Guzman at 305-237-3890 or
