{"id":9507,"date":"2015-02-02T14:53:09","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T22:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=9507"},"modified":"2015-02-11T15:50:20","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T23:50:20","slug":"spokane-valley-umc-supports-the-ministry-fund-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/spokane-valley-umc-supports-the-ministry-fund-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"Spokane Valley UMC Supports the Ministry Fund Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Healthy Conference, Healthy Churches:<\/em>
\nSpokane Valley UMC Supports the Ministry Fund Drive<\/strong>
\nBy Julia Frisbie<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The
The Rev. Mike Graef serves as the pastor at Spokane Valley UMC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>When the Rev. Mike Graef pitched the We See A New Church Ministry Fund Drive to Spokane Valley UMC<\/a>, they stepped up. \u201cWe wanted to be a leadership church,\u201d says Mike. \u201cSo we made a pledge for $50,000 over three years.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI see the value of the connection with the local church and the Conference,\u201d Graef explains. He has a unique perspective as a former District Superintendent and an active member of the Board of Congregational Development. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t realize that the future of a local church really depends on the health of the Conference\u2026 the Conference sends the local church their pastors, and if the Conference isn\u2019t healthy, then the churches won\u2019t receive equipped pastors, and that can lead to all good things stalling out.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Graef believes that the resources offered by The Tuell Center<\/a> will benefit both clergy and local churches. We\u2019re already seeing positive results with the churches participating in the beta vitality process. Funding The Tuell Center will make this resource available to more congregations. <\/p>\n

Spokane Valley UMC also believes in New Church Starts. \u201cWe need to start new churches because helping new people meet Christ and follow Him is what we do,\u201d Graef shares. <\/p>\n

\"NEWS_MFD_INMLogo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And the third part of the fund drive \u2013 Imagine No Malaria<\/a> \u2013 is easy to support. Malaria is devastating, but the solutions are not expensive. The $5,000 tithe of Spokane Valley UMC\u2019s pledge could pay for protective bed nets for 500 families, or lifesaving medication for 1,000 malaria patients. <\/p>\n

Rather than signing up for three years of fundraising, Spokane Valley UMC has decided to pay their pledge directly out of their church budget. This is one of the easiest ways for many churches to make a difference. They sent their first check a few weeks ago. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very proud to support the Ministry Fund Drive,\u201d says Mike. \u201cWe hope to inspire other churches to buy into this and make a pledge themselves.\u201d <\/p>\n

Julia Frisbie serves as the Imagine No Malaria field coordinator
for the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n
\n

\"LINK_Channels_80\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Healthy Conference, Healthy Churches: Spokane Valley UMC Supports the Ministry Fund Drive By Julia Frisbie When the Rev. Mike Graef pitched the We See A New Church Ministry Fund Drive to Spokane Valley UMC, they stepped up. \u201cWe wanted to be a leadership church,\u201d says Mike. \u201cSo we made a pledge for $50,000 over three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":9510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,384,442,408,429,439],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-channels","8":"category-districts","9":"category-imagine-no-malaria","10":"category-inland-district","11":"category-ministry-fund-drive","12":"category-the-tuell-center"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/NEWS_MFD_SVUMC.jpg?fit=700%2C357&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-2tl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9507"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9555,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9507\/revisions\/9555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}