wfn.org | Church men's leaders seek special Sunday observance

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Sept. 27, 2002	 News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-71B{434}

By the Rev. J. Richard Peck*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - United Methodist churches may be observing one
more special Sunday if a request from the denomination's Commission on
United Methodist Men is honored.

Meeting Sept. 12-13, the commission's executive committee and annual
conference presidents of United Methodist Men also attended a memorial
service for one of their early leaders and took steps to help families of
men who are incarcerated.

The committee agreed to ask another church committee studying special
Sundays to add "Men's Ministry Observance" to the three special Sundays
without churchwide offerings. If approved, the recommendation would be taken
to the 2004 General Conference, the top legislative body of the
denomination.

The United Methodist Church currently recognizes six special Sundays with
churchwide offerings, three Sundays without offerings, and four Sunday with
opportunities for annual conference offerings.

Commission members also attended a memorial service for James H. Snead Jr.,
longtime director of the United Methodist Men Foundation, who died Sept. 11
of liver cancer. "Jim provided a solid foundation from which (the
commission) got its launch," said the Rev. Joseph Harris, top staff
executive of the agency.

Last spring, annual (regional) conference presidents of United Methodist Men
agreed to work with the United Methodist Board of Church and Society to help
establish ministries to families of men who are incarcerated. At their fall
meeting, the presidents appointed a three-person team to attend a three-day,
mid-October meeting in Washington to plan for this restorative justice
ministry.

In other business, the commission's executive committee:
7	Agreed to return to Purdue University for the July 15-17, 2005,
United Methodist Men's Congress.
7	Learned that the commission will sponsor a luncheon for some 500
delegates to the 2004 General Conference in Pittsburgh.
7	Received an update on the commission effort to remind local churches
that the Book of Discipline requires all United Methodist congregations to
have a chartered unit of United Methodist Men.

Harris also told the executive committee that an international Fellowship of
Methodist and Uniting Church Men will officially begin at the 2006 World
Methodist Council meeting in Seoul, South Korea. The group was established
at the July 2001 meeting of the council in Brighton, England, where Harris
was named president. However, the 2006 gathering will be the first
opportunity for representatives of the 77 participating denominations to
formally adopt a constitution and bylaws. 

Officers of the global organization are surveying participating
denominations to determine which ones have groups responsible for men's
ministries, Harris said. Conversations are also under way with Stop Hunger
Now to find ways for the new fellowship to aid the efforts of that
international body.

Leaders of the United Methodist Men Foundation met the day after the
executive committee. In that session, they created a five-member investment
committee to guide the foundation's Oklahoma-based fund managers in
investing funds that now total $1.6 million. Currently, 60 percent of the
funds are invested in stocks and 40 percent in bonds. The investment
committee will review that guideline along with other long-term policies.
The foundation supports scouting ministries, the Upper Room Prayer Line and
other men's ministries.

# # #

*Peck is communications consultant for the churchwide Commission on United
Methodist Men.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org