January 2025
Dear Friends in Christ in the Michigan Conference,
I greet you in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the peace and power of the Holy Spirit. It is with great joy and deep gratitude that I offer this letter acknowledging your congregation’s full payment of Ministry Shares in 2024. Your faithfulness to our shared ministry as United Methodists is heartening.
Your full participation in Ministry Shares extends the ministry of your church in remarkable ways. You help provide the structure that keeps all our United Methodist churches connected. Your gifts allow the Michigan Conference to provide training and support for our churches as we all seek to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. You make possible important conference connections for reaching out in concern and service to this hurting world. Your gifts make possible the ministry of The United Methodist Church across the globe. I wish you could hear some of the stories of ministry for Jesus Christ that I hear from United Methodists around the world. Through our shared ministry we help provide principled Christian leaders for churches and communities, work to alleviate poverty, promote health, and help people come to faith in Jesus Christ and connect with communities that will help them in their journey with Jesus.
I celebrate our shared ministry and your participation in it. Thank you. “The rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of God’s people but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God” (II Corinthians 9:12).
Grace and Peace,
Bishop David A. Bard