Synod to Launch Local Ministry Fund this Fall

Group 236

Dear Friends in Ministry,

I invite you to walk alongside me, meander a bit, and see where the Spirit leads us in a new thing that we are creating and building together.

Let us re-imagine the ways we fund our ministries together and be conversation partners in this work.

Over the next few months every person in the Metro D.C. synod will be invited to make a gift, an offering, or give some part of their tithe to help our synod build what we are calling our new “Local Ministry Fund.”

The Local Ministry Fund will be solely dedicated to support the churches and ministries of our synod on an annual basis. The ministries we will continue to build and strengthen with your generosity are within, but not exclusive to, the following:

  • Transformational Leadership Support
  • Racial, Gender, and Climate Justice Ministries
  • Cultural Competency for Life and Ministry

Bishop Reverend Leila Ortiz writes,
“…we have been called for such a time as this; a time that demands and requires our understanding of neighbor to go beyond the neighbors that look and live like us. We are in a moment in history that is pressing us to see the danger and death that comes from our naivete, pride, and false confidence in what we think we know about the neighbors we keep at arm’s length.

It is time we become proactive and ultimately, faithful to what it means to be followers of Jesus; disciples and anointed by the Holy Spirit to be transformational leaders who co-participate in building the kin-dom of God…”

The building of this new Local Ministry Fund will allow us to more fully live into this vision as a synod- church together.

More details will follow but for today, I simply want to share this “new thing” I hope you will lean into with me. I hold us all in prayer and look forward to serving alongside you in a time such as this.

All the best and blessings,

The Reverend David C. Shank, CFRE
Assistant to the Bishops for Generosity
Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Synod
Delaware-Maryland Synod
dshank@metrodcelca.org