News and Views

We celebrate the five recipients of this year’s BWC Young People's Ministry Missional Innovation Grants, which total $25,000.  They include:

• The Four Church Collaborative Youth Program (FCC)as a collaboration between Wards 4,5,6, and 7 represented by Mount Vernon UMC, Petworth UMC, Community UMC, and Douglas Memorial UMC in the Greater Washington District. It strives to teach core values to youth who reside within economically insecure neighborhoods surrounding the congregations by building their capacity for spiritual and mental health, self-esteem and self-determination, academic mentoring, filed trips, visual and performing arts projects, providing a much-needed “village” that offers the best of United Methodist character building. Awarded $5,000. 
• The Border Immersion—A Justice Journey is a collaboration between the Hispanic-Latino Ministry and the Young People’s Ministry areas that supports a group of college students and young adults from across the Baltimore Washington Conference to participate in a four-day educational and public witness action on the Mexico-US border that prioritizes accompaniment,  experiential education,  direct dialogue with first-generation immigrants, meetings with local organizations working with directly with immigrant populations and immigration reform and advocacy policy, and reflection on biblical and theological foundations for solidarity with migrants and immigrants.  Awarded $9,000.
• Project Syria is an expression of the young adults, founded and led Friendship Beyond Borders, to connect the world across different backgrounds and cultures so that all may flourish. The Syrian Refugee Education and Health Initiative has supported over 500 Syrian students, young adult refugees in Jordan with educational platforms, classes and preventative health care as well as one on one relationship building with the Ward Chapel UMC, Glyndon UMC and Prospect and Marvin Chapel UMC in the Baltimore Suburban District.  Awarded $5,000.
• The MLK Day of Service is a partnership between Glen Mar UMC, Ames Memorial UMC and St. John’s Baptist Church in the Central Maryland District that inspires and strengthens skills among fifteen young adults and encourages them to tell their transformative stories of how God is at work as they partner to meet unmet needs among economically marginalized people in the community. The MLK Day of Service will partner with ten non-profit organizations including the Howard Country Health Department, Manna House, Family Survivors Network and Morgan State University. Awarded $1,000.
• The Social Justice Pilgrimage is a ministry of the United Campus Ministries at Frostburg University in the Cumberland Hagerstown District that engages faith leaders and provides support to the next generation of justice advocates through the form of sacred collective memory through an intensive civil and human rights journey to key locations in the south such as the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN, Birmingham Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham, AL, the King Center in Atlanta, GA and key churches and sites that led the way in the struggle for civil and human rights. This project will shape young faith leaders in their advocacy and action skills by engaging active faith leaders who are leading in their respective fields in the church, political sphere, academy, business and beyond. Awarded $5,000.