Covenant Missions

The United Methodist Church has a wonderful mission board that sends missionaries literally all over the world. Every conference has covenant missionaries. In EPA they are: Mark and Diane Abbott (Spain), Marylyn Brock (Red Bird Mission), Craig and Karen Dial (Red Bird Mission), Ellen Hoover (Democratic Republic of Congo) , Mark and Rebecca Smallwood (Red Bird), Chirs and Martha Stockwell-Goering (Southeast Jurisdiction), Mutwale Ntambo Wa Mushidi (Tanzania), Victoria West (Community Ministries in Connellsville, PA), Sally Wisner-Ott (LUMINA – Lancaster, PA), Mark and Deidre Zimmerman.

In the Peninsula –Delaware Conference they are: Craig and Karen Dial (Red Bird Mission), Belinda Forbes (Nicaraguan Christian Medical Action), Rene Knight Peguero (Pen-Del Conference), Miguel Mairena (Nicaragua Community Development ), Nan McCurdy (Nicaragua Women and Community Association), David Pascua (Philippines – Union Theological Seminary), David and Lorene Persons (Democratic Republic of Congo - Faculte Methodiste de Theologie in Mulungwishi), Gail Zollinhofer Quigg and Stephen Paul Quigg (Aviation Ministries), Larry Stubbenfield (Red Bird Mission), Mark and Deidre Zimmerman (Napal – medical missions and nutrition services).

Churches can be in Covenant Relationship with our United Methodist Missionaries ($5 per member or $500). Less than 10 per cent of our churches in the Philadelphia Area support our missionaries. What a blessing it would be if we could build that up to 50% or 90% or 100%...Think of the possibilities. When you are in Covenant Relationship your funds support their salary and ministry, you receive their mission letters and they come to visit you when they come home on furlough. Your prayers for them and their prayers for you fuel our mutual ministry. The United Methodist Church is doing incredible work reaching souls for Jesus Christ, administering love and concern in the world and teaching a new generation of leaders how to do ministry. Why not support a United Methodist Mission? Are we united or untied?

To begin a Covenant relationship, go to http://new.gbgm-umc.org/advance/missionaries/covenant/ and download the PDF Covenant Relationship form. You will find that if your church wants to form a covenant relationship it will cost a maximum of $2500 or just $5.00 a member per year. If you would like to personally enter into a relationship with one of our missionaries it only takes a yearly gift of $500. Youth groups, Sunday School classes, Campus ministries can also enter into a covenant relationship with a missionary for only $5.00 per member of the group. After filling out the form, you can mail it or fax it to your General Board of Global ministries.

If your church cannot afford $5.00 per member, at least covenant to pray for our missionaries as a church on a regular basis, lift up their families and the communities where they serve in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Your physical monetary support is important, but your spiritual support is essential.

Bishop Peggy A. Johnson