General Conference 2004

Rocky Mountain Conference News and Resources

Day 10

United Methodists approve four more years of ‘Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors.’

May 5, 2004

By Nancye Willis*

PITTSBURGH (UMNS)––The United Methodist Church will share its “Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors.” messages with a wider audience in 2005-08. But it will have to do so with less money than proposed.

Delegates to General Conference, the church’s top legislative body, overwhelmingly approved May 5 a proposal from United Methodist Communications to expand its successful media effort. The vote paved the way for the denomination’s communications agency to add 18 weeks of additional airings of denominational TV advertising to its established schedule and to develop a youth component.

However, the amount of funding made available for the core TV advertising was reduced from a proposed $33.5 million to $22 million. Proponents of the increased airings argued that inflation had significantly reduced the amount of time that can be bought with the funds.

The youth strategy survived with its proposed $5.4 million funding intact. A proposal to reduce the amount to $3 million in view of tight finances was narrowly defeated by a vote of 488-440.

All requests for funds will be reviewed by the Council on Finance and Administration. That fiscal agency will present its budget recommendations for all general church funds to the May 8 closing plenary session for final action.

Delegates also defeated a proposed amendment that would have allowed shifting funds among the youth strategy, an expanded core program of television advertising and a communications initiative in churches outside the United States.

Sue Mullins, Corwith, Iowa, proposed an amendment specifying that no approved funds “will be used to promote the slogan ‘Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors.’”

Arguing against the amendment, Mike McCurry, a first-time delegate from the Baltimore-Washington Annual (regional) Conference, and former White House press secretary, said, “No one single issue defines open-mindedness; no single painful controversy can break an open heart.”

The slogan, he said, serves to “remind the world who we United Methodists are and who we can be.”

*Willis is editor of Public Information for United Methodist Communications.

News media contact: (412) 325-6080 during General Conference, April 27-May 7. After May 10: (615) 742-5470.

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

General Conference links:

General Conference 2004 Web site

If the main General Conference site is slow or busy, you can also try some of the General Church agency web sites below, or the unofficial ones listed on the main RMCUMC GC2004 page.

• General Board of Global Ministries GC2004 site
• General Board of Church and Society
• General Board of Discipleship
• General Board of Pension and Health Benefits GC2004 Information
• General Council on Finance and Administration

Please keep the Rocky Mountain Conference Delegates in prayer: Janet Forbes, Youngsook Kang, Olon Lindemood, Chuck Schuster, Aaron Gray, Judy Hill, Brad Laurvick, Dan O'Neill, Liwliwa Robledo, and Peggy Sewell.