Last Thursday, lay and clergy members of the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference met in a Special Session to consider Greater Northwest Area and PNW Conference Ministry Priorities, approve a proposed 2025 budget, and complete the Nominations process for the new quadrennium. The session was held online, and an opening and closing were shared with the Alaska and Oregon-Idaho Conferences. Recordings can be found on this resource page.
Members voted overwhelmingly to approve a flat budget for 2025, holding spending roughly even at $4.42 million despite cost increases. Over the last decade, the apportioned budget has decreased from $6.1 million. They also approved a slate of leaders recommended by the Nominations Committee.
After voting to receive the report of the Ministry Priorities Team, conference members voted to adopt Area and Conference Priorities.
Members of all three conferences voted to adopt lessening housing, hunger and health disparities, young people’s ministry development, training for lay leadership, securing preferred and in-common vendors, and supporting information technology and tech for local ministry teams as shared ministry priorities for the Greater Northwest Area.
Members of the Pacific Northwest Conference voted to adopt ministry priorities of advocating for climate care and combatting climate change, developing ministries with youth and young people, addressing disparities in housing, hunger and health, standing for equity, justice and against racism, and centering spiritual formation and discipleship.
Reflecting on the passage of the ministry priorities, Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth said, “[These priorities] don’t belong to any one individual. They don’t even belong to any one conference. They belong to all of us, and so each of us has a role to play in living them out and continuing to fulfill the mission of the Church to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”
In his closing, Bridgeforth also noted that adopting the priorities was an important step forward but not the end of the road. Each conference now has work to do toward discerning and enacting an implementation plan. That work will begin in the new year with a commitment to transparency as conferences explore and experiment with how best to live into their new priorities.
