printer-friendly email a friend

Apportionments Leadership Development Team

Recruiting, developing and retaining competent and committed ministers are critical factors in the future health of our churches.

Ministerial Recruitment funds are used to provide information to per­sons of all ages who exhibit an interest in professional ministry. One avenue 'utilized is to create occasions when ministers, who communicate well with high school and college students, can bear witness to their calling and its meaning in their life. Equally important is the task of maintaining contact with students attending seminary in order to encourage them and assure them that the conference is anticipating their return to serve in Oklahoma. This is done in a number of ways, including visits to seminary campuses by district superintendents and pastors of local churches.

It is important that those who serve The United Methodist Church in a professional capacity are supportive of the core beliefs, emphases and polity of the church as reflected in the Book of Discipline.

It is the responsibility of the Board of Ordained Ministry to examine candidates for ministry in an effort to ascertain their qualification. It is the bishop who appoints min­isters to churches and other areas of service, but it is the Board of Ordained Ministry that determines when a minister is eligible to receive an episcopal appointment. Some of our churches are served by lay speakers and other supply pastors who are not eligible to be "appointed" by the bishop, but who nonetheless provide good spiritual leadership to that local church.

It is also the responsibility of the Board of Ordained Ministry to adminis­ter the funds provided by the Ministerial Education apportionment. Through the use of those funds the board prepares and nurtures our clergy-supply pastors, local pastors, and ordained members of the annual conference. Members of the Board of Ordained Ministry are nominated for that task by the bishop, and they understand that theirs is a sacred responsibility.