The legacy Tennessee and Memphis conferences of The United Methodist Church joined to become the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference on January 1, 2022.
The birth of this new conference took several years of collaboration and planning. The Plan of Union, approved by both legacy annual conferences in June 2021, was approved by the Southeastern Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church (SEJ) at a Special Called Session on July 21, 2021.
The conference meeting center and episcopal offices are located at 304 S. Perimeter Park Drive in Nashville, TN. Staff work schedules vary and the building is secured, so please contact us to make an appointment if you wish to meet with staff or drop something off at the office.
Our Vision:
Uniting to embody the love of Christ in Spirit-led actions one community at a time.
Our Mission:
To discover, equip, connect, and send lay and clergy leaders who shape congregations that offer Christ to a hurting world, one neighborhood at a time.
Our Values:
- The local church as the disciple making center
- Transparency and integrity in our communication
- Seeking a purposeful and more generous way of love
- Courage to explore possibilities and take risks by being nimble, experimenting, permitting failure, and staying the course
- Empowering all leaders and enabling leaders with gifts and graces for the task
- Seeking input from both people and useful data
- We welcome diversity, rooted in Christ, a deep love of one another, celebrating our differences
Strategic Focus:
Develop transforming lay and clergy leaders to engage the mission field to grow fruitful and faithful congregations.
Strategic Initiatives
- Develop transforming clergy and lay leaders
- Create a culture of call for lay and clergy
- Equip lay leaders for team ministry with clergy
- Foster emotional intelligence, invest in intercultural leadership
- Hold one another accountable in love
- Invest in and empower young (18-35) and diverse people
- Invest resources into young people so they can carry the light of Christ, both now and to future generations
- Celebrate and seek diversity as a means of transformation
- Create a culture of inclusiveness: discover and develop young and diverse leaders
- Engage the mission field through partnering with communities
- Assess and understand assets: needs, gaps, and the church’s role in its community
- Repurpose existing assets
- Invest in innovation, sustainability, and multiplying ministries
- Develop new faith communities
- Launch innovative expressions of church that engage evangelism more effectively
- Create fruitful and faithful congregations
- Every church commits to a plan for making disciples
- Shift resources to areas of fruitfulness and vitality for mission achievement
- Adopt mentality of enough: God’s abundance vs. our human scarcity
- Provide resources for struggling churches that desire change: financial, leadership, innovation
- Build a culture of collaboration, effectiveness, and inter-dependency among connection
Scriptural References: | ||
Psalm 46:4 | Hebrews 11:1 1 | Corinthians 15:58 |
Romans 12:1-8 | Acts 2:42 | Acts 20:28 |
Hebrews 10:24-25 2 | Cor. 1:12-14 | Matthew 25:14-30 |
Proverbs 11:4 | Proverbs 19:20 | Luke 14:28 |
Galatians 3:28 | Revelation 7:9-10 | James 2:1-13 |
Colossians 1:16-17 | Psalm 117:1-2 | Ephesians 2:13-22 |
Ephesians 4:1-6 | Matthew 28:19-20 | Colossians 3:12-17 |