By Leslie Hotzfeld, Administrative Strategy Team

God is equipping the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference for ministry in the days ahead with gifts needed to accomplish our mission. Stewarding financial resources is a part of that work.

Our budgeting process for the TWK Conference has been developed out of a desire to better align our spending with our conference values, mission and vision, to strengthen collaboration across all strategy areas, to improve accountability for ministry spending, and to foster transparency in our work. The budget process itself was designed with these principals in mind, with strong collaboration between the four strategy areas (Equip, Connect, Discover/Send, Administration), Counsel on Finance and Administration (CFA), and the Connectional Table.

In brief, we have invited around 300 volunteer leaders from across the TWK in every strategy area to give input to their projected spending needs and potential funding sources for 2025. They are asked to reflect on their ministry through the lens of our vision of “uniting to embody the love of Christ one community at a time” by asking how their work is equipping and empowering laity, providing care for clergy leaders, teaching Wesleyan theology, discovering new ways of being Church, and/or forming future leaders. They are also asked to think creatively about how to fund their ministry, not only through conference support, but also considering available reserves, grants, or fund-raising opportunities as well as cost reduction strategies.

Strategy Teams and Connectional Table will use this information to create a program budget proposal that will be submitted to the Council on Finance & Administration, who will then submit a full budget proposal to the Annual Conference in June. A full description of the process can be found here. Any questions can be directed to connectional.table@twkumc.org.