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About Our Conference

Vision & Values

Following Jesus, Thriving in Community, Healing the World

Our hope is that we are guided by this vision, a visible movement of healing will arise from within our conference and that our future testimonies will declare that God is still at work in us and through us, and that God, "is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20). With God, all things are possible…even the healing of the world.

Everything we do and everything we are about must begin here. To be a disciple of Jesus means to follow him, and following Jesus means that we learn of Jesus, and we live like Jesus. It will be important for our Conference to have a clear understanding of discipleship identity (who we are) and discipleship practices (what we do) that truly embodies the mission and ministry of Jesus.  
Being a disciple and making disciples cannot happen in solitude. Since the beginning of creation, God wired humanity for connection and community (Genesis 2:18). And as the early Church grew, the repeated exhortation as recorded in the New Testament was for Christ followers to do life with each other. What this means for us as a Conference is that we need to take seriously the strengthening of our existing communities of faith as well as the planting of new ones with measurable growth as a standard. 
For the California-Nevada Conference, joining God’s healing and liberating work in the world has always been a core pursuit. God is calling Christ followers to go out into dark and broken places to offer both spiritual and tangible resources for healing. Joining in the healing work of Jesus means that we need to be committed to bringing restoration to a broken world that is marked by poverty, injustice, violence, division, and oppression. 

Our Values

The following four core values will undergird our pursuit of Following Jesus. Thriving in Community. Healing the World.

We are at our best when we create intentional and impactful partnerships between clergy and laity. While there may be distinct roles and tasks for pastors and that for the laity as well, the vision of the church in the New Testament is clear that ministry is best done together.  
There is no doubt that our Conference is diverse in its makeup. And while diversity is to be celebrated, we fall short of God’s vision for God’s Church if we do not do the hard work of active and intentional inclusion. It’s not enough to get different people in the room; we need to make sure that every person is empowered to participate in meaningful ways.  
Being created in the image of the Creator means that we are called to creativity and imagination. What has been effective in the past may not necessarily be effective today or in the future. While the local church will always have its place, we will need to keep challenging ourselves to innovate and embrace new ways of doing ministry and forming different types of faith communities. God is doing a new thing, and therefore, we must also. 
One of the greatest strengths of The United Methodist Church is our connectional spirit. Our resources are exponentially multiplied when we come together, and simply put, we can do more together than alone. As we pursue our vision, we will especially need to be aware of and leverage the potential that exists in our current structure of our Conference.

 

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