Board launches missionary
recruitment campaign

United Methodist News Service
The United Methodist mission agency is looking for “called, committed and competent” people as part of a new long-term missionary recruitment campaign.
The General Board of Global Ministries kicked off the campaign—called “The Face of Today’s Missionary: Is It Yours?”—during its April 23-26 spring meeting in Stamford, Conn.
Applicants are needed for a variety of service categories, including evangelism, education, church development, agriculture, financial administration, medical care and legal services. Many of the assignments are outside the United States.
A new category for missionary service is global health missionaries. The first six missionaries in that category will be commissioned in Ghana in May.
Such service might be attractive to young people just entering the medical professions or those in their mature years, said the Rev. R. Randy Day, the board’s chief executive
”We need hospital- and clinic-based medical personnel, and we need persons who are skilled in the techniques of community-based health, the model we are using in malaria and AIDS prevention and treatment,” Day said.
Although missionary recruitment and placement slowed over the past few years because of financial constraints, nine church and community workers were commissioned during the board meeting and 16 traditional or “standard support” missionaries will be commissioned in May. Twenty short-term young adults will be commissioned in July.
The General Board of Global Ministries has some 220 standard support missionaries, with partial financial support provided to another 120 people. Another 100 are “noncommissioned” mission personnel, and the agency helps to support 293 “persons in mission” selected by partner churches around the world.
Detailed information on the recruitment campaign can be found at www.ummissionaries.org in five languages: English, French, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.