Grantee Directory

The New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church (NYAC) includes 415 congregations across the five boroughs of New York City, the Lower Hudson Valley, part of the Catskills region, and Connecticut from the Long Island Sound to the urban area of Hartford. This Conference is in the midst of an enormous transition which has been necessitated by long-term demographic shifts, declining attendance at religious services, and a shortage of clergy. NYAC has been using a cooperative parish model to help congregations adapt during this period of transition. Through this model, NYAC’s 415 congregations have been grouped into 54 cooperative parishes. The principle of cooperative parishes is based in the Methodist teaching of connectionalism. Feedback from congregations in NYAC have shown that the cooperative parish system holds great opportunity to build energy and engagement among the laity, and to both leverage and support clergy. However, NYAC’s current model for cooperative parish development has been insufficient to fully engage most congregations into functional cooperative parishes, or to provide those groups of congregations that are working together as a cooperative parish with the tools and resources they need to respond to their present circumstances. The Thriving Congregation’s Initiative, will increase NYAC’s capacity to develop thriving cooperative parishes by providing cooperative parishes with specialized curricula, tools, and support from NYAC staff, consultants, and building and legal professionals, so that cooperative parish leaders will have both a spiritual and an organizational framework to understand their new parish identity, learn new ways to function together, and develop shared ministries that make use of their buildings in ways that reflect their new identity. This project will result in increased collaboration between congregations in collaborative parish ministry, increased vitality of engaged cooperative parishes, and an enhanced cooperative parish development model that can be shared with other Conferences.