The 57th Session of the Central Appalachian Missionary Annual Conference took place at the Joy Center Outreach and Central Appalachian Missionary Conference Center. It was the first annual conference session for Bishop David Graves as the resident bishop of the Kentucky-Tennessee Area, which is comprised of the Central Appalachian Missionary, Kentucky and Tennessee-Western Kentucky annual conferences.
The theme for this year’s annual conference session was “Rooted in Christ, Growing in Mission.”
Friday night was the annual Mission Night in which people came together to work on the mission project of making 80 bucket gardens to be given out in ministry to people across the conference, followed by a cookout and a gathering around the campfire.
Saturday opened in a new way this year, with a devotion led by conference co-superintendent, the Rev. Daniel Henson. Following the devotions, the clergy and laity sessions convened and both meetings went well. Following a short break after those sessions, everyone gathered in the newly renovated multifunction space that was the original sanctuary of the Joy Center for a Mission Roundtable Discussion about the future of the Central Appalachian Missionary Conference.
Discussions around the table were directed by Whitley Henson, director of communications and youth and young adult ministries. These discussions focused on the four Missional Initiatives of the conference (Hope Harvest Food Insecurity, Lay Leadership Development, S.E.E.K — Young Adult Ministries, and Build 2025 — Mission Work Teams) and Bishop Graves’ five Discipleship Priorities for the Episcopal Area (Mental Health and Well-Being, Professions of Faith, Culture of Call, Spiritual Leadership Development, and Disrupting and Dismantling Racism and Discrimination), which came from his meetings with laity and clergy throughout the episcopal area.
Following lunch, the bishop led us in a time of recognizing churches and laity with conference awards. At approximately 1:25 p.m., Bishop Graves opened the business session of the conference. The conference secretary, the Rev. Robert Amundsen, started with greetings, introductions of guests, and announcements. The bishop’s wife, Nancy Graves, was recognized first and received a small gift on behalf of the conference. Henson came forward to recognize the clergy spouses of the conference.
Following the recognitions and regrets, Amundsen read the roll call, setting of the bar and voting instructions for the 2025 Annual Conference.
After preliminary motions, the conference heard a report from the General Council on Finance and Administration and then came time for the voting on the constitutional amendments for ratification, which were passed at last year’s General Conference. There was spirited discussion on some of the language of two of the amendments. The rest of the session was filled with reports from the various committees, Henderson Settlement, United Women in Faith, Global Ministries, UMCOR, Disaster Response and The United Methodist Publishing House.
During this time, Henson, chair of CF&A and director of the conference finance team, presented the budget for 2026 of $300,000 — an increase of $5,000. Amundsen, conference statistician, shared that there was a loss of 216 members. Most of those were due to two churches closing that had bloated membership rolls, as well as four churches failing to report their statistics. Amundsen did report that the conference saw 11 baptisms in the past year.
The production of the 2025 Journal to be done in house and virtual was the last item of business in the plenary session. It was announced that the 57th Session of Annual Conference would be May 8-9 next year at Joy Center. The business session ended late at 3:24 p.m.
After a break to prepare the sanctuary, the closing Service of Remembrance and Holy Communion began. We were treated to the wonderful and beautiful music of the Red Bird Christian School Cardinal Singers under the direction of Mark Smallwood.
Bishop Graves then preached from John 1:35-51, with the messaged titled “Come and See.” He reminded us all that, “The power of invitation is more than we can ever imagine. And what I want to ask of us in this moment and in the days to come, is that we just need to invite people to come and see. They’ve got to be introduced to Jesus.”
Following the bishop’s message, we remembered those faithfully departed saints from our congregations, as well as volunteers to the mission agencies. We then celebrated Holy Communion and received an offering for Conference Youth and Young Adult Ministries. As of this writing, the final offering amount is not totaled.
Bishop Graves then read the appointments for this year at the end of the service. The appointments still found four churches open for appointment to which the conference is actively looking for clergy who are willing to come serve in Appalachia. Following the reading of the appointments, Bishop Graves dismissed with a blessing.
Watch a video recap of the conference here.
- —The Rev. Robert Amundsen, Conference Co-Superintendent