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Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
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November/December 2006 |
New director named for Advance for Christ and His Church
NEW YORK - Shawn S. Bakker, a woman with broad professional experience in religion, nonprofit management and fundraising, has been named the new director of the Advance for Christ and His Church, the designated mission-giving program of The United Methodist Church.
Her selection was announced by leaders of the General Board of Global Ministries, the international mission agency of the denomination. The Advance is a major funding channel for the support of missionaries, mission projects, and humanitarian relief and rehabilitation around the world.
Bakker is "dynamic and bold," according to Cashar W. Evans, a North Carolina layman who chairs the Advance Committee. The Rev. R. Randy Day, chief executive of the mission board, said she is well-grounded in theology and United Methodist practice. Both Day and Evans announced Bakker's appointment to lead the 60-year-old Advance program.
The Advance represents what is known to United Methodists as "second-mile mission giving," that is, donations beyond congregational apportionments for the World Service fund.
"The Advance is of vital importance to the mission and ministry of United Methodists," Day said. "It requires a leader of strong faith, firm footing and lively determination. We have such a person in Shawn Bakker."
Bakker is a native of Sioux Falls, S.D., and came to The United Methodist Church while at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn., from which she graduated magna cum laude in 1996. She worked for a decade with United Methodist-related ministries in Dallas, Texas, and studied at United Methodist-related Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, earning a master of theology degree.
In 1998 she became the first director of Project Transformation, a program developed in the North Texas Conference that employs college and university students in urban ministries with children and youth. This involved the annual coordination of more than 300 students, 1,200 volunteers, 90 congregations and 15 institutions within the conference.
The director of the Advance is an associate general secretary of the General Board of Global Ministries. Bakker succeeds the Rev. William T. Carter, who retired at the end of last June following 28 years with the mission agency and the Advance. Bakker begins her new duties Dec. 1.
Annual giving through the Advance in recent years has averaged between $30 and $35 million, not including the amount given for disaster relief, which varies and can be much higher in years with major disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and the South Asia tsunamis of late 2004.
Last updated on 25 Apr 2008