Healthy Congregations Covenant Program
About the program | How to Participate
About the Covenant program
Health and healing are central to our faith, our traditions, and our calling. Helping Kansas United Methodist churches more intentionally fulfill the role of providing health information and support is the aim of the Healthy Congregations program.
The Healthy Congregations Covenant program is designed to provide training, funding, and technical support to help Kansas United Methodist churches develop and grow effective, high quality health ministry programs. To fit churches at differing stages of health ministry development and commitment, we offer two program options:
To participate, make the commitment to intentional health ministry with a Healthy Congregations Covenant. This covenant - renewable each year - represents your church's agreement to four achievements:
The United Methodist Health Ministry Fund, in turn, makes a commitment to each participating church -- $1,000 each year to be used at the team's discretion for health ministry work. This is in addition to the training and other resources made available free of charge to all participating churches. To help get your program and training off to a great start, the Health Fund provides one-time initial funding of $1,000 upon signing of a Covenant agreement. |
If your church is committed to health ministry, but not yet ready to make the commitment to the four achievements of the Covenant, you can still participate. Submit an annual Healthy Congregations Report on your health ministry activities and the Health Ministry Fund will provide a $100 stipend for your church for each year a report is completed. Your church will still have access to all the Healthy Congregations resources and training opportunities, and can join the full Covenant program later if desired. More details about the Report Only option may be found here. |
Get started now. Annual reports are due March 1, but activities and opportunities abound year-round.
Program benefits
Participation in the Covenant program makes the following benefits available to your church and its health ministry program:
- Cash funding of $100 or $1,000 to support your health ministry program; allocation of these funds is left to the discretion of the church/health ministry team
- Free, convenient online access to resources including:
- professionally developed health ministry-related training courses
- professionally developed communications and advertising materials for your program
- the shared wisdom and knowledge of your peers in Kansas UM health ministry
- Technical assistance and advice from our experienced program administrator Judy Johnston and her staff at the Kansas University School of Medicine-Wichita.
Healthy Congregations Covenant option
Covenant participation involves training of a health ministry team and development of an annual health ministry work plan. Each church that commits to completing the seven capacity-building core training courses (15 total course hours), submitting an annual work plan, and submitting an annual activity report will receive a $1,000 "signing bonus" to defray travel costs for training and provide program support.
Once a Covenant team has achieved "certified" status by completing the core courses within 24 months, the church qualifies for $1,000 cash support each subsequent year by submitting a health ministry work plan and activity report by the annual March 1 deadline.
Getting started:
- Identify a "Health Ministry Coordinator" who will lead a health ministry team of at least three congregation members (not including the pastor) and serve as the point of contact.
- Complete and mail a Covenant agreement to the Health Fund to join the program
Covenant program elements while team is "in training":
- HM Team of at least three must complete all seven core training courses within 24 months.
- Optional: complete a Covenant Report by March 1 to receive a $100 cash award
- Optional: participate in elective training courses or other continuing education
Covenant program elements once "certified" status is achieved (training complete):
- Annually - submit a Health Ministry Plan (current year) and Healthy Congregations Report (trailing year) by March 1 to receive $1,000 cash funding.
- Optional but encouraged: participate in elective training courses or other continuing education
Healthy Congregations Report Only option
For churches just starting their health ministry programs or not yet ready to make the greater commitment of the Covenant, report-only participation provides $100 annually with completion of a simple report on health ministry activities done in the past year. Reports are shared online so that churches may learn from, and be inspired by, one another's health ministry work.
Getting started:
- Identify a "Health Ministry Coordinator" to serve as the point of contact for the program
- Complete a Healthy Congregations Report by March 1 to receive a $100 cash funding
Continuing and growing:
Healthy Congregations Report Only participation may be renewed annually for as long as the program is offered, or a church may elect to move to full Covenant participation at any time.
- To continue at the report only level, complete a Healthy Congregations Report annually by March 1 and receive $100 cash funding to support health ministry work.
- To move up to full Covenant participation at any time, just follow the instructions here for Covenant signup.
Is my church already participating?
A list of churches participating in the program is available here. If your church isn't listed, we hope you'll consider signing up!
Frequently-asked questions (FAQ)
When can my church sign up to participate? Are there deadlines I should be aware of? A church is welcome to sign up and begin participating at any time. March 1 is the annual deadline for submission of Healthy Congregations Reports and Health Ministry Plans to be eligible for cash funding.
How do we get started? First, decide whether the Covenant option or the Report Only option best fits your church at this time. Then, see the Participate section for instructions.
Some of our church members attended training courses at the Annual Retreat, but we don't have a Covenant agreement yet. Will those training credits apply if we sign up? Yes! Training credits count toward a Covenant signed within one year of the training date. For churches in an active Covenant agreement, team training credits never expire.
My church is part of a parish and is interested in participating in the Covenant option. How does that work? Generally, parishes will be treated as a single entity for purposes of the ability to make a Covenant election. However, if separate churches in the parish are able to form distinct health ministry teams, they will be eligible to individually participate in the Covenant program upon approval. For Report Only participation, churches are always treated individually.
In the rare event that a parish has elected to collectively participate in the Covenant program and one or more churches in that parish wish to participate at the Report Only level, individual church participation will be allowed where the church's health ministry activities are distinct and different from those conducted collectively as a parish. We strongly recommend contacting Health Fund staff about this special arrangement for approval and instructions ahead of time.
When will we receive funding? Churches signing a Covenant agreement and eligible for the "signing bonus" will receive a check about a month after we receive the completed agreement. "Certified" Covenant churches, and churches participating at the Report Only level, will receive checks in early May of each year that the program requirements have been met by the annual March 1 deadline.
The website says I need a personal account to sign up for training or work on a Covenant Report or Plan. Why do I need my own account? In order to keep track of individual training credits, each person involved with Covenant program participation needs to have a personal Covenant account on healthfund.org. This doesn't mean every team member necessarily needs to have access to a computer, though. More details are available on the account login page.
What information is needed to complete the Healthy Congregations Report and or Health Ministry Plan forms? If you just want to see what kinds of questions are on the forms, you can view a Sample Report Form [Word | PDF] or Sample Planning Form [Word | PDF] to learn more. Please note that although representative, these downloadable forms are samples only. To submit an actual Report or Plan, be sure to use the official online forms.
If your church is not yet participating and you have questions about the program, please contact Jeff Gamber for assistance. If your church has already signed up, please contact the program administrator, Judy Johnston, for more information at jjohnsto@kumc.edu or 316-293-1832.