More than 3,000 United Methodists from across Indiana will visit Ball State's campus June 25-28. Hosted by the university's Office of Conferences and Special Events, this gathering represents the largest conference ever held on campus.

The formerly separate north and south conferences of the church will become the very first unified Indiana United Methodist Conference of the church's Indiana clergy and lay representatives. The theme of the four-day event is Rethink Church, also a national advertising theme of the United Methodist Church across the country. The conference will include educational presentations by the Rev. Dr. Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of the 15,500-member United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in suburban Kansas City, and the Rev. Dr. David Bell who serves as vice president of stewardship with the United Methodist Foundation of Michigan. 

Indiana United Methodist Bishop Mike Coyner will lead a Friday evening Communion Service at 7 p.m., a Sunday morning Ordination Service at 10 a.m. for new pastors, and the appointment of 1,000 pastors to their congregations across Indiana.

For their Saturday afternoon in Muncie, more than 1,000 volunteers attending the conference will disperse into the community to help the city clean streets, visit residents in nursing homes, work with food pantries, soup kitchens and the Red Cross, swing hammers with Habitat for Humanity and join Covenant Partners Ministries in a massive community outreach day. 

In addition to providing revenue for the university from otherwise unused campus facilities, summer conferences, such as the Indiana United Methodist Church conference, bring revenue to local merchants as conference participants purchase food and services in the community.

For more information about conferences on the Ball State campus, visit our Web site at www.bsu.edu/conferences.