United Women in Faith
United Women in Faith is the public-facing name of United Methodist Women in the United States, the women’s organization of The United Methodist Church. Our organizational Purpose and
local church group Purpose were both adopted in 1972 shortly after the church
union that formed the then new denomination and are detailed in The Book of
Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 2016, in ¶1902 and in ¶256, respectively.
¶ 1902—United Methodist Women shall be actively engaged in fulfilling the mission
of Christ and the Church and United Methodist Women’s national organization shall
interpret the Purpose of United Methodist Women for the whole organization. With
continuing awareness of the concerns and responsibilities of the Church in today’s
world, United Methodist Women shall support ministry with and advocate for the
oppressed and dispossessed with special attention to the needs of women,
children, and youth; shall work to build a supportive community among women; and shall engage in activities that foster growth in the Christian faith, mission education, and Christian social involvement throughout the organization.
Mission Initiatives
The entire program and organization of United Methodist Women focuses on mission. Our mission initiatives include:
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Providing opportunities to grow spiritually
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Equipping women & girls to be leaders
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Providing transformative educational experiences
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Organizing for growth & flexibility
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Working for justice through service & advocacy
Focus on Women, Children & Youth
From its beginning, United Methodist Women has focused on ministries with women, children, and youth.
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Women
Women have been empowered by leadership education opportunities, mission education, the Reading Program, tools for advocacy and more. These opportunities allow women to act and to empower women in the United States and abroad.
United Methodist Women also support programs and projects aimed at improving the special needs of women because of their refugee statuses, their immigration statuses, situations in which they are abused, their high illiteracy rate in some countries, their economic dependence, their educational disparities, and much more.
As followers of Jesus Christ whose own body symbolizes cycles of brokenness and wholeness, United Methodist Women are committed to breaking cycles of despair, injustice, with women, children and youth, we become givers and receivers of Christ-centered cycles of hope. This is done through our words and actions at the local level all the way to our global missions.
Children
A special emphasis of United Methodist Women is children, because women care for children. If children are raised with safety, security, food, shelter, education, and basic human rights, these children will grow to be loving and secure adults. United Methodist Women believe deeply in responding to Jesus' mandate to "care for the least of these."
Children often do not have a voice in this world, so United Methodist Women cares for them and advocates on their behalf. United Methodist Women commits to children globally through community centers, educational opportunities for refugee children, homes for street children, advocacy against sexual exploitation and child labor, educational institutions and much more.
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Youth
United Methodist Women work with youth organizations globally and with programs and projects that support and empower youth. United Methodist Women also enables youth to be in mission by support of the US-2 program, the mission intern program and the Global Justice Volunteers program
A special emphasis of the organization has been to involve young women in all the ministries and leadership of United Methodist Women. A teen and college/university women consultative group helps direct the program of United Methodist Women to be more inclusive of younger women