CCYM members, Jordan Platt (Downtown Mitchell First UMC) and Ava Laffey (Alexandria) helped present the missional report at the 2025 Annual Conference.

The 2024-25 Missional Report reminded attendees at the 32^nd Session of the Dakotas Annual Conference that we were created to love boldly. This isn’t just the annual conference theme or logo—it is our identity and purpose—a calling that Dakotas United Methodists have been living passionately this past year.

“It is good to be to be reminded that we are created to love boldly, to be encouraged to serve with the joy of Jesus, and to be equipped to lead with courage as we seek to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” stated Rev. Jeanne Sortland, Wimbeldon-Kensel, who serves as the chair of the Dakotas Conference Common Table.
Eight presenters shared these highlights during the first plenary session on June 6, 2025:

• Dakotas Camping Ministry continues to provide powerful experiences of God’s love made real as they hosted nearly 1,000 campers last summer. These encounters with Christ, Community and Creation are possible because of the generosity of Dakotas United Methodists through both apportionment giving and direct support through camp scholarships.
• God’s love was lived most powerfully and seen most completely in our communities and local churches. Churches like Linton and Mitchell Fusion welcomed children, youth, and college students back to school in new ways. Mission to their community was the emphasis of Piedmont Grace’s Hoses and Hallelujahs, and Mandan’s Vacation Bible School mission focus modeled a commitment to being on mission and in mission with our neighbors.
• Activities like Waffles and Jesus at Grand Forks Zion, Bring Your Own Banana at Milnor, Coffee and Conversation at Watertown First, Love Harrisburg, or Candy Land and Jesus at Fargo First fostered a culture of open hearts and doors as churches put relationship first as a way of sharing God’s incarnational love.
• Through the Dakotas Connection Rural Ministry Initiative, Abundance Parish (Burke-Gregory-Herrick) and Miller-Highmore-Harold continue to explore ways to reimagine the multi-point charge model. Churches like Murdo-Draper-White River, Drayton, and Britton are utilizing rural ministry grants to discover how technology can break through the barriers of geography to provide quality preaching. Churches like Alpena, Virgil, Broadland, Henry, Frankfort, Carpenter, Gayville-Volin, Rugby, Camp Crook, Pembina, and Humboldt are utilizing clergy-lay team ministry models to ensure that vital ministry continues in some of our smallest communities.
• The Holy Spirit movement of bridge-building is happening in Plankinton, South Dakota, as Sioux Falls Sunnycrest Renuevo launched a new bi-lingual contemporary worship service on Sunday mornings, providing a place for encountering the Spirit and building relationships with our neighbors. 
• Inspired by the connectional ministry of conference youth events, youth leaders at Sioux Falls First and Asbury, created a Youth Night for area teens. Dakota Wesleyan also fueled this connectional youth ministry with an Area Youth Night last fall. In local churches like Philip United Church and Jamestown St. Paul’s, the Spirit is raising up a next generation of bold spiritual leaders. And multiple churches are making “Pray-grounds” or “Grace Spaces” in their sanctuaries as a tangible way to say, “All Are Welcome” in worship.
• The commitment to our greater connection was seen through the faithful giving to apportionments.Nearly 92% of Dakotas Conference churches made this a priority in regular giving. We saw creative acts of stewardship and generosity this year like Mitchell Fusion challenging their congregation to participate in a Reverse Offering—giving $3000 to church members to multiply and impact their local community; or Sioux Falls Wesley hosting a gleaning event where excess produce was gathered from gardens across the city and local chefs created things like salsa and marinara sauce for distribution.

The Missional Report celebrated the ways the Dakotas Conference is boldly sharing the love of Jesus.

“Each person from your church is an ambassador of Christ, an agent of peace, reconciliation, justice, and righteousness in their everyday lives," Sortland shared. “We want to continue to encourage that work and celebrate it together. This report of the work of 'the Conference' is a report of God’s work through all of us. WE are the church!! Let us be inspired to live and love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously!”

Watch the livestream recording of the 2024-25 Missional Report.