IGRC pastors die, both part of 2018 retiring class

Active pastor Thomas Wilber, who was serving at Pittsfield UMC, died Friday after a brief illness. Arrangements will be announced as soon as they are available.

Retired local pastor Janice Reeder, who retired in December 2017 after serving seven years at Danville Farmers Chapel, also died on Friday.

A Memorial Celebration of Life Service will be held at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, at Farmers Chapel UMC in Danville with visitation 30 minutes prior to service. Memorial donations may be made to Fair Hope Ministry at 908 May St. in Danville, IL, a ministry that began under Reeder's ministry at Farmers Chapel.

See complete obituary for Janice Reeder...

Both Wilber and Reeder were to be recognized as part of the 2018 Retiring Class at Annual Conference.

Annual Conference registration is open!

Registration for the 2018 Annual Conference is now open through May 17. Registration has also opened for Youth Camp and Childcare during Annual Conference.

The Annual Conference will get underway at 10 a.m. Thursday, June 7, with workshops and conclude by noon on Saturday, June 9 following the Service of Ordination. A tentative agenda has been posted and persons can use the Sched app to create their own customized schedule for the Annual Conference. The Sched app also allows for last-minute changes that are pushed out to everyone who is using it.

New process for Annual Conference materials

All 2018 Conference Registration Material packets will be picked up ON SITE in the Registration Office in the Terrazo Lobby beginning Thursday, June 7 at 7:30 a.m. Registration materials include parking passes, special meal tickets, roll call card, name badges and supplemental packets.

Tornado totes offering at Annual Conference

Churches in the Illinois Great Rivers Conference are urged to purchase plastic totes that are invaluable during tornadoes and floods. This is an item not a part of UMCOR's response but are warehoused by the Midwest Mission Distribution Center and distributed when the need arises.

Specific sizes are still being finalized but what would be envisioned is that totes could be filled with heavy duty trash bags, work gloves and permanent markers.

More information will be shared shortly.

The in-kind offering is in addition to special offerings for Our Conference, Our Kids; the Tom Brown Scholarship at Wiley College and an offering for the Ordinands' Trip.

ERT training sometimes begins at home

Vandalia First UMC started training an Emergency Response Team Jan. 20 as part of the conference's sponsored UMCOR program. Ann Schwarm finished the program on Saturday.

But instead of responding to some disaster, members of the team responded to the Schwarm home following an EF-2 tornado that hit the Schwarm home April 3. Of the 19 members of the crew, 17 were at the home, helping to remove furniture and other property for storage. They were joined by other volunteers to help the family pack and clean up.

Close a church, open a ministry?

While there is no quick fix for the British church’s deep membership decline, the Rev. Martyn Atkins knows what does not work.

“We mustn’t be naive enough to think that success for the British Methodist Church lies in how many old chapels you can keep up,” said Atkins, who has spent a number of years looking for ways to attract new disciples through the church’s  “Fresh Expressions”  program.

“It’s much more a case of, if you close a church, what new ministry are you going to open?” he asked. Instead of putting the money back in the pot to keep other buildings open, he advised, “Invest in people. Invest in ministry. Invest in ideas.”

British Methodism had more than 600,000 members in 1980. But that number had dropped to 188,000 worshipping in 4,512 local churches in the  Statistics for Mission  report submitted to 2017 Methodist Conference, with most members at retirement age.

How a small church can build a marketing plan

When you imagine a corporate marketing plan, it’s easy to think of advertising campaigns with print ads, broadcast commercials and glitzy websites. A hefty price tag goes with that, and most local churches have neither the budget nor the interest in paying that sum.

Yet, small churches with limited resources can think like a marketing firm and achieve their goals for local visibility. The same process used by ad agencies seeking to win new accounts can be thought of as a two-phase approach: research and strategy.

Bret McCardle unpacks that process.

EZRA Year-End Reporting deadline extended

The deadline for 2017 year-end statistical reports has been extended to April 15.

The Internet address for on-line submission is: http://ezra.gcfa.org or you can use the link from www.igrc.org at the top that says “Ezra Report Login.”

Your Username is the six-digit number assigned to the church by GCFA. This number is found on your remittance report.

Your initial password is "password". Even if you established a password last year, it has been reset to “password”.

A reminder: once the information on the various tables have been completed, churches are reminded they still have to submit their forms in order to complete the process.

Golden Cross Sunday

May 13

God works through your prayers and support in acts of mercy to bless the lives of individuals of all ages and at all stages of life.

Your 10 Golden Cross ministries are hard at work every day in their individual settings across our conference bringing hope and healing to people from cradle to grave.

Golden Cross Sunday is always the second Sunday in May, Mother’s Day. When you give, your offering is divided equally among all 10 ministries.

And it is also multiplied, because we are stronger and more efficient together. When you give to support these excellent ministries, God blesses your generosity and the lives you touch will be forever changed.

Native American Ministries Sunday is one of United Methodism’s six churchwide special Sundays with offerings.

Our gifts on Native American Ministries Sunday support work with Native Americans in annual conferences and across our connection. Native American ministries are located in both rural and urban communities.

Half of the gifts collected on this special Sunday provide seminary scholarships for Native Americans, training leaders to be in ministry with Native Americans many years into the future. 

We celebrate Native American Ministries Sunday with a spirit of celebration and reconciliation. We celebrate the rich and vibrant contributions made by Native Americans to The United Methodist Church

Sexual ethics makeup session

A Sexual Ethics Training makeup session has been scheduled for those who were unable to attend any of the three February sessions, on Saturday, June 23, at the Sugar Creek UMC, 1022 New City Road, Chatham. The session will be from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and is mandatory for all pastors and laypersons appointed or assigned to local churches.

Registration is open through June 16.