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We're back after a week's hiatus due to the launching of the new IGRC website.
There are a couple of new features to check out: The Church Portal in the upper right gives you an idea of how charge conference forms will be delivered next year. Churches can now update some of the information about the church by logging in with the church's GCFA number. There are also links to your weekly Vital Signs report, meaning you don't have to wait for the email reminder. You can also update your Current subscriptions or pull up your church's snapshot of statistical information.
A second feature is the Online Registration button located midway down on the right under the Quick Links. Click the button and you have one place where all of the active online registrations are located. IGRC Communications has worked hard to look at the analytics of where people navigate and help make it easier. Also, check out the Quick Link entitled Directories, where many different listings of information are packaged in one location.
We welcome your feedback as we attempt to perfect this design. The enewsletters will also be undergoing a design change to match the branding of the website.
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Certified Lay Minister training deadline is Saturday
The registration deadline for attendance at CLM Module 1 Training is Saturday, Nov. 11.
Those desiring to begin the CLM Training must be at least a Certified Lay Servant. The pre-requisite requirement for attendance at Module 1 is the Advanced Lay Servant Course
Discover Your Spiritual Gifts (or the online course through
www.BeADisciple.com titled
Rediscovering Our Spiritual Gifts). Here is the other information for Module 1...
Title: Module 1: Call and Covenant for Ministry
Dates: Friday evening & Saturday, Dec. 1 & 2, 2017
Times: Friday--6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Saturday--9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Location: East Bay Camp
24248 Ron Smith Memorial Highway, Hudson, IL 61748
Cost: $95
Registration deadline: Saturday, Nov. 11
Instructor: Rev. Kathy Crozier, Loraine UMC and IGRC Vocational Discernment Coordinator
Rev. Jim Crozier, Port Byron: First UMC
Contact: Cheryl Cain cherylbecker52@yahoo.com 618-322-5246 or Ava Williams adwilliams2@juno.com 217-563-7439
More information is also available on this page of the Conference website http://www.igrc.org/modules
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Register for Covenant Keepers 2018
Registration for Covenant Keepers 2018 is now open. The event will be Jan. 29-30 at the Regency Conference Center in O'Fallon. Theme for the event is Fanning the Flames. Speakers for the event are the Revs. Rudy and Juanita Rasmus, pastors of St. Johns Church in downtown Houston, Texas.
Childcare is available upon request but registration is needed in advance.
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Sexual ethics training at three locations Feb. 6-8
Sexual Ethics Training events will be Feb. 6-8, at three sites throughout the Conference. The training is required for all persons who are providing pastoral leadership in local churches. The training is a one-day event. Sites for the training are still being secured and will be announced in the near future.
Training locations are as follows:
- Feb. 6 -- Mt. Vernon West Salem Trinity UMC (note: this is a different location than was previously announced)
- Feb. 7 -- Springfield First UMC
- Feb. 8 -- Peoria First UMC
All three trainings will run from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Register online...
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Bishops called to navigate 'off the map'
United Methodist bishops find themselves "off the map" as they try to navigate a way forward through the church's impasse over homosexuality, said Bishop Bruce R. Ough.
"There is currently no larger or intractable barrier to the mission, unity and vitality of The United Methodist Church than the matter of homosexuality," the Council of Bishops president said November 6,
in his fall address to 127 of his episcopal colleagues. Ough also leads the Dakotas-Minnesota area.
Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that with "a rock-solid, Christ-centered core," the church can find a way forward that "maintains unity, honors our distinctive Wesleyan connectional values and has the property of being continuously adaptive."
He likened his fellow bishops to the U.S. explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who expected to navigate their way to the Pacific Ocean by canoe but found their path blocked by the rugged Rocky Mountains.
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Bishop urges churches to hold prayer walks Nov. 18
Pointing to Jesus' command that the church was to be a House of Prayer and urging us to get outside the walls of the church, Bishop Beard is asking churches to engage their communities through prayer walks.
Bishop Beard offers some suggestions in an article in the October issue of
The Current and
additional prayer resources are posted on the IGRC website.
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Council's stand on ministerial candidates unchanged
In an Oct. 27 ruling on the duties of a conference board of ordained ministry, The United Methodist Church's top court re-stated
its earlier opinion that all qualifications of ministerial candidates must be examined.
The new ruling, on a bishop's decision of law in the Baltimore-Washington Conference, was one of several decisions from the United Methodist Judicial Council's fall session related to the topic of sexual orientation. The council met Oct. 24-27 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles Airport.
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Liberians asked to pray for peaceful election
United Methodist Bishop Samuel J. Quire Jr., is calling on fellow Liberians to shun violence as they prepare to vote in the country's presidential run-off election.
"We cannot as a nation afford to experience any form of violence that would threaten our co-existence as a people," Quire said.
The run-off election between Vice President Joseph Boakai of the governing Unity Party and George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change had been scheduled for Nov. 7.
But on Nov. 6, the Supreme Court of Liberia halted all National Elections Commission activities leading to the run-off election pending the adjudication of the complaints of irregularities of the Oct. 10 presidential and legislative elections.
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Our Conference, Our Kids resources
available in District offices
Promotional materials to assist in your raising of funds for the Our Conference, Our Kids campaign are now available in District offices. Plan now for your year-end giving approach by getting the four-color brochures. Request a number equal to your average worship attendance so everyone can get one.
IGRC Communications has also prepared a DVD-ROM that has a music video suitable as an offertory as well as two promotional segments explaining the campaign which can be used in the weeks leading up to a special offering. The DVD-ROM, when played in a computer, also has closed captioning of the three video segments as well as PDF masters of the brochures and a bulletin insert that can be reproduced and printed.
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Conference Center, Area Office, district offices closed
The Conference Center, Area Office and the district offices will be closed Friday in observance of Veterans' Day. The offices will reopen with their normal schedules on Monday, Nov. 13.
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Sincerely,
Paul E. Black
Illinois Great Rivers Conference
217-529-2848
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