Bishop's Easter message

Bishop Beard writes in his Easter message, "The wonderful affirmation of Easter is that Christ did what he predicted. He told his disciples that he would be condemned and killed, but that on the third day he would rise from the dead. The disciples either forgot or they simply did not believe. It is comforting to know that Christ keeps his promises whether we remember them or not."

For Beard, the message hits close to home. "I have needed the assurance that comes from knowing that Christ completed his earthly mission. Like many of you our family has experienced the knock of death on our door far too many times. In the past 11 months we have had seven people within our close family circle experience physical death. We have said to each other, 'I wonder how people that do not have the hope that Christ provides deal with the sting of death?' As a follower of Christ, it is a comfort to know that his resurrection provides certain assurances."

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.

Beware of DocuSign email

It has been brought to our attention that persons are receiving emails from an IGRC Superintendent and staff in the form of a DocuSign email, asking the recipient to download the document and sign it. THIS IS A HACKING ATTEMPT which enables the hacker access to your entire Address Book. Just delete such emails and know we are working to get the problem resolved. Thanks!

As a best practice, it is always a wise move to contact the sender and asked if they sent such an email to confirm its legitimacy, especially if it doesn’t relate to any business you have with the sender. Usually, the other party usually tells me to expect such an email. Without such confirmation, delete it!

Amid tumult of 1968 a church came together

The year 1968 convulsed with assassinations, riots, war in Vietnam and student protests against that war. The Troubles revved up in Northern Ireland, and Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia.

At a time when it seemed much of the world was violently splitting apart, a group of Wesleyan Christians peacefully and joyfully were coming together.

On April 23, 1968, two bishops followed by two children, two youths, two adults, six ordained ministers, two church officers and finally all 10,000 people present joined hands and repeated in unison:

With those words in a Dallas auditorium , the 750,000-member Evangelical United Brethren Church and the 10.3 million-member Methodist Church became one church. The merger also brought people together in another way: marking the official dissolution of the Methodist Church’s racially segregated Central Jurisdiction.

Amid a tumultuous year — just weeks after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — a new United Methodist Church was born.

“It felt like the restoration of the Methodist movement,” said the Rev. Joseph Evers, a Methodist delegate to the 1968 Uniting Conference. He is now 91 and lives in Quincy.

Additional stories and features on the 1968 Uniting Conference can be found in the April issue of The Current (see below).

Liberians in U.S. anxious after DED termination

The future of an estimated 5,000 Liberians temporarily living in the United States is in jeopardy after President Donald Trump terminated the Deferred Enforced Departure for Liberia, effective a year from now on March 31, 2019.

Liberian United Methodists are among those affected and some church leaders participated in a letter-writing campaign asking Congress to extend the program.

RELATED STORY: Minnesota United Methodists advocate for Liberian refugees

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.

April issue of

The Current

The April issue of The Current includes a look back to the 1968 Uniting Conference where The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church came together to form The United Methodist Church.

Delegates from the Uniting Conference share their memories of the event and the manuscript of a sermon by Dr. Albert Outler is reprinted.

Several IGRC pastors share their reflections on the recently-completed conversations on A Way Forward held in seven locations around the Conference as well as other Conference news.

Click on the cover above to view or save the April issue.

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. Because of heavy registration in the past week, please note the change in location. The session will be from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and is is mandatory for all pastors and laypersons appointed or assigned to local churches.

Registration is open through June 16.