Annual Conference Secretary, the Rev. Ethan Carnes announced Thursday that an error was discovered in the list of churches receiving an additional lay member to the 2021 Annual Conference, impacting 10 churches.

Bishop Beard has announced that Covenant Keepers 2021 will be held virtually on a single day -- Thursday, Jan. 28.

Registration will be required to receive credentials for logging into the Zoom meeting. Registration will open later next week.

Speakers for the event will be Rev. Susan Beaumont, author of How to Lead When You Don't Know Where You Are. Beaumont is a consultant, coach, author and spiritual director who worked with hundreds of congregations and denominational bodies across the United States and Canada. She is known for her ground-breaking work in the leadership dynamics of large congregations.

The other platform speaker, Romal Tune, is a thought leader, speaker and author. The focus of his life’s work is using the power of storytelling to bring about meaningful change. I teach individuals, non-profits and companies how to tap into the uniqueness of their stories and experience exponential growth.

The Illinois Conference of Churches issued a statement Thursday calling for passage of pandemic relief aimed at addressing the needs of the common good as well as a call toward civility in political discourse.

The full statement is as follows:

The Illinois Conference of Churches is is a statewide ecumenical (unifying) organization with 27 member judicatories of 13 denominations representing Protestant, Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox Christian traditions. The IGRC is a member judicatory and IGRC retired pastor, the Rev. Wally Carlson, serves as co-chair of the organization's Leadership Team.

31 percent of all donations are given in the month of December. 12 percent of all giving comes in the last three days of the year. And 28 percent of non-profits receive 50 percent of their annual funds from their year-end ask.

Gleaning from several sources, UMC Resource provide the following tips to churches in composing a year-end letter that gets results.

Questions may be emailed to the Accessibility Ministries Committee Chair, Rev. Randy Shepard, at randy.shepard622@gmail.com.

All IGRC churches are invited to Ignite a Prayer Revolution. The short series of videos found at https://www.igrcreach1000.org/revolutionary-prayer will challenge your church to take simple, yet powerful, steps to open yourselves to the next season of ministry God has for you.

Charge conference forms for 2020 are now available to pastors and churches via their Church Portal page on the IGRC website.

To access the forms, click on the Church Portal link located in the upper right hand corner of the homepage.

Once into the Church Portal Page, select: Church/Charge Conference forms from the right-hand menu and then click on the 2020 Charge Conference Form link. Links are also there for 2019, 2018 and 2017 should you need to reference any of them.

This year's forms can be saved without completing all of the required fields on a form. However, a church will not be able to submit the forms to the District office unless all required fields are answered.

District offices may have additional instructions for your church and a schedule of charge conferences will be announced in the near future.

Clergy, for more info about this and other resources provided, please join our private Pastoral Care and Counseling Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/285654304888848 or go to our website by clicking the button below.