On May 18-19, United Methodists around the globe will unite in service with their local communities for the fourth annual Change the World weekend. People in more than 1,500 locations internationally observed Change the World in 2012. United Methodist Communications has created several free planning resources including a sermon series and ideas for service projects. To locate an event in your area, go to RethinkChurch.org

We now have a Facebook presence for Outreach Ministry.  We hope this will provide another venue where we can better connect with one another as we proclaim the love of Jesus in the world through our missional community of the North Carolina Conference.  We also hope it will be a place of celebration of the many ways you share and participate in connectional mission; a space where we might continue to remind one another of God’s amazing love, particularly for the poor and vulnerable; and a point of journey where we might discover more of the many possibilities for joining in the mission and justice of the Way of Jesus.   We invite you to join us there as a friend and participate in our mission of disciple-making and transforming God’s world into that place we so often pray for, “On earth as it is in heaven.”  Please also extend this invitation to your other Facebook friends.

Nancy Van Antwerp, our Deaconess recently appointed to the North Carolina Conference and serving with the Mission Team, will be our Facebook page administrator.   We are grateful for her service.  So, please join Nancy and our other friends over at Outreach Ministry of the NC Conference of the UMC on Facebook! 

Updated:  5-07-2013 at 12:45 PM

Hurricane Irene Recovery

Waves break over railings of a home’s raised deck. Storm surges were up to 8 feet in some areas.

The NC Conference continues to have an on-going operation for disaster recovery.  Over 27,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Irene in August 2011.  We have hundreds who remain unable to move back into heavily damaged or destroyed homes.  We have deep need for work teams to do both repair/reconstruction and new construction.  The NC Conference disaster recovery call center can place your team in an area where people continue to desperately need your help.   We have had over 350 teams respond and we need many, many more.  We are deeply grateful for the efforts and gifts of these wondrous servants.  We have been staggered by the generosity of those who have responded in such manner.   Please join us.  Your efforts will make a difference.

Anyone wanting to volunteer should email disasterresponse@nccumc.org or call 888-440-9167.

We continue to need additional funds for the recovery work.  Please also consider reaching out financially by giving to NC Storms Emergency Response – NC Advance #S-00176. 100% of every gift to this Advance will go to storm response.  You can give online at:  Hurricane Irene Giving

You can also send funds to:  NC Conference, P.O. Box 60053, Charlotte, NC 28260.  Please be sure to note Advance #S-00176.

— Steve Taylor/Outreach Team Coordinator

Rural church nominations for consideration of the Key Taylor Award are needed by May 17. 

Congregations can nominate themselves. For 2013, $1300 will be awarded.  The award, sponsored through the United Methodist Foundation, is to call attention to the mission work of all rural churches by honoring the specific achievements of one rural church.  To nominate a church, respond via email in narrative form on one page to the criteria below by May 17 to Kathy Duncan (kduncan@nccumc.org)  at the Office of Outreach Ministries.  Please include the names of the church and district.

●  The church is in a community of Read more »

Young Adults Invited to Apply for Mission Program

Young adults may now apply for the 2013 class of Mission Interns and US-2s. Feb. 15 is the deadline to submit application materials for these long-term mission assignments through the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries.

Mission Interns will now commit to 25 months of service that include 20 months of international service, followed by two and a half months of integration and interpretation in their home country.  US-2s will continue to commit to two years of service in the United States.

Young adults are encouraged prayerfully to consider applying for these programs if they:

• are between the ages of 20 and 30,
• have a bachelor’s degree or equivalent life experience,
• feel called to address the root causes of injustice,
• are open to new settings and new perspectives,
• want hands-on experience living in Christian community, and
• feel called to serve with, not to or for others.

Organizations interested in being a placement site are encouraged to apply before March 24.

For more information and an application, please email the young adult mission service office. Please share this information with any young people whom you think might be interested.

The full press release includes program details and is available on the Global Ministries website www.umcmission.org.

Please join us for the 2013 Come to the Table Conferences:  People of Faith Relieving Hunger and Supporting Local Agriculture.  These conferences include inspiring plenaries, topical breakout sessions, lunch, and a unique chance to meet partners engaged in local food systems and hunger relief work.

EASTERN REGION
Monday, February 4, 2013
Kinston Community Arts Council
Kinston, NC

PIEDMONT REGION
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
UNC Greensboro
Greensboro, NC

WESTERN REGION 
Friday, March 15, 2013
Southwestern Community College
Sylva, NC

Workshop topics will include:

Come to the Table is a project of the Rural Life Committee of the NC Council of Churches, coordinated by RAFI with support from the Duke Endowment. Questions?  Contact Sarah Gibson at sarah@rafiusa.org, Francesca Hyatt at fhyatt@rafiusa.org or call Sarah at (919) 259-5169.

“When I served as a missionary at the Robeson County Church and Community Center,” says NC Conference Outreach Team Coordinator, Steve Taylor, “it was one of my true blessings to partner with dozens of youth and adult work teams in the Center’s housing ministry.  I was always amazed at the passion and energy of the youth and young adults as they ministered to poor people in Robeson County who often had few options and little voice.  The young people’s willingness to engage the ‘hard spaces’ of ministry was a vital witness to Jesus who always goes to, enters in, and calls us to be with those whom he calls ‘the least of these.’  And I was always reminded that these young folks are some of the best of who we are as United Methodists.”

There are so many opportunities for young people in our United Methodist Church.  It is simply a story we must tell and make available.  Young adults have long-term opportunities to serve in ministries of love and justice that fully reflect a deeper call to Christian living.  To name a few:

The Mission Intern Program is a missionary ministry designed to place young adults in a cultural setting different from their own.  The three year ministry allows the participants to spend half their time outside of the United States and half of their time in cross-cultural settings inside the U.S.  It is a ministry designed to allow young adults to live out a radical expression of servanthood, justice, and walking inside the life of Jesus.

US-2 Ministry Program provides a missionary opportunity for young adults to serve in cross-cultural experiences in ministries of service and justice within the bounds of the United States.  Participants work in a myriad of different settings, living out a witness of love and advocacy in the name of Christ.  Young adults spend two years in ministry at their placement sites engaged in work that is transformational for the community and for the participant.  They live out the witness and incarnational presence of Jesus.

You can read more about these opportunities of missionary service as young adults tell their own missionary stories of life and hope and wonder.  

Of course, there are many other opportunities for youth and young people.  In short-term mission programs, like Global Justice Volunteers, young people in mission make a difference.  Whether participating in a program to raise awareness of social issues, networking with others around the world, volunteering in a clinic, or dedicating their lives to long-term missionary service, young people transform their communities.

And not to forget, UMVIM and other volunteer opportunities through our local congregations.

So … Go for it!  Be Mission!

Waves break over the railing of a raised deck as Hurricane Irene storm surge flows inland, flooding, damaging, or destroying thousands of NC homes.

North Carolina United Methodists, more than most, understand the pain and suffering that our friends to the north experienced from Hurricane Sandy.   In response, United Methodists across the NC Conference have donated tens of thousands of dollars and have shipped thousands of cleaning buckets.   Additionally, as the response phase moves into long-term recovery, we are certain that many will feel the call of God to go and stand with our friends in New York, New Jersey, Delaware  and other devastated areas.

As we pray and respond to the disaster north of us, we also remember that here in North Carolina, many of our next-door neighbors continue to suffer the affects of Hurricane Irene.   Several hundred volunteer work teams, United Methodists and many other denominations, have assisted in our recovery efforts and we have completed repairs on over 200 homes.  For this we give God deep thanks, and we NEED several hundred more work teams and monetary donations to continue the work on over 350 more homes or build new homes, with families who desperately need our help.

Home with internal walls washed away from Irene storm surge.

So, as we pray for and respond to the needs of our neighbors north of us, let us also join with our neighbors here in North Carolina who continue to live inside the disaster that is Hurricane Irene.   As Jesus tells us, when we minister to those who are in such deep need, it is Jesus himself to whom we minister … and Jesus will in turn, minister to us.

To help, please contact Ann Huffman at the NC Disaster Call Center – 888-440-9167 or: disasterresponse@nccumc.org to schedule a work team for a day, a week or longer.

We continue to need additional funds for the recovery work.  Please also consider reaching out financially by giving to NC Storms Emergency Response – NC Advance #S-00176. 100% of every gift to this Advance will go to storm response.  You can give online at:  Hurricane Irene Giving

You can also send funds to:  NC Conference, P.O. Box 60053, Charlotte, NC 28260.  Please be sure to note Advance #S-00176.

Be the hands and feet and heart and voice of Jesus, Be the light!  Help our neighbors return home.  

Volunteers unload cleaning buckets to distribute to flooding victims.

3MC – The Methodist Men’s Ministry Center, in partnership with Goodwill Industries of Durham, and many, many NC Conference United Methodist congregations, has recently shipped 4335 cleaning buckets for Hurricane Sandy storm victims.  The cleaning buckets were distributed through UMCOR in Egg Harbor and Ventnor in New Jersey, and through the Salvation Army in Bethpage, NY.  Additionally, another 110 buckets were picked up by St. Francis – a Catholic disaster response organization in NY.

Because of this massive shipment, we have an immediate and continual need for FULLY assembled flood buckets to continue to meet unmet needs and also to back-fill our depleted stocks.

Please do not send partially completed buckets or supply items.  We need fully assembled buckets ready for immediate shipment.  Your group is invited to bring materials and buckets to 3MC and use the packing area/tables to assemble your cleaning buckets.  The 3MC staff is available to answer questions and offer guidance in the packing process.

Please deliver the assembled buckets to the 3MC warehouse at 676 Community Dr Goldsboro NC between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM, Monday through Saturday.

Please contact:

Sim Honeycutt (919) 552-8274 sim@tygof.com
3MC Facility (919) 739-9167 

They will ensure someone is available at the warehouse to receive your donation.  Also, if needed, they can arrange for someone to pick up you cleaning buckets for transport to 3MC.

Please pack the bucket as noted on the UMCOR Relief & Supply website.  Follow the link for Cleaning Bucket and also please check out the video on Cleaning Buckets.

We have begun receiving calls and emails regarding possible material donations for those victims of Hurricane Sandy and also generous servants wishing to go to the disaster zone and serve.

Our first advice is this:  If you are not trained and certified in Early Response, please do not go to the disaster area at this time.  In many places you will not be allowed to enter the affected areas and if you do get in, the area could pose significant danger to you.

This is the information as listed on the NY Conference Disaster Center website:

NY Conference UMC Disaster Response Coordinator: Rev. Joseph Ewoodzie

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This information is from the New Jersey state website: