The NC Conference Transition Fund is an additional way qualified participants can save money and earn additional contributions toward their retirement savings. This added Transition Fund contribution increases the participant’s personal savings for retirement and earns credit toward an additional discretionary contribution by the NC Conference each year to the participant’s UMPIP account. Earning the conference contribution begins after 5 years of membership.
Announcements
Now Announcing Pilgrimage 2024
Peace and blessings from NCC Pilgrimage.
Pilgrimage 2024 Event Details Now Live
- The weekend schedule for Pilgrimage 2024 can be found here
- Read about the Theme for Pilgrimage 2024 here
- View Food & Lodging information here
Speakers at Pilgrimage 2024
Meet our speakers for Pilgrimage 2024! For the 31st year of NCC Pilgrimage, we are excited to focus on our Methodist roots.
We are excited to welcome Reverend Adam Baker (he/him) as one of our speakers. Adam is one of the pastors of The Gathering, a rapidly growing urban, multi-site, and inclusive United Methodist church in St. Louis, Missouri.
Kuda Kagura is joining us for Pilgrimage 2024! Kuda was born in Zimbabwe, grew up in Graham, NC and attended Cedar Cliff UMC.
Read more about the Pilgrimage 2024 keynote speakers here.
Get Involved at Pilgrimage 2024
Youth, you’re invited to participate in the event as a worship leader. Opportunities are available to be a worship leader in sharing your story, sharing creative arts gifts, serving in the House Band and more!
Read more about the opportunities to be a youth worship leader at Pilgrimage 2024 here.
Prayer for Appointment-Making Season: Disparate Emotions
As we are in appointment-making season, Bishop Shelton has encouraged all of us to pray for the Cabinet, clergy and their families, and congregations. We will be sharing prayers over the next few weeks and encourage you to share them with your church.
Read the next prayer in the series written by Rev. Laura Johnson.
God of grace, we pray for pastors in transition as they experience a variety of strong and disparate emotions in this season of change.
God of our yesterdays, we pray for these pastors as they remember their tenure of ministry in their current appointment. Fill them with gratitude for the holy moments that revealed your grace at work in, through, and around them. Fill them with joy over the lives they saw transformed by the light of your love. Bring to their minds the occasions in which you led them, taught them, anointed them, and blessed them to be your agents of love, hope, and reconciliation. Comfort them when regret assails them over mistakes and lost opportunities. Console them when their heart aches over memories of conflicts, disappointments, and unrealized dreams. Give them your peace when grief overwhelms them as they prepare to say goodbye to people they have loved and served wholeheartedly. Grant them the courage to look upon their tenure of ministry at this appointment with eyes of grace, trusting that you work all things for good for those who love you and are called according to your purpose.
God of our today, we pray for these pastors as they live in the in-between. In-between the farewell lunches and nice-to-meet-you coffees, nurture their spirits. In-between the transition documents they create for the next pastor and the ones they receive from the pastor they will follow, ease their stress. In-between packing up their belongings and making preparations for a new office, a new home, and a new community, sustain them with your abiding Presence.
God of our tomorrows, we pray for these pastors as they look ahead to their next appointment. Bless their hope as they imagine what good you wish to accomplish through them. Bless their hearts of love that are open, ready, and willing to serve new people. Bless their excited eyes of faith that eagerly look for your possibilities and rejoice over the evidence of your grace leading their way. Bless the joy with which they will step into their new appointment, especially the joy that coexists with grief and anxiety. Bless their courage to trust in who you have created them to be and bless their confident servanthood that will reveal the heart of Jesus.
God of grace, we pray for these pastoral colleagues in transition as they embrace this season of change. Meet them in all the strong and disparate emotions they feel. Bless them with the assurance of your compassion, your presence, and your enduring faithfulness to them and to the Church of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Image: Unsplash / Pablo García Saldaña
Local Church Appointment Announcements Begin April 7
Yesterday, Bishop Connie Mitchell Shelton announced new Cabinet appointments, effective July 1, 2024. The Bishop and Cabinet continue to discern local church appointments that will take place this summer.
District Superintendents will contact S/PPRC Chairs and pastors receiving full-time appointments on Friday, April 5, with a public announcement in congregations on Sunday, April 7. District Superintendents will contact S/PPRC Chairs and pastors receiving part-time appointments between Monday, April 8, and Friday, May 17.
Two lay leadership members and full-time and part-time clergy receiving new appointments should plan to attend an in-person Transition Seminar on Sunday, May 19, from 3-6 pm. Registration and locations will be shared in a later announcement.
Bishop Shelton requests your continued prayer support so that healthy churches and effective leaders in all places make disciples of Jesus that transform the world.
Flex Spending Accounts & Care Coordinators
Check your Flex Spending Account balances and file for 2023 reimbursements! The Healthcare FSA and the Dependent Care FSA allow $610 to be carried over from 2023 to 2024. Any balance above that will be forfeited if not spent by December 31. Claims on expenses incurred by December 31, 2023, can be filed by April 30, 2024.
Where Do I Find Information About My HealthFlex Insurance Benefits?
Care Coordinators can help you with anything related to health care and benefits. Contact your Care Coordinator at (833) 762-0876, Monday-Friday, 8:30 am – 10:00 pm, Eastern, or visit mywespathhealth.com.
Disaster Ministries 2024 Training Retreat
Are you interested in learning and enhancing your disaster response skills?
Join us for two days of learning, networking, and skill-building at MERCI in Goldsboro, NC. Meals and accommodations will be provided.
Space is limited, so register now to save your spot! Registration closes on March 15, 2024.