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North Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church

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The Other Days Of The Week – Episode 15: Re-start w/ Aaron Hayworth

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Aaron Hayworth (Pastor, The Church at Six Forks) joins Amie via Zoom to discuss new routines, church re-starts, and the best way to cook meat without a grill.

Gold Mine of Free United Methodist Ebooks

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I have often been disappointed with the lack of books by Methodist authors available at the public library. It turns out, they have just been hiding.

If you have a public library card in North Carolina, you can access hundreds of free United Methodist ebooks including recently published and popular titles. This post will tell you how and give you links to some of the most popular titles including some study participant books.

How to Get a Public Library Card

  1. If you are a resident of North Carolina, you are entitled to a public library card.
  2. Search online for your county public library.
  3. Look on their website for a link to register for a library card.
  4. If you already have a public library card, but you don’t know your library card number and password, you may need to apply for a new one. You will need the number and the password to access the free ebooks. Contact your local library for more info.

Where to Access These Free Ebooks

All North Carolina public library cardholders have free access to an online service called NC LIVE. NC LIVE is a large collection of databases of online resources. To find the Ebooks, follow these steps:

  1. Go to nclive.org.
  2. Click “Log in to your library” in the upper right corner.
  3. Choose your library system from the drop-down box. It is usually the name of your county. If you are having trouble, view this help page.
  4. Enter your library card number and password or PIN number you received when you registered.
  5. In the circled icons underneath the NC LIVE search box, click on Ebooks.
  6. Under “Browse NC LIVE Resources,” you will see a search box.
  7. Try searching for “Abingdon Press” (our United Methodist publisher) or “United Methodist.” Put the quotes around each search.
  8. Your results will reveal the titles of hundreds of free ebooks that you can download or read online.

More Tips

Looking through such a big list of titles to find what you want to read may be daunting. Here are some more ideas to narrow your search results.

Sort by Newest Titles

  1. At the top of your list of titles, you will see the number of titles in your search results “sorted by relevance.”
  2. Click on “relevance” and choose Date(newest).
  3. This will sort your results with the most recently published titles listed first.
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Filter by Subject

  1. Scroll down the page a bit until you see “Subject Terms” on the left side menu.
  2. At the bottom of the subject terms shown, click on More.
  3. You can sort the subject terms by rank, meaning that subjects with the most number of titles will be listed first. The number of titles with that subject term is listed in parenthesis next to the term. Click on the bold “Subject Terms” at the top of the list to sort by rank.
  4. Click on the check mark for subjects to include. Click on the X for subjects to exclude.
  5. Click Apply at the top of the subject term list.
  6. For example, you can choose to include only subjects about the Bible. Look through the whole list to find subjects that may be relevant to you.
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Search By Title, Author, or Keyword

Are you looking for a particular book? Maybe a participant book for a study you are doing? Click the “Back to NC LIVE” icon in the upper left corner. Click on Ebooks again and enter your search. Doing this will prevent you from searching within your current results only, yet you will still be searching only for ebooks (not articles, newspapers, etc.).

You can also type author names or keywords into this search box. For example, 15 books by Adam Hamilton are available to read online. Make sure that you include quotes around words that should only be found next to each other. Here are some ideas:

  • Bible commentary
  • Bible study
  • “United Methodist”
  • “John Wesley”
  • Wesleyan

So, How Do You Read These Books?

Once you find a title that you want to read, click on the title from your search results. You will have to choose your library’s name again. Then, you can choose to Read Online or Download Book.

Read Online: If you choose Read Online, the ebook will open inside ProQuest. You can search within the book, use the table of contents, highlight, add notes, and bookmark much like a regular e-reader. Watch this short video to see how the Reader works.

Download Book: If you choose Download Book, you will need to create a free ProQuest account and download Adobe Digital Editions (for free) to your device. You will also need a free Adobe ID to log in to Adobe Digital Editions. ProQuest will walk you through these steps or you can view the complete instructions. Once you have everything set up, you go back to ProQuest and choose a loan length up to a full year. Then, the book will be downloaded to your device and you can open it using Adobe Digital Editions. It will be added to your Adobe Digital Editions library.

Title Recommendations

To give you an idea of the excellent titles available, I’ve made some suggestions below. Many of these titles are in the NC Conference Media Center’s collection. The links go to the ebook page, but you will need to sign in with your ProQuest account (see above) before accessing them.

Small Group Studies

Devotionals

Christian Living

Families

Social Issues

Methodism

Church Leadership

Preaching

Youth & Children’s Ministry

Questions?

If you have questions about how to access these free ebooks, please contact the NC Conference Media Center at ldallas@nccumc.org, or use the chat box in the lower right corner of this website. You could also contact your local public library.

Coronavirus and History

Announcements

Looking for something to do during this time of having to stay home? Let me give you a couple of ideas for putting your time to good use. First, record what your church and church members are doing to get through this trying time and at the same time “be the church”. Secondly, now that you have some extra time you might want to consider doing some historical research on your church, your pastors, write a history about your church, or interview persons (on the phone or Zoom) about their feelings on the Pandemic or just any other subject that pertains to Methodism.

And the Archives can help you! We can suggest web sites for you to look at on the subject you are seeking information about, we can suggest ways for you to research the internet to find information, we just might have the information in our computers or on our personal bookshelves. So, don’t miss this opportunity to do something constructive for yourself, your church, your denomination.

What do you do with your finished product? You send it to the Archives at archives-history@nccumc.org or use this email address to contact us. What we will do with it; articles will possibly be posted on the conference site with your permission. All that we receive, will be scanned into our database and be available for researchers in the future who are seeking information on a particular subject.

Remember, what is common information today will be of historic interest in 50 or 100 years in the future.

Dennis Lamm
Archivist-NCCUMC

United Methodist Online Courses

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While children around the world are learning online, adults can also take advantage of the many online courses available for Christian education, leadership training, and spiritual growth. There are several United Methodist institutions that offer classes online.

BeADisciple.com

BeADisciple.com is a program of the Richard and Julia Wilke Institute for Discipleship at Southwestern College, a United Methodist institution in Winfield, Kansas. Students begin together, progress through materials together, and end together. Courses are conducted in small groups of about 5 – 20 with a trained facilitator or a certified instructor, so students and instructors have an opportunity to get to know one another. Individual students participate at the time of day that works best for them. Courses generally cost around $40-$70 each, but it might be more or less depending on the length of the course and whether or not the course is part of a certification program. All of the courses offer CEU credits. Course topics include:

  • Bible studies
  • Church leadership
  • Grief
  • Small groups
  • Spiritual growth
  • Stewardship
  • United Methodism
  • And more

BeADisciple.com is currently enrolling for these interesting courses and many others:

  • Finding Calm in the Storm
  • Planning for the Church Emergency
  • Introduction to the Enneagram
  • Leading Bible Study: Biblical Interpretation

Upper Room eLearning

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The Upper Room is a ministry of Discipleship Ministries of The United Methodist Church. They offer online courses in their Upper Room eLearning platform. Each course offers different features including video, audio, and textual content. These courses are self-paced with no official end date. Some of the courses earn CEU credits. Course prices range from $9 to $30. Many of these courses are based on books published by The Upper Room. Topics include:

  • Lent
  • Spiritual leadership
  • Prayer
  • And more

All of The Upper Room courses are currently enrolling because they are self-paced. Some interesting titles include:

  • Freedom From Worry
  • Prayer, Stress, and Our Inner Wounds
  • Facing Financial Struggle
  • Preparing the Way: Looking Beyond America’s Current Crisis of Faith

The Upper Room also offers an option to set up a private online classroom for your small group or congregation using their courses. There are simple instructions to do so.

Discipleship Ministries eLearning

See All the People online course

Discipleship Ministries of The United Methodist Church offers four eLearning courses for free. You could also choose to take the paid version of three of the courses to earn CEUs:

  • See All The People: Discipleship Begins with Relationship
  • How to Have a Courageous Conversation
  • Disciples Living Generously
  • How to Start Small Groups
  • The Committee

General Commission on Religion and Race

The General Commission on Religion and Race of The United Methodist Church offers three online courses for people of all races on implicit bias and anti-racism.

  • Implicit Bias: What We Don’t Think We Think
  • Anti-Racism 101: Required Skills for White People Who Want to be Allies
  • You Are Here: First Steps for White Christians on Race and Racism

UM History Hub

Learn alongside the General Commission on Archives and History
to understand the past, contextualize the present, and envision the future. They are currently offering the following eCourses for groups and individuals:

  • Splits, Separations, and Reconciliations: Rooted in Wesleyan Grace
  • Way of Wesley Workshop (for youth)
  • Local Church Historian’s School

United Methodist Communications Online Training Center

The United Methodist Communications Online Training Center offers affordable online courses and free online micro-training courses with professional instruction available on your own time. These self-paced courses take 2-3 hours to complete. The micro-trainings only take 20-30 minutes. There are free and paid courses, ranging from $20 to $30, and some of the courses offer CEUs. The topics are mostly about church communications. Some interesting courses include:

  • Digital Media for Ministry
  • Social Media for Churches
  • Sharing Your Church Through Video
  • Connectional Giving
  • What It Means to Be United Methodist

Lewis Online Learning

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The Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary offers three online courses for $49 each. Each self-paced course earns 0.5 CEUs. The courses are presented on a custom-designed web platform that integrates written content, video instruction, individual reflection, and student input submitted for review. The current offerings are:

  • Maintaining Boundaries in a Digital Age
  • Understanding Clergy Sexual Ethics
  • The Methodist Class Leader

ClergyEducation.com

ClergyEducation.com is a division of Market Square Publishing LLC. Market Square publishes books by United Methodist leaders, and their webinars and online courses are taught by these same authors. At ClergyEducation.com, you pay $25 for a one-hour course at a specific date and time. Recorded courses are also available at $20 each. Upon completion, you earn 1 hour of CEU. Some upcoming courses include:

  • Getting Your Congregation Back Into the Game of Effective Ministry
  • Help Your Congregation Dream Like Jesus
  • Developing Effective Communication to Grow Your Congregation
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919-779-6115
800-849-4433 (Toll-Free)
919-773-2308 (Fax)

NC Conference of
The United Methodist Church
700 Waterfield Ridge Place
Garner, NC 27529

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