We are aware that our Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance plan participants may have received an email related to a class action suit against Blue Cross Blue Shield. For more information and to direct all questions regarding the suit, please visit www.bcbssettlement.com. The NC Conference is not involved in the distribution of materials or information in the matter. We have no recommendation for plan participants as to whether they do or do not respond to the email or any materials they may receive from Blue Cross Blue Shield or any other party involved.
Announcements
Applications Open for The Gary Wayne Locklear Mission Endowment
The Gary Locklear Mission Endowment continues to support the creation of new ministries in eastern North Carolina to respond to the ever-changing human need around us.
The Missions Endowment Team will accept applications for mission investments beginning April 27 through May 31.
The mission focus will be on emerging needs related to:
- health, wellness, and abundant life
- economic resources for the fullness of life
- education
- spiritual vitality found in Jesus Christ.
Previous distributions have been for Hurricane Matthew disaster recovery response, Hurricane Florence disaster recovery response, the Youth Storm Fund, the Church at Spring Forest (a new faith community), and the COVID Response Fund for local church assistance.
The Gary Wayne Locklear Mission Endowment promotes Biblical justice, following The United Methodist Social Principles. The endowment ensures resources into perpetuity so that people will experience Jesus Christ and grow in discipleship.
If you have questions, please contact Kathy Duncan at kduncan@nccumc.org.
Partners In Ministry is Taking Off!
PIM Receives Special Recognition!
PIM’s SYSTEM program was one of 10 centers across North Carolina to participate in a NASA Design Challenge along with being an evaluation site to highlight the need for authentic, hands-on, real-world applications of STEM.
The design challenge is a partnership between NASA and the U.S. Department of Education’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers which will allow sites to execute a series of engineering design challenges for third to eighth-grade students. The program is part of the on-going effort to solve the shortage of students with mastery of science, technology, engineering and math skills by the U.S. Department of Education.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for our students,” said SYSTEM Program Director Carolyn Banks. “We participated in this NASA Challenge two years ago and it was a wonderful learning opportunity for students. We concluded the program with a trip to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The SYSTEM Challenge will be “Parachuting onto Mars” where students will work in teams to design and construct a drag device that will slow down the team-build cargo bay when it’s dropped from a consistent height, similar to how when a spacecraft goes to land on the surface of Mars it needs a drag device to slow it down and prevent it from crashing.
“We started with the introduction on Feb. 1 and our middle-grade students returned March 8, our official in-person kick-off for all students,” Banks said. “All students have to have permission forms signed and we are still accepting new students.”
The STEM challenges by NASA are a way to introduce students to the engineering design process so they can develop solutions to real NASA challenges and students work with NASA engineers and scientists to receive feedback on their work.
You can help!
Partners In Ministry is located in Laurinburg and their afterschool program is only one of the many ways they are serving their community. You may give to support this ministry through Advance Special (#S-00193). You can give through your church with this number in the memo line, or you can send a check made out to NCCUMC Treasurer with a note in the memo line and send it to: 700 Waterfield Ridge Place, Garner, NC 27529
Pray with the NC Conference in May
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people.” – 1 Timothy 2:1
You are invited to join your hearts together across our North Carolina Conference connection as we share together in daily prayer during the month of May. You will see on the calendar below a prompt for each day – persons and situations here and around the world. Consider setting aside a specific time each day to pray using these prompts, and we encourage you to invite others to join with you.
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Redeeming Creation and Zoom Fatigue
The first ever Redeeming Creation Conference is just a few weeks away, and I hope you’re as excited about it as I am. But, truth be told, it seems like a lot of hours to sit in front of your computer on a Saturday. With many of us still working from home or virtual offices, maybe the idea of spending 9:00-4:00 of a Saturday on a Zoom call is just too much.
Well, the good news is you don’t have to!
Redeeming Creation features four sessions this year, and each session will be recorded and sent out to all registrants after the event is over. Even if you can’t make all the sessions on the day of, you’ll still have access to them all, to watch at your leisure.
The first session is with Dr. Jerusha Neal, from 9:00-10:15[*]. Dr. Neal will be sharing from her experience and expertise on how to preach, teach and speak about creation in our churches. In a time when so many issues have us divided along political lines, we must be able to talk about important issues as Christians, from a biblical point of view.
The second session of the day is a Bible study with Dr. Ellen Davis, from 10:30-11:45. Dr. Davis is one of the world’s leading Old Testament scholars, and will lead us through Genesis chapters 1 and 6, to help us understand God’s intentions for creation, and the results of our failures to meet those intentions.
After a lunch break, Jarred White and Michelle Osborne of Rural Advancement Foundation, International, will share with us the connection between land stewardship and racial justice. Our food and economic systems are tied to land access, which has historically been used in discriminatory ways. What can people of faith do about this injustice? This session will last from 1:00 to 2:15.
We’ll wrap up our day with a panel discussion on the disconnect between faith and science, from 2:30-3:45. The NCCUMC Creation Care Committee is composed of a group of clergy and laity alike who feel deeply in their faith that God wants us to be better stewards of creation. Many of these committee members have years of experience working in the scientific fields, including energy production, environmental engineering, and climate change mitigation. They are happy to share with us how science doesn’t detract from their faith, but enhances it.
I hope you’ll join me on May 15 for Redeeming Creation, even if you can’t be there the whole time.
To register, just fill out the form below. (Please note: upon completion of this form you’ll receive a Zoom link. You must also register through that Zoom link to get access to the webinars on the day of the conference.)
[*] All times are Eastern Time Zone.
Contact Us
connections: Annual Conference 2021
Bishop Ward introduces the scriptural theme for Annual Conference 2021 and gives details about the agenda.
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ.
Hear these words from Isaiah: 58, “The Lord will guide you continually. The Lord will satisfy your needs in parched places. You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.” This text has found its way deep into our hearts and into our shared life as an Annual Conference family. We centered upon this text during the season of Lent. It’s an Easter text, taking us again to the watered garden where Jesus is alive forevermore and it will be our focus text for the Annual Conference session in June [June 16-19]. We will gather virtually for Annual Conference. This year, we will have an interactive platform.
On Wednesday, the clergy session will be held at 10 a.m. and the laity will gather in the afternoon. On Thursday, all lay and clergy members will gather. We will begin our Annual Conference session with a service of worship and we will remember with thanksgiving to God, all clergy, and spouses who have died in the last two years. As we move on through the session of Annual Conference, we will celebrate our shared ministry through this time of pandemic. We will give thanks to God for the ways that we are engaging in ministry in the world at this time, increasing our attention day by day to anti-racism and to the welcome of all people into Christ’s ministry.
We look forward to ordination services configured safely outside under a tent on Friday and Saturday. These will be held at Fuquay-Varina United Methodist Church for those who were approved for ordination over the past two years.
Thank you for your shared ministry, for your constant prayers, and for all our life together.