Announcements

Mission English Needs Your Help!

Announcements Published on
February 26, 2024

Learn more this Sunday!

Mission English has been serving over 45 missionaries and church leaders in more than 10 different countries through weekly online English tutoring classes since 2020. Anyone who speaks English can participate in this mission work from home via Zoom meetings.

Watch a video to learn more about the program→

Here is the schedule:

2024 Spring Semester: March 17 ~ June 6 (11 weeks excluding the Easter Break)

* Team 1 (Students in Asian Countries and more)

Sundays and Thursdays @7 pm ~8:15 pm in EST

* Team 2 (Students in Middle Eastern Countries and more)

Tuesdays and Thursdays @11 am ~12:15 pm in EST

If you are interested in volunteering this semester, please use the QR code in the flyer to sign up for tutoring or register at: https://forms.gle/TUrWCkexfnToNEPt5

Health Team Update – February 2024

Announcements Published on
February 26, 2024

COVID-19, RSV, and Flu

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is considering loosening its recommendations regarding how long people should isolate after testing positive for the coronavirus. In general, Americans are advised to isolate for five days before returning to work or school and then to mask for an additional five days. Read the complete guidelines. Proposed but not yet implemented guidelines would mean that Americans might return to their routines if they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours without medication.

This standard applies to influenza (flu) and respiratory syncytial viruses (RSV). It’s important to note that the CDC last changed its policy on COVID isolation in 2021, and the science around COVID has not changed. In early February 2024, RSV was responsible for 0.1% of all U.S. deaths, flu 0.8%, and COVID – 3% (CDC Illness Severity Statistics).

With widespread testing programs no longer available for COVID and most folks relying on home testing, wastewater testing has become the most accurate detector of community COVID levels. Currently, wastewater levels of COVID are very high, indicating high levels of COVID transmission in most North Carolina counties. You can view the wastewater levels of COVID.

Every home in the U.S. is eligible to order four free at-home tests. If you did not order tests this fall, you may place two orders for eight tests. Your order of COVID tests is entirely free – you won’t even pay for shipping. Order them here. Please note that the federal government has extended the expiration dates on COVID-19 at-home tests.

Thankfully, RSV positivity rates appear to be trending down for the winter season, but flu and COVID-19 positivity rates remain high. You can protect yourself from the flu and COVID-19 by ensuring you have up-to-date yearly vaccines.

Most private insurance fully covers the cost of flu shots. Free shots are also available to non-Medicaid, uninsured pregnant women during flu season and receiving services at the health department.

The 2023–2024 updated COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Novavax to protect against serious illness from COVID-19.

Everyone aged five years and older should get one dose of an updated COVID-19 vaccine to protect against serious illness from COVID-19.
Children aged six months–4 years need multiple doses of COVID-19 vaccines to be up to date, including at least 1 dose of updated COVID-19 vaccine.
People who are moderately or severely immunocompromised may get additional doses of the updated COVID-19 vaccine. They are eligible for COVID-19 vaccines as frequently as every 2 months.
Learn more here: COVID-19 – Stay Up-To-Date
Find the COVID vaccine near you

Please note that NO changes have taken place yet to CDC COVID guidelines. The CDC continues to recommend  isolating for at least five days after you test positive for Covid-19 while keeping a distance from other people in your household. This means staying home from school and work for about a week. If your symptoms are improving and you are fever-free for 24 hours without taking any fever-reducing medications like acetaminophen or ibuprofen, you can end isolation on day five. If your symptoms are not improving by day five, continue to isolate until you feel better, and your fever is gone. After ending isolation, you should continue to wear a high-quality mask, like an N95, around other people until at least 10 days after the positive test. You may stop wearing a mask earlier if you have two negative tests 48 hours apart.

You can better protect yourself from respiratory diseases like flu & COVID by wearing a mask and ventilating worship spaces. This is especially important for seniors, the immune-suppressed, and others at risk for COVID-19. You can also protect yourself from COVID-19 by getting a Paxlovid prescription if you contract COVID.

Nominations Open – Harry Denman Evangelism Awards

Announcements Published on
February 23, 2024

Have you seen your pastor reaching outside your church membership to form connections with your neighbors? Is there a youth in your church who consistently invites and welcomes new people into youth group? Do you have a lay person who finds ways to lead others to a deeper connection with Christ? If so, nominate them for a Denman Award.

The Evangelism and Discipleship Team seeks nominees who develop deep and authentic connections with people who do not know the love of Christ. Let’s celebrate the good work that is happening around us—and the people whose faith and ministries are making a positive impact for Christ. The deadline for online submissions is March 14.

Learn More and Submit a Nomination

Thank you for your partnership in helping us identify pastors, youth, and lay persons with exceptional evangelism ministries and efforts. We look forward to honoring the 2024 recipients in their local churches. If you have any questions, reach out to us at cle@nccumc.org.

Since 1990, the NC Conference has honored over 50 youth, clergy, and laity for their work in evangelism. View past Denman award recipients.

~ NC Conference Evangelism & Discipleship Team and the Center for Leadership Excellence

Fresh Expressions Resources for NC United Methodists

Announcements Published on
February 21, 2024

Many NC Conference church leaders recently attended the first Fresh Expressions United Methodist National Gathering in Charlotte, NC. Fresh Expressions is an ecumenical movement that helps churches reach new disciples for Christ.

“Fresh expressions are about getting creative in your church’s reach. A group starts when a Christian sees those already in his or her circles with a spiritual lens. It’s asking the simple question, ‘How can I help my friends connect with God?’ Fresh expressions form where mutual interests meet hearts open to opportunities to connect on faith matters.”
freshexpressions.com/about

Fresh Expressions Books

The NC Conference Media Center has several books on the Fresh Expressions movement that are available to borrow. These are all published by United Methodist publishers. Additional titles can be purchased directly from the Fresh Expressions online store.

Fresh Expressions: A New Kind of Methodist Church for People Not in Church by Kenneth H. Carter, Jr. and Audrey Warren. This book is a group study for church leaders and congregations who are in the grip of Holy Spirit motivation to renew their tradition by reaching people who are dechurched or not yet in a discipleship relationship with Jesus. Each chapter includes two Bible study experiences for group conversation.

Fresh Expressions United Methodist: A Distinctly Wesleyan Spirt-Led Movement of New Christian Communities that Serve the Present Age. John Wesley famously exclaimed, “The world is my parish.” But have we, the people called Methodists, made the parish our world? This book is a practical guide to help United Methodists put the “go” back in our mission statement through cultivating Fresh Expressions of Church.

A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions by Michael Adam Beck with Jorge Acevedo. The authors awaken congregational leaders and ministry teams to a distinctive Wesleyan approach to the Fresh Expressions movement. They show congregations how to cultivate and customize fresh expressions that fit their local context. They motivate ministry teams to take risks, experiment, and, when necessary, fail well.

Fresh Expressions of People Over Property by Audrey Warren and Kenneth H. Carter, Jr. Can we, as faith-based organizations, begin to think collaboratively about how we might further our missions by creatively and intentionally rethinking how we utilize the space we inhabit? The authors reflect on strategies, scriptures, and stories that help leaders faithfully reimagine their community spaces so that they reflect that God and God’s people value people over property.

Fresh Expressions in a Digital Age: How the Church Can Prepare for a Post-Pandemic World by Michael Adam Beck and Rosario Picardo. A fundamental premise of the movement is that Church can become accessible again by emerging in every nook and cranny where life already happens. The digital space is its own kind of third place, a new missional frontier.

Fresh Expressions of the Rural Church by Michael Adam Beck and Tyler Kleeberger. This book collects stories from the diversity of rural contexts across the US. It lays out a fresh theology for rural life and offers principles for harnessing the potential of what some consider the forgotten spaces. Each chapter includes a helpful Field Exercise-questions for discussion and suggested actions for leadership teams to work through together.

Doing Justice Together: Fresh Expressions Pathways for Healing in Your Church by Michael Adam Beck and Stephanie Moore Hand. Introduces a process for pastors and church people to move through together, to re-envision and reorient themselves away from old, often harmful habits. Shows pastors how they can, over time, lead the congregation to become a place where racial equity, justice, and liberation are intrinsic to the structure and life of the church.

Additional Books for Fresh Expressions Churches

Need some ideas about how to begin a Fresh Expression in your context? Here are additional books you can borrow from the NC Conference Media Center.

The Dinner Church Handbook: A Step-by-Step Recipe for Reaching Neighborhoods by Verlon Fosner. Fosner begins by evaluating the rich scriptural history of the Dinner Church, and gradually works his way into the practical questions a leader might have. It’s when the heart of the church swells in compassion for its neighbors who may never darken the doorway of a traditional church building that dinner churches are born.

Eating Together Faithfully: A Framework for Conversation by Life Around the Table. This program is an ecumenical, community-based resource for congregations and communities to explore food and food systems from a Christian perspective. The Eating Together Faithfully (ETF) Framework takes participants through eight guided conversations, exploring the theological and practical implications of each of these topics for their lives, their communities, and our world.

Messy Church: Fresh Ideas for Building a Christ-Centered Community by Lucy Moore and Jane Leadbetter. This complete church resource brings together people of all ages and stages of faith, allowing them to experience a creative and fun-filled Christian community. Using creativity, celebration, and hospitality, this fifteen-session tool helps you create a unique, come-as-you-are church experience.

Christian Social Innovation: Renewing Wesleyan Witness by L. Gregory Jones. Jones looks at how our need to develop “fresh expressions” for gatherings of community and our desire to cultivate a renewed sense of mission are the basis for the growing interest in starting new churches and establishing church plants.

Missional, Monastic, Mainline: A Guide to Starting Missional Micro-Communities in Historically Mainline Traditions by Elaine A. Heath and Larry Duggins. This book contains the wisdom and perspectives of people who live and serve in missional, new monastic communities in United Methodist and other mainline traditions, and it describes new forms of theological education that are emerging to resource a new generation of Christian leaders. Heath and Duggins challenge Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and other Christians to reach into their own robust, mainline heritage for resources to develop small, intentional communities that practice a rigorous life of prayer, hospitality, and justice.

Longing for Spring : A New Vision for Wesleyan Community by Elaine A. Heath & Scott T. Kisker. Delving into the widespread, contemporary longing for a more serious and communal experience of Christianity, this book provides important theoretical underpinnings and casts a vision for a new monasticism within the Wesleyan tradition. It helps Wesleyans of all stripes understand the theory and praxis necessary for planting neo-monastic communities as a new model of the church that is particularly important in the postmodern context.

More Resources from the Media Center

This list of resources is available in our online catalog on the Fresh Expressions pathfinder. The pathfinder on Healthy Congregations has additional titles for church growth and renewal.

Fresh Expressions Online

Amplify Media has a new channel dedicated to Fresh Expressions videos with Michael Adam Beck. These videos are free to watch. You don’t need an Amplify subscription.

Amplify also hosted a webinar with authors Michael Adam Beck and Stephanie Moore Hand, Coming to the Table: Healing Racialization through Building Justice-Based Communities. The webinar is based on the newest Fresh Expressions book, Doing Justice Together. The recording of the webinar is freely available to watch now.

Prayer for Appointment-Making Season: Disruption for the Clergy’s Children

Announcements Published on
February 20, 2024

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 first prayer in the series written by Rev. Laura Wyant Wittman.

In this appointment-making season, we pray for our Cabinet and the leadership of our conference. We pray for their discernment and their wisdom, and we give thanks for the ways that they represent the clergy and their families as they make difficult decisions. We especially, pray for the children of our clergy. We know that for many children, the process of moving means leaving behind friends, transitioning schools, and adapting to new ways of life. We acknowledge that the children of our clergy have to face being part of new children’s ministries, new youth groups, new confirmation classes, and Sunday school classes, all while finding safe space to be vulnerable and have their needs heard.

So often, our children live in that proverbial glass bowl where so much of what they experience may be watched and commented on by people who may not always see the full picture. We pray for protection and for a safe space to be heard. We pray for their mental well-being and for the connectedness and shelter they find within their families.

As appointments are made and set, we pray for peace of mind, strength, and understanding. We give thanks for their ability to go and be sent to the places where their parents are being commissioned for service. Finally, we ask that as a fellowship of believers, we may all do our best to remember our connectionalism. Remind us to reach out to those clergy children that we know are struggling. May we serve as extra parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and cousins, doing our best to make them feel at home wherever they land. We ask all this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Every Child NC Holds Public Education Advocacy Event