Gratefulness.org
A website dedicated to grateful living.
Crosswalk.com
Christian news in the 21st century.
“The intersection of faith and life.”
Devozine.upperroom.org
We encourage youth to check out The Upper Room’s Devo Zine, where you can find articles about spiritually active teens all around the world, connect with their social media outlets, post and respond to a live prayer wall, and even contribute articles and devotionals of your own.
General Board of Church and Society
www.umc-gbcs.org
General Board of Global Ministries www.umcmission.org
Methodist Federation for Social Action www.mfsaweb.org
cnumc.org
California-Nevada Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church
Each year, our church's Lenten Offering goes to Heifer International.
Through this organization, giving an animal is like giving someone a small business, providing wool, milk, eggs and more. Animal donations can provide families a hand up, increasing access to medicine, school, food and a sustainable livelihood. Our church outdid itself again, donating $2838 for our Lenten offering to Heifer! Dorothy Stone, our Missions chairperson, says that that amount translates into:
2 Heifers for $1000
2 Water Buffaloes for $500
2 Alpacas for $300
2 Sheep for $240
2 pigs for $240
2 trio of Rabbits for $120
1 comb of honey bees for $30
5 flocks of chicks for $100
and tree seedlings for $60
Our chuch's little of ark of gifts is truly a gift that keeps on giving! As Dorothy says "We're sending our own little ark", thanks to the generosity of this church!
Vacation Bible School - Knights of North Castle
We will be on a quest for the King's armor duirng our joint VBS program, July 13-16. This interfaith event is sponsored by our church, Grass Valley and Sierra Pines UMCs, Emmanual Episcopal Church and Peace Lutheran Church, and is held at Grass Valley UMC. Pre-school through middle school aged children will be actively busy from 9AM till noon Monday through Thursday, with the closing program for families on Thursday evening. The cost per child is $20, with scholarships available. Click Here for Registration Form.
Let Us Take on the Responsibility of Doing Good In a Time of Grave Concern
I pray you are staying safe and well, though we know that a growing number of members of the California-Nevada Conference have contracted COVID-19. Let us continue to pray for one another and all God’s children everywhere, that this pandemic may pass away, and we may all be freed from its grip.
Thank you, friends, for all you have been doing to be a positive and helpful witness in this time. We face the present moment together and each one of us has to bear the responsibility for the aspect of this situation that is in our hands to care for.
Thank you for being responsible leaders in our hurting world.
As your bishop, I am fortunate to bear my responsibilities of guiding our entire Conference well with an Extended Cabinet and a Conference Lay Leader who have been serving with me as our Conference COVID-19 Response Team. Since the beginning of the pandemic, this Response Team has met early every Monday morning without fail, to examine what we need to be doing to help keep our congregations, clergy, and communities as safe as possible.
As persons who are responsible for yourselves and those within your families and faith communities, I hope you have kept abreast of the many resources we have been providing you including protocols for re-opening pre-schools, drive-in church, and in-person worship. We are grateful for your participation in the COVID-19 webinars that have also been shared. Many thanks to clergy, lay persons, and conference staff who have led us in these very helpful webinars.
We have asked that our church buildings remain closed up to now. Thank you, pastors, for finding virtual and other ways to keep our congregations moving forth as communities of Christian faith.
As we now move into July and the rest of the summer, we share with you grave concern about the relentless impact of the pandemic across our states and across the nation.
Recently we invited 8 churches to help us test protocols for re-launching in-person worship. We are so very grateful for the efforts of these churches and their pastors on behalf of all of us. We learned from them how much work it is to re-launch in-person worship under necessary protocols. We also heard from them what a joy it has been for them to be together again.
Out of their good work I had hoped that we could say we are in a place to re-launch in-person worship under protocols everywhere. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Data from major indicators show Covid-19’s strong and steady spread across a significant number of the counties where our churches are located. I am attaching yesterday’s report that our Extended Cabinet, our Conference Lay Leader and I considered at this week’s Monday morning COVID-19 Response Team meeting. Click here to access the report.
Out of this ongoing work, I am prayerfully requesting the following of you as we move into the balance of this summer:
Dear Friends, in summary I can only offer what we already know: curbing the spread of COVID-19 requires all of us to take on the responsibility to do good in all the ways we can for as long as is necessary until we emerge from the pandemic shadow and find our way forward.
As when this journey began, we could not hope to predict all the large and small ways each of us would be called to live into our Wesleyan commitments. Yet, here we are on the road together, in the midst of the storm, forging the way forward together.
