Important This Week

• New and existing Vanco customers can save money with reduced fees. Presentation scheduled.
• New listings in Church Openings
• Glenn Rarick ordination this weekend at St. John UCC, Tamaqua

From the Associate Conference Minister for Search and Call:

Teach me to know that life is ever

On the side of the future.

Keep alive in me the forward look, the high hope,

The onward surge. Let me not be frozen

Either by the past or the present.

Grant me, O patient Father, thy sense of the future

Without which all life would sicken and die.

-from Deep Is the Hunger by Howard Thurman

I was with a group of churches this past weekend discussing different pastoral options in this time of a clergy shortage. We discussed everything from continuing to seek solo pastors for each church to merger with another church to sharing a pastor with another congregation, and lastly, ending the ministry of a church. I experienced the meeting as a hopeful moment, despite the difficult choices many churches were considering about how to do ministry in the future, or to end that ministry in the coming years. All the choices required some sort of sacrifice, doing ministry that was unlike how it was done in the past, and which might cause discomfort to some, if not most.

It was hopeful because there were choices that could be made, because there were things that could be done, and it seems to me that when we have choices, we acknowledge the reality that there will be a future, however challenging and different it may be. Personally, I have despaired the most when I felt I didn’t have a choice in the matter of my future. Yet, when I had choice in the matter, even if all the choices were not all positive or easy, it pushed me into the coming moments, and I came to acknowledge, as Howard Thurman says, that “life is ever on the side of the future.” And Thurman then asks of God to keep alive in him “the forward look, the high hope, the onward surge.” A sense of having a future, however different than the past, is what keeps us alive, and, in our better moments, we remember who will meet us in that future, the God who was there in the past, and is here with us in the present. God is faithful to the Church, in all times and in all places. Thanks be to God.  

Rev. Kevin McLemore

Associate Conference Minister for Search and Call

From the Addiction & Recovery Taskforce: Pen Pan Program

Maybe you missed the Pen Pal training event held on June 25th. The good news is, it's not too late to learn how to safely and effectively communicate with a person currently feeling isolated and forlorn in prison. Many inmates have few, if any people on the outside who are willing to take the time to simply connect with them. It's part of our call as disciples of Christ to "visit" with them if we can. Once, Rev. Russ Gates contacted some individuals at Phoenix (our local State Maximum security prison), he got a surprisingly favorable response from willing inmates anxious to have a Pen Pal writing to them. If you are interested, email the PSEC Addiction Task Force at psec.ar.taskforce@gmail.com to find out how to get started.

Glenn Rarick ordination

Click the invitation below to download a PDF to share.

Churches can save money with Vanco online giving

Exciting news for online giving! Whether your church already uses Vanco OR if you are using another vendor OR if you haven’t yet set up an online giving platform, we invite you to attend the webinar on August 22 and learn what Vanco offers. Through the Conference’s partnership with Vanco, all will benefit from reduced transaction fees when you come under the umbrella of the Conference! Register now and mark your calendar! 

Approximately 750 UCC congregations trust Vanco for online giving and driving engagement. And with good reason. Vanco provides UCC Churches with…

• Increased giving: Vanco clients see an average increase of 26% in giving.
• Easy donation reconciliation: We integrate with more than 60 of the most popular church management software systems.
• Complete virtual church: Vanco Live is the single tool congregations use to combine online worship, giving and discussion to a single website window.
• Service: Our U.S.-based client services team is always here to help. And we answer the phone with nearly zero wait time.
• Pricing: Discounted group rates available because of Pennsylvania Southeast Conference’s partnership with Vanco.

Learn all the benefits congregations get from Vanco here.

Join us for a presentation about how you can grow your giving through Vanco on Tuesday, August 22 at 12:00p. Register here.

Upcoming Training events

Registration is open for:

Basic Boundary Training on Sept. 14 in Schuylkill Haven. More info

Advanced Boundary Training (Managing Pastoral Transitions) on Sept. 27 on Zoom (or view the recording of the event and complete a one-page synopsis). More info

Advanced Boundary Training (From Gutenberg to ChatGPT: Tools, ethics, technology and best practices in the life of Church) on Oct. 18 on Zoom. More info

Diversity Training on Nov. 8 on Zoom (or view the recording of the event and complete a one-page synopsis). Click here

Shared pastor event for churches set for August

On Saturday, Aug. 12 a free workshop will be held on Zoom on "One Shepherd, Two Flocks: Advice and Guidance on Sharing a Pastor." Rev. Kevin McLemore and others will discuss why sharing a pastor with another congregation is a good option for many churches in this time of pastoral scarcity. They will share practical strategies on how to talk to your congregation about this possibility, how to find a pastor and congregation willing to do so, and how other churches are doing it successfully. Pastors who currently pastor two churches will join us to share both the blessings and challenges of this arrangement, and how to avoid some mistakes they’ve witnessed in their settings. Click here for more info.

60th anniversary of the March on Washington event

Join together in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington! Friends from across the region will join together Sunday, Aug. 27, to celebrate and remember through a modest neighborhood march (as you are able), eyewitness testimony, and worship in the historic House of Faith (the former Harold O Davis). Click here for more information.

Webinar: UCC Trailblazer, the EPA, and New Grant Programs

Charles Lee, the lead author of the UCC’s landmark report on toxic waste and race as well as lead organizer of the historic First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, will be one of two featured speakers on environmental justice at the EPA. Lee is Senior Policy Advisor for Environmental Justice at the EPA. He will be joined by Jacob Burney who directs the Environmental Justice Grants Division at the EPA. Even if you cannot make the webinar at its scheduled time on Aug. 9 at 2:00p, still sign-up, and we will send you a link to a recording of it. Register now!

CPE opening at Phoebe Wyncote beginning in Sept.

Phoebe has ONE opening (clinical site – Wyncote campus) for the semi-intensive CPE running Tuesday, Sept. 5 through Jan. 30. This unit will require 16 hours per week (4 for class; 12 for clinical site). Class will be on Zoom most weeks, with once class per month held in-person on the Phoebe Allentown campus. Clinical hours can be negotiated with staff chaplain. If interested, visit this site. Complete the application and submit to Rev. Dr. Scott Brooks-Cope (scope@phoebe.org) and Rev. Leah Knox (lknox@phoebe.org) before Aug. 11. For more info, reach out to Leah directly.