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Important This Week
- The Conference Office will be closed Tuesday while the staff is at training events in Schuylkill Association.
- Prepare for upcoming sermons by joining in tomorrow's lectionary discussion with Rev. Bill Worley.
- It's not too late to register for next week's Diversity Awareness Training
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PSEC, PNEC planning rebuild Puerto Rico mission trip
Kids are back at school, swimming pools are closing, Halloween decorations have been on the shelves for weeks and artificial Christmas trees are not far behind. It’s been more years than I want to remember since graduation but come Labor Day my biological clock falls into the rhythm of the school day. Before the current excel spreadsheet with student data inclusive of known medications and allergies back four generations, there was the blank 3x5 card. “Write your name, address and phone number with a brief description of what you did this summer.”
“What did you do this summer?” In school or not, it’s the perennial question the first week of every September. I wager that our pre-historic ancestors asked the same of each other as they returned from distant hunting lands.
This summer I traveled to Berlin, Germany with friends and colleagues from our PNEC/PSEC Ecumenical Relations Team to join representatives from the Wisconsin and Penn Central Conferences in conversation with friends of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. was the topic of conversation. So was racism and the church’s response to the growing level of intolerance and violent hatred of people of color. I learned many things. Here is the sort list:
- German and American pastors minister thousands of miles from each other but our conversations about the nature of ministry are identical. Growing community divisions, membership decline, financial challenges, congregation conflicts, leadership failures, maintenance of old (a lot older) buildings, seminary debt, weigh heavily on us all.
- I believed the threat of 1920-40’s Nazism was dead and buried. Defeated by the sacrifices of my grandparent’s generation and their allies. It’s not. The party name is different and so are the symbols but the same murderous ideology lives.
- The wall built between East and West Berlin did nothing to help anyone in that part of the world. Walls do not make a people great. The most that any wall built on our southern boarder would accomplish is to pass off to future generations the challenges that defy our creative capacity today.
- Thirty-five-year-old Martin Luther King was only in Berlin for twenty-four hours in September 1964. It is part of his story about which I knew little. But his determination to speak hope to the darkness of the cold war and offer a vision of the Kingdom of God come to earth inspired a generation of resistance and reconciliation that changed the world.
And that is where we, PSEC friends, are right now. You know the
sitzen laben
of our day and what the Lord requires. Speak hope to the darkness of our day. Offer a vision of the Kingdom of God come to earth and inspire in this generation both resistance and reconciliation that will change the world.
May it be so,
Bill
Rev. William P. Worley
Conference Minister
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Register for next week's Diversity Awareness Training
In 2017, the PSEC Church and Ministry Council made Diversity Awareness Training mandatory for all authorized ministers. Clergy must take at least one three-hour training every three years. If you are an authorized minister who did not complete the training on March 13, 2018 nor March 16, 2017, you should sign up for the training on
Tuesday, Sept. 11
from 9a-12p at First UCC, Schuylkill Haven.
Click here
for more information and to register. The registration deadline is Sunday at midnight.
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PSEC office will be closed this Tuesday for training events
The conference office will be closed on Tuesday, Sept. 11. Your PSEC staff will be presenting a New Pastor Training event that afternoon following the Diversity Awareness Training in Schuylkill Haven.
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PSEC email trouble!
Conference email addresses were not receiving emails for almost a full day. We now have those emails, but please forgive any delay in response. We're sorry for the inconvenience!
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Lebanon VA hospital recruiting CPE residents and interns
Lebanon's VA Medical Center (VAMC)'s Clinical Pastoral Education Program (CPE) is recruiting pastoral candidates for both residency and internship programs. The CPE has four openings for its resident pastoral program, which begins on Oct. 1, and runs through Sept. 30, 2019. The program is accredited through the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE). Applications for the program are due immediately. For more info, contact Douglas A. Etter at 717-272-6621, ext. 6079 or email
douglas.etter@va.gov
. For more information about the Lebanon VA Medical Center, visit their
website
.
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All Saints Sunday offering materials available now online
On All Saints Sunday, we celebrate long ago saints and those known to us as saints; people who inspired us by grit and determination to “keep on trying.” Many of those people are the pastors who lives shaped and influenced our own. Some of the PSEC pastors who retired years ago are now in need of special assistance. Because their retirement income is low, PSEC churches supplement the cost of their health benefits. We remember these saints as we receive the PSEC special All Saints offering. The entirety of the offering is used to supplement the needs of 9 of the retired pastors, spouses, and widows who need assistance.
Click here
for more info, a bulletin insert, and envelope stickers.
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Several crisis training opportunities available soon
There are four upcoming training opportunities from the Keystone Crisis Intervention Team. For more information, click on the links below or contact PSEC Disaster Response Coordinator, Rev. Karl Jones:
kjones275@comcast.net
.
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Help is needed for communities in Eastern PA
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At least five counties in Eastern PA experienced significant flooding this summer. There are over 250 homes that need help. These areas are in various stages of response and recovery.
Schuylkill County is in the process of establishing long-term recovery opportunities in and around Tremont, Pine Grove, and Port Carbon. While the UCC is supporting the overall work of cleanup and doing damage assessments, the United Methodist Church is setting up the housing for volunteers and groups in Tremont. Volunteers will be housed at the church and the UM Conference is moving a shower trailer into position to serve teams.
To learn more about this opportunity or to schedule a group contact Suzanne Schach at
jsb@epix.net
or 570-294-3748. Teams should also notify PSEC Disaster Coordinator, Karl Jones at
570-617-4018 or
kjones275@cocmast.net
.
For updates on flood recovery efforts in PSEC and more info on how you and your church can help, visit the News page on the conference website:
psec.org/news
.
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Classified Ads
Submit your Classified Ads
here
View a complete list of Classified Ads
here
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Educational Opportunities
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Church Events
Submit your Church Events
here
View a complete list of Church Events
here
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Church Openings
St. Peter's, Molltown: part-time beginning ASAP
If you’re interested in a position, contact Rev. Sharon Morris:
morris@psec.org
or 484-949-8774 ext. 302.
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Missed a week? Read past eNews here:
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