This time of year, outside temperatures at night often drop near or below freezing. We have to heat our houses, apartments, or condos, in order to stay comfortable and safe. In Western North Carolina, heating options include wood stoves, along with oil, natural gas, and more recently heat pumps. Which form of heat is available to us often was decided well before we moved in.

How do you heat the place where you live? If you could choose, what form of heat would you prefer? Where do you set your thermostat during the day and overnight? What do you know about the current state of worldwide oil and gas supplies? Of renewable heat sources (e.g., wood, solar, wind, geothermal)? How does your church heat its facilities?

Presbytery’s Earth Care Team invites you to a conversation about winter heating. Come share your thoughts and listen to others talk about their experiences. What does our use of heating resources suggest about participation in planet Earth? How can Christians become faithful stewards of the Earth and still stay warm in cold weather?

Please register in advance for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

For other youth news and information, visit our website.

Union Presbyterian Seminary shares the following continuing education opportunities for consideration:

Click here for more information.

Explore other online workshops at the following link: Continuing Education - Union Presbyterian Seminary

NEW Course Offering Polity & Administration II (Pathways Online Course)

More information can be found here.

The Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinity School is offering a series of free monthly webinars designed to support veterans who have experienced moral injury in their service to country. Center director, the Rev. Dr. Nancy Ramsay who now lives in Black Mountain, describes the webinars this way: “The programming is to provide resources for religious leaders, chaplains (military, VA, and hospital), and professional caregivers who seek to support veterans and their families affected by moral injury. There are very few congregations in the PCUSA without such veterans since moral injury is a new term for injury as ancient as war. There are also lots of resources at the site. All webinars will be available at our site after they air and they’ll also be on the VOA YouTube channel.”

A link to upcoming seminars as well as recordings of previous ones are available here.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is providing resources for pastors and leaders of congregations in this time of rising COVID rates. The resources offered include –

• A Faith Leader Tool Kit which includes sample talking points for congregational

leaders

• Places of Worship Guidance

• Mental Health Helplines

• No-Cost Community Testing Events

For further information please click on the following link - https://files.nc.gov/covid/documents/info-for/faith-leaders/Resources-for-Places-of-Worship-and-Faith-Communities.pdf

Along those same lines, the Task Force on Returning to Face to Face Gatherings recently sent out a communication with helpful information about returning to in person gatherings. To read what was shared, click here to access the file.

A special section has also been designated on Presbytery's website to share information relative to COVID-19. Click here to access material that has been pooled for our members and churches, and to find other helpful resources for ministering in these unprecedented times.

In order to close the 2020 financials in a timely manner, Monday, January 11, 2021 will be the last day Presbytery can accept contributions to be applied to the 2020 fiscal year.

Also, if you have committee expenses that need to be reimbursed, those need to be remitted to Lisa Pressley ASAP.

Questions? Call Lisa at the Presbytery office (828/438-4217). Thank you for your support of PWNC and its ministries in 2020!

It's that time! The Annual Statistical Report information has been shared with our churches and Clerks of Session. If you missed that important material, click here to find the information.