Important This Week

• New and existing Vanco customers can save money with reduced fees. Presentation scheduled.
• General Synod passed harm reduction resolution
• Register for shared pastor event

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 11:00a. Register here.

From the Addiction & Recovery Taskforce: Synod news

The National UCC Synod passed a resolution that recognizes and encourages harm reduction interventions as an important part of compassionately addressing the drug epidemic. The resolution is entitled: Faithful Advocacy for Intersectional and Transformational Healing in Harm Reduction. This final adopted resolution will be available in a few weeks on the PSEC Addiction and Recovery webpage. Please read the resolution to become aware of the need for such intervention and the role of the national church in supporting local congregations and associations in establishing and supporting harm reduction interventions in our local communities.

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 the 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 now the 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. In the past year, the EPA has been in the news due to significant institutional changes that have prioritized funding and staffing for environmental justice. 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!

Glenn Rarick ordination

Click the invitation below to download a PDF to share.

General Synod keynote address recordings available

Ibram X. Kendi spoke at the Join the Movement Fundraiser Dinner on June 30. For a limited time, get access to this important conversation between Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Rev. Traci Blackmon and Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson.

Please note: access to this recording is only available until July 31st, 2023.

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is a National Book Award-winning author of fifteen books for adults and children, including nine New York Times bestsellers—five of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers. Dr. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor.

Click here to purchase this conversation for $34.

Bryan Stevenson spoke at the Valerie Russell Luncheon on July 1.

In this moving and poignant speech, Bryan Stevenson talks about how to engage the work of justice with courage, compassion and a fierce hope for a better world. Drawing on his experience as an attorney defending vulnerable clients within a broken judicial system, he illustrates how our proximity to the pain of others creates the internal conviction to fight for justice and goodness in the world. He speaks of his grandmother and the promises he made to her that became a guide for his life (and good advice for ours). Stevenson is a prophet for our time with big expectations for the role of the Church in shaping a more just world for all.

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.

Click here to purchase this conversation for $34.

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.

CPE opening at Phoebe Wyncote beginning in Sept.

Phoebe has ONE opening (clinical site – Wyncote campus) for the semi-intensive CPE unit beginning in September.

The unit will begin Tuesday, Sept. 5 and conclude on Jan. 30, 2024. This unit will require a total of 16 hours per week (four for class; twelve for clinical site).

Class will be conducted 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 on campus.

If interested, please visit this site. Complete the application in full and submit to Rev. Dr. Scott Brooks-Cope (scope@phoebe.org) and Rev. Leah Knox (lknox@phoebe.org). Deadline to receive applications is Aug. 11. For more information, reach out to Leah directly. 

Gun violence memorial coming to St. Peter's Tohickon

Sponsored by ‘Heeding God’s Call to End Gun Violence’, a very special outdoor, visual memorial is coming to St. Peter’s Tohickon! A Memorial to the Lost® is a unique, visible education tool developed to honor victims of gun violence and their surviving families. T-shirts with names and dates of those murdered by gun violence during a previous year in a designated area are displayed where community members can experience in a tangible way the loss of life and disruption of lives that gun violence creates. Often, people will stop their car after driving by and return to see what’s being portrayed; they walk among the shirts, pause and pray, sometimes even finding the name of a loved one or neighbor. Come see this incredible display at St. Peter's Tohickon UCC, 1071 Old Bethlehem Rd., Perkasie – starting July 15.

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 already doing it successfully. Pastors who currently pastor two congregations will join us to share both the blessings and challenges of this arrangement, and how to avoid some of the mistakes they’ve witnessed in their own settings. Click here for more info.

Upcoming Training events

Registration is open for:

Basic Boundary Training on Sept. 14 in Schuylkill Haven. Click here for more info.

Advanced Boundary Training (Managing Pastoral Transitions) on Sept. 27 on Zoom (or view the recording of the event on your own time and complete a one-page synopsis). Click here for more information.

Advanced Boundary Training (From Gutenberg to ChatGPT: Tools, ethics, technology and best practices in the life of Church) on Oct. 18 on Zoom. Click here for more information.

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