The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services released the following information for faith communities as you make decisions about the best way to keep your community and congregation members safe and well this winter.

Like most events during the pandemic, our District Winter Leadership Training Events will look a little different for 2021. Rather than hosting in-person events in each district, we will offer a series of Conference-wide training webinars during the week of January 10-14 to resource and equip all areas of your Church leadership.
Jason Moore of Midnight Oil Productions will lead the keynote webinar to launch the series on “Telling the Old Story in a New Time.” Other topics will include: Financial Faithfulness in Uncertain Times, The Ministry of the Staff-Parish Relations Committee, Evangelism During A Pandemic, Leadership During a Pandemic for Church Councils, Racial Equity and Justice, Courageous Conversations, and much more.

COVID-19 brought many new challenges, including checking in worship attendees for safety and contract-tracing protocols. In order to help you streamline this process - as well to keep it paperless and contact-free - the Western NC Conference is pleased to introduce Check Inz, a safe way to check people into your location or event that is easy, secure, and socially distanced approved! Sign up is now active to join the BETA test group. The app will be ready for full release in mid-January. For additional questions, contact Chris Hampton, director of web and database administration, at champton@wnccumc.org.

Means of Grace, a podcast from the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, equips church leaders through expertise and examples. The podcast launched in October 2019, went weekly in October 2020, and hit 10,000 downloads in November 2020. We’ll be back on January 5, 2021 with new episodes but in the meantime, check out our top ten episodes by listener numbers.

LEAD creates space for Christian leaders to be vulnerable and courageous, connects them around their hopes for the future, and equips them to bring those hopes into reality. 
Now, more than ever, in the era of COVID-19, increasing political polarization nationwide, and heightened awareness of racial, social, and economic injustices bursting forth, LEADERS NEED LEAD. 
LEAD 2021, directed by WNCC clergy Brandon Lazarus, will take place online January 25-26 and will feature 14 speakers and leaders (including WNCC clergy Sarah Howell-Miller) who will offer stories of how they’ve led through these unprecedented times.