UM News Digest - Feb. 26, 2025

UM News Digest - Feb. 26, 2025

LGBTQ advocates aim to build on 2024 gains
Three-peat for Super Bowl giving
Making pillowcases into clothes for kids

“I cannot wait to see the fruits of the hard work the board and staff did to reshape the organization for the time we find ourselves in today.” — Jan Lawrence, Reconciling Ministries Network’s executive director, on the group’s new strategic plan.

The Rev. Izzy Alvaran (right) and others pray together after the 2024 United Methodist General Conference, meeting in Charlotte, N.C., voted to remove the denomination's ban on the ordination of "self-avowed practicing” gay clergy. File photo by Paul Jeffrey, UM News.

LGBTQ advocates aim to build on 2024 gains
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UM News) — Reconciling Ministries Network, after success at last year’s General Conference, hopes to help the emerging United Methodist Church live into a more inclusive future. The group has unveiled a new strategic plan for the next four years. Heather Hahn has the story.

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Great Plains Conference
Three-peat for Super Bowl giving
TOPEKA, Kan. — Unlike the Kansas City Chiefs, Bishops David Wilson and Robert Farr enjoyed victory in their latest Super Bowl endeavor. For the third consecutive year, the Great Plains and Missouri conferences collected more food donations during the Sacking Hunger Challenge than the conferences of their Super Bowl opponent — in this case the Eastern Pennsylvania and Greater New Jersey conferences, representing the Philadelphia Eagles. Todd Seifert reports.
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South Carolina Conference
Making pillowcases into clothes for kids
COLUMBIA, S.C. — They’ve been making the pillowcase dresses so long no one can quite remember when they started. Now with strife in Haiti grounding planes, the women of Ashland United Methodist Church are reaching out to various mission groups to ensure the dresses get to kids in need. Jessica Brodie has the story.
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Virginia Conference
Letter offers support for federal workers
GLEN ALLEN, Va. — Fired federal workers are encouraged to contact a United Methodist pastor for support, says the Virginia Conference bishop and other leaders in an open letter. “We know you are hurting, confused, and angry,” says the letter signed by Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson along with her cabinet and conference lay leader. “We also know that you are gifted, educated public servants with valuable experience and hearts wired for public service and the common good. We also know that God is not done with you yet.”
Read letter

Archives and History
Apply for history grants, awards
MADISON, N.J. — Applications are being accepted through March 17 for grants and awards focused on United Methodist history, particularly as it relates to youth, women, ethnic groups and archival science. Grants and awards are available from the United Methodist Commission on Archives and History for qualifying graduate-level students, educators, researchers and master of divinity students.
Read press release
To apply

Junius B. Dotson Institute
Institute offers training for musicians
LOS ANGELES — The Junius B. Dotson Institute for Music and Worship in the Black Church and Beyond is slated to present a national seminar on March 17-19 at Holman United Methodist Church. The event, which features a performance on March 19 by Grammy-winning gospel and R&B artist Brian Courtney Wilson, is open to church musicians, sacred dancers, preachers and choir directors. The gathering immediately precedes the Black Methodists for Church Renewal meeting March 19-22, also at Holman.
To register
Learn more about institute
Learn more about BMCR meeting

United Theological Seminary
Sign up for Lenten blessings
DAYTON, Ohio — The Rev. Cynthia Davis, executive vice president and director of the Moore-West Center for Applied Theology in Memphis, Tennessee, is offering free daily prayers of hope and encouragement during the Lenten season, which begins March 5. Each morning, the messages — both written and audio — will be issued through the Bishop Bruce Ough Innovation Center at United Theological Seminary.
To sign up