March 24 & 25

Lakeview Baptist Assembly in Lone Star, TX

Leaders:  Rev. Mike Cave (clergy), Carleen Alderman (laity), and Pat Miller (Chrysalis)

Location: Tennison UMC, 313 N. Church St., Mt. Pleasant, TX 75455

Dates:

Friday, Jan. 20, 5-9 p.m. Clergy Training

Lay folks are invited and welcome to join the clergy (lay board members especially )to discover how the clergy partner with the laity and the walks are designed to lead the pilgrims to a closer walk with Christ.

Saturday, Jan. 21, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Lay Training

Laity will look at reunion groups, sponsorship, training, weekend planning, and more.

Meals:  Will be provided.

RSVPs are essential!!! RSVP to Rev. Debbie Riggsby, email at

deborah817@suddenlink.net, call 903-243-3333 (cell), or text 903-243-3333.  Please include your name and number attending.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

A website is the new front door to your church. Patrick Steil, Webmaster for the North Texas Conference and owner of ChurchBuzz.org, will walk you through 10 Commandments that transform your website into the BEST outreach and communications tool that has ever been possible. Please visit the Committee Resources page for more in depth information regarding webinar details and system requirements.

Location: Online

For more information: contact: Betsey Heavner or call 615.340.7295

Webinar – Healthy Church Leaders – Key Factors

Thursday, February 23, 2012

SPRC has a key role for health of body, mind and soul for your pastor and leaders. GBPHB’s Center for Health shares key factors for a healthy ministry environment. Please visit the Committee Resources page for more in depth information regarding webinar details and system requirements.

Location: Online

The Singing Church: Current Practices and Emerging Trends in Congregational Song

Monday, March 19, 2012 – Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Join a renowned ecumenical group of outstanding scholars and musicians to explore the emerging practices, leadership skills, and repertories of congregational song.

     •Discover, renew, and reinterpret traditional worship-song

     •Learn to sing another’s song: an ecumenical and intercultural exchange

     •Sing and imagine a church that is still unfolding

Location: Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta GA

Sponsored by: Candler School of Theology

For more information: contact: call 404.727.8276

For more information: contact: Betsey Heavner or call 615.340.7295

Featuring:

Dr. Lovett H. Weems, Jr.
Distinguished Professor of Church Leadership / Director, G. Douglass Lewis Center for Church Leadership

 Monday, February 6, 2012
Longview FUMC

 Tuesday, February 7, 2012
The Woodlands FUMC

Register by January 16, 2012,  Cost: $15

Brochure and Registration

     This application is designed to handle multiple information gathering tasks for the Texas Annual Conference, so you will see a “Switchboard” screen after you logon to the system that has buttons to take you to the specific task you want to accomplish.

     The church Level logon screen can be found by going to the conference web site and clicking on the “Login Area”.  Below the link to EZRA is a new choice titled:

Vital Signs, Church Transformation Survey, and other local church information

     which takes you to the actual web page address of: 

http://www.logicalchurchsolutions.com/Equitable/CTSLogin.aspx 

     That login is like EZRA, churches use their GCFA number with the generic password.  On the first logon they are asked to set their own password.  If they make it the same as EZRA, both systems will take the same logon.  The logon screen looks like:

     After the logon, they are taken to the “Switching Center” where they can pick the task they want to perform.  Note that this has Vital Signs and Church Transformation Survey access.  Vital Signs reporting is not completely functional yet, but will be by January 1, 2012 so it can take the place of Dove as our Vital Signs reporting system at the end of this month.

     The main thing for December is to tell your pastors that they can access the Church Transformation Survey now on-line and begin their work on it.

     The system only has year 2010 historical data in place, but more will be added as time permits.  Nothing is pre-filled in, so all boxes will have to have the data typed into the form.  The Switching center looks like the following:

     You can play with it yourself if you borrow one of the churches GCFA numbers, but please pick a church that is providing you with one of your auditors and please coordinate with that person since you will be setting a new password on the GCFA Number username and the church should always know that that is. 

     Please be sure to advise everyone that this is all brand new software and ask them not to be disturbed if they find a few things that will need to be corrected.  Just report them as soon as possible and they will be resolved quickly.

     There will be a new Training Video on how to access this system added to the “Training Videos” area under “Resources” on the conference web site added before Friday.  Target is tomorrow, but if it is not there, it will be by Thursday.

     Our biggest challenge will be to get people who are in remote and poor internet areas able to view the Training Videos.  If we have to put them on DVD’s and mail them to some people we can do that if necessary.

  Begins at 12 PM on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012

Ends on Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 12 PM

WHERE:

Lakeview Baptist Assembly in Lone Star, Texas

SPEAKER:

George  Brookover: Dealing with Conflict/ When the Trouble Comes

ACCOMODATIONS:

Register by e-mail:  Lnunn@windstream.net

     Phone inquiries:  903.794.6231

     Commuter $50, Overnight DBL $85, SGL $100

(If you require financial assistance please speak with Bill Taylor)

Heavy on our hearts are the wildfires devastating Texas. The fires have destroyed several of our communities, burned numerous homes and caused major evacuations. Fires located primarily in the bounds of the Texas Annual Conference include those in Cass, Cherokee, Grimes, Marion, Montgomery, Nacogdoches, Walker and other counties. Our neighbors in the Southwest Texas Annual Conference are dealing with the Bastrop wildfire where over 1,000 homes have already been lost, making it the most devastating wildfire in Texas history.

Along with the other Texas bishops, I am deeply grateful for your prayers and other expressions of support. Our churches, pastors and superintendents are hard at work providing assistance to first responders, shelter and support for those who are now left homeless, and many are preparing to assist in the massive clean-up and recovery that will lie ahead.

I am asking that your church receive a special offering this Sunday. You can give directly to the conference fund designated “TAC Wildfires.” By supporting this offering, funds can be used immediately both for communities within the TAC and those in the Southwest Texas or other Texas conferences as needed. You can also choose to give directly to UMCOR #901670 – “Texas Fires.”

Additionally, as you remember and give thanks for the courage of the first responders during the September 11, 2001 tragedy, I encourage you to continue to pray for all who are on the front lines of the Texas wildfires. We also pray that God will bless this state and the mid-west with bountiful widespread, soaking rains to renew the earth.

Thank you in advance for your generous hearts and spirit as we each seek to model Christ’s love by helping out neighbors in need. God is present with these communities, and we know that renewal and resurrection will occur in the lives of people and the earth.

Grace and Peace,

Janice Riggle Huie

There is a “blue box” on Line 216. This is the last line of the report and is the Signature Line. You must enter something in this blue box or it will not consider the data entry step ever completed. In the attached I suggest using “OK” but anything will work.

It reminds you that the data entry person now has an approval step required that they did not have last year.

Also, to allow Vital Signs entry to be done on year 2010 items, the default “Start” and “Stop” dates of the Vital Signs entry area are set to start with October 1, 2010 through 12/31/2011 instead of 1/1/2011 through 12/31/2011. This keeps the last 3 months of the prior year visible so the end of year can be done without having to reset the start and stop dates and reload.

I got a question about that messing up the report day carry over, but it does not cause problems. Both the Transformation survey and Report Day report pull from Vital Signs, but each report knows it’s start and stop date for it’s reporting period and uses that to pull the correct data regardless of what you have displayed in Vital Signs entry. If they want to know what is being transferred to the report, they will need to set the display of Vital Signs to be 1/1/2010 to 12/31/2010 and do the “Reload Data” to see what is actually being transferred to the reports. Right now the default covers 15 months of vital signs and the totals at the bottom are for the full 15 months but that is not what the reports receive, the reports pull the correct calendar year entries that apply to the report. If the report did not know what to pull, we would not be able to go back and display a report from an old year and show correct numbers.

If any of this leads to any questions, please call.