• You will find Bishop Bickerton's letter here 
• Additional information about COVID-19 re-opening may be found here 
• To download the 28-page PDF document with specifics about re-opening, please click here

You may also find Alex Shanks' article, Why Reopening a Church Is Different, helpful.  Alex is the assistant to Bishop Ken Carter of the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.

The 2020 Northeast Jurisdiction Volunteer in Mission Academy is now on-line!
                                                  May/June 2020
 No travel. Suggested donation. Same great course offerings: 

• COVID-19 Pandemic: Crisis Spiritual Care for Congregations
• Public Health Emergency Plan Writing: Continuity of Operations for Congregations
• Foundations of Disaster Ministry
• Confined and Vulnerable: Detained and Incarcerated During COVID-19
• Connecting Neighbors
• Food Insecurity During COVID-19
• UMVIM 101: the Ministry of Volunteers in Mission
• Abundant Health and the Faith, Activity and Nutrition (FAN) Program
• Imagining a Just Economy Post COVID-19
• And many more…

For more information and to register:   https://umvimnej.org/training/e-academy.html

Emergency Food Response
    The NYAC continues to support its emergency food ministries during this critical time. A “NYAC Emergency Food Response” account has been set up within the Missions office to support our church-based food ministries. Checks may be made out to the NYAC with “Emergency Food Response” in the memo line. Donors may also go on the NYAC website (www.nyac.com), and click on the “Give to the NY Conference” tab on the right panel. Direct your gift to “Emergency Food Response.” 
    All questions may be directed to Tom Vencuss at tvencuss@nyac.com.
Your support is so appreciated and critical at this time and all donations will go directly to the purchase and distribution of food supplies.  

UMCOR Hygiene Kits
    Every year the New York Conference provides more than 4,000 hygiene kits to UMCOR for disaster response efforts. Tom Vencuss, our Missions Director, was actually in Puerto Rico just after Hurricane Maria, when a large truck pulled up at a Methodist Church recovery site and unloaded thousands of health kits for local distribution. This year, given that the NYAC Annual Conference has been rescheduled as a streamlined event in September, we will not be receiving hygiene kits. However, you can still support this important ministry. The parts of an UMCOR Hygiene Kit total about $12. We are asking that churches collect funds which will then be “converted” into the equivalent number of hygiene kits and sent to UMCOR for the purchase of health kits supplies. OR, churches may ship their hygiene kits directly to UMCOR (at a cost greater than the value of the kits).  Here is the link for shipping labels and instructions: https://www.umcmission.org/umcor/serve/relief-supply-network/hygiene-kit
    Thank you in advance for participating in this vital mission.  Our Conference has always had a great response to this request and we would like to keep this support going. 

Would you like to visit with missionaries? You can! You are invited to join a virtual itineration! We were expecting several missionaries in our conference this year, but, as you can imagine, itinerations have had to morph into another format!  Below you will see several opportunities. So if you were expecting  an in person visit you can use this opportunity to meet with and hear stories from these amazing missionaries that are #stillinmission even in the midst of this crisis. You are all invited  to ‘meet’ them without leaving your chair! Be sure to register for the sessions that interest  you. In Mission together, Jill Wilson, Conference Secretary of Global Ministries   Virtual Itineration Schedule and Registration Links:   May 28 1pm EDT  Registration Link:   https://gbgm.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJApduGurTgtGdKCksuDPYkiR14pFY1LMQna Join us for a new series connecting the church with missionaries serving all over the world. This week we feature missionaries that are directly working with Church Planting, Evangelism, and Discipleship. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the work of Susanna & Young Cho, Katherine Meek, and Fernando Matsimbe.  Missionaries are #stillinmission and we hope that you'll join us to learn more! Registration is limited. You will get a confirmation email once your registration is accepted. If the limit is reached, you will get priority for future events.   June 4 12:00pm EDT Registration Link:    https://gbgm.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcqdumqrT0qGd35y6cyhHKD0UHGqffXDknH Event Summary-- #StillInMission Episode 2 Join us as we connect with missionaries serving all over the world. This week we feature missionaries that are directly working with Agriculture, Sustainable Farming, and Environmental Education. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the work of Kutela Katembo, Fautma Kutela, Larry Kies, and Temba Nkomozepi. Registration is limited. You will get a confirmation email once your registration is accepted. If the limit is reached, you will get priority for future events.   June 11 11:00am EDT Event Description-- #StillInMission  Episode 3 Registration Link:    https://gbgm.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUpceGqpzwuGdJUdS6uvIyLbqrTQ8vQxFua Join us as we connect with missionaries serving all over the world. This week we feature missionaries that are working in Administrative Rolls. We all know that our administrators GET. STUFF. DONE, and our ministries couldn't operate without them. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the work of Andrew Lee, Helen Camarce, Kyeong-ah Woo, and David Guinkpa. Registration is limited. You will get a confirmation email once your registration is accepted. If the limit is reached, you will get priority for future events. Helen Camarce's May newsletter may be viewed here.

• What Will VBS Look Like This Summer? Back by popular demand!  Is VBS a big part of your church’s ministry? Do you look forward to VBS every summer? Are you thinking of cancelling your program because of the Covid 19 virus?  There are ways to hold VBS this summer. Programs may just not look like the way we have done them in the past. Let’s get together on Tuesday, June 2 at 7:00 PM to discuss some alternatives for your church’s VBS ministry.  For more information or to register, contact Cassandra Negri at childrensministry@nyac-umc.com. 
• BeADisciple.com offers courses for Lay Servant Ministries, Certified Lay Ministry, and CEU credit.  There is also a course on how to start a Christian podcast 
• Online Summer 2020 Courses for Academic and CEU Credit from Wesley Theological Seminary.  Join the Lewis Center's Dr. Ann A. Michel, Dr. Tim Snyder, and Dr. Lovett H. Weems Jr., for their online summer courses from Wesley Theological Seminary: respectively, Healthy Stewardship in the Local Church (June 1-5); Bonhoeffer in a Post Truth World (June 1-July 31); and Church Finances (July 6-10).  Other online summer courses from Wesley include Ministry & Self-Care; Solution-based Pastoral Care; Howard Thurman: Mystic, Prophetic, Theologian; and many more. See the full list of online summer and fall courses and register now.