Webinar: Healthcare tax credits and the church

Get a Government Subsidy for your church's Health Insurance cost: This free webinar will show you how to file a form 8941 and claim a tax credit for the health insurance costs for your staff. The credit will result in a cash refund to the congregation and often covers about 25% of your health care benefit costs. Led by Dr. John Litke. Click here to register.

Webinar: Five ways to get the message out

It's been said you need to tell someone five times about anything for it to "stick." In this webinar we'll talk about five levels of parish communications and what you can do to set up a five-tier strategy to get to the word out about your parish events.  

 

General Theological Seminary's Digital Formation invites you to learn about online resources for promoting your parish events by joining the fourth webinar of the 2013-14 series, Equipping Digital Saints. Join us on Thursday, January 16, 2014 from 2:00-3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, for the free webinar, "To All Nations: Five Ways to Get the Message Out." Click here to register. 

Enhance Your Digital Ministry: Strategy and tactics for integrating digital media

Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Blogging, Twitter...and who knows what other new social media platforms will emerge in the near future? Now add your church website, e-newsletter, and email blasts to that mix of digital tools. Everything is "integrated," right? Uh, maybe? During this interactive webinar digital strategist and church communications professional Meredith Gould will explain: how digital strategists define "integrated" communications; why integration across digital platforms is essential; how to evaluate cross-platform integration; and where cross-platform integration usually breaks down. Webinar will be held January 14 at 7 p.m. Cost is $10. Click here for more information and registration.

Pastoral Care Forum: Depression and the clergy

Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care will offer "Silent Suffering: Depression and the Clergy," a Pastoral Care Forum. Learn how to recognize and acknowledge depression in the pastoral leader. Identify steps and resources to overcome depression and isolation often associated with pastoral ministry.  Thursday, January 23, 9 am to noon at VIPCare, 2000 Bremo Rd, Ste, 105, Richmond. Call 804-282-8332 to register. $30 fee including CEU credit.   

Churches and parishioners sponsor children at Jackson-Feild Homes

The staff at Jackson-Feild Homes wishes to thank the churches, ECW's, church groups and parishioners for sponsoring the Christmas presents of their residents.  

For many of these children it is the first real Christmas that they have ever experienced. They will cherish it for a lifetime. Jackson-Feild serves boys and girls who suffer from severe emotional disorder. What should be a very joyous time is often painful because it brings back memories of a childhood that they seek to repress. They are dumbstruck that people, who they have never met or known, will open their hearts by giving them presents when the persons who should love them the most have not. It is tangible proof that they are valued and loved and that others care for them.

Every child was sponsored and there were some funds left over which will be use to purchase items for the cottages such as games, sporting equipment and recreational items.

The Episcopal Church seeks input on church center location

The Executive Council Subcommittee on the Location of the Episcopal Church Center has issued a survey and is inviting Episcopalians to offer their input. Click here to take the survey. The deadline for participation in the survey is January 19.   

In 2012, the General Convention expressed its desire that the Episcopal Church Center be moved out of its current building located at 815 Second Ave in New York City. In response to this call, the Executive Council has charged a subcommittee to explore and report back options for the relocation of the Episcopal Church's staff. This survey will gather broad input from the Church in choosing a future that best serves the mission and ministry of our Church.

Bishop Hollerith's Christmas message

"The question that I hope each one of us will ponder this Christmas is this: Where is it that you might give the gift of life to another? It is one thing to simply mail packages or put presents under a tree. It is something altogether different to enable someone else to be whole or to thrive, or to reach some new potential, to know joy or comfort or to have new life. There are gifts and then there are Holy gifts. The difference between the two isn't a matter of lavishness or expense or even effort. A Holy gift is simply on some deep level a reflection, an extension of that gift given to the world in Bethlehem so long ago. It is heart felt in the deepest sense. It's what Christmas is truly all about. And what we can be about." For the full message, click the links below.

Click here to watch Bishop Hollerith's Christmas message. Click here for the text of the message.