Blogs
From Conference Staff
Learning
Influencing
By Dwayne Stinson
There’s a Lobster in my Office
Dwayne Stinson and his lobster. By Dwayne Stinson, Associate Director of Influencing Ministries There’s a lobster in my office. He’s red, about two feet long, with large pinched claws and oh, by the way, he’s inflatable. I got him last week at the Hatchathon which the...
Hope is in Vienna, VA: A new church plant story
Main Points: Hope UMC was one of two new church plants that was announced at the 2022 Virginia Annual Conference. The vision for Hope UMC is to be a multicultural and multigenerational church in Vienna, VA. By the Rev. Sammy Addo-Donkoh Hope United Methodist Church in...
Three Takeaways from 2022 Planters’ Gathering
Pictured left to right are Dwayne Stinson (VA Conference Associate Director of Influencing Ministries), Jake McGlothin (Restoration), Bob Riggles (Sydenstricker), and Sam Kirubakaran (Indian Church RVA). By Dwayne Stinson Church planters and ministry innovators...
Serving
By Serving Ministries
Annual Conference Kits and Cans
General InformationEach district will continue hosting district-wide collection events, at each designated sites. District coordinators will coordinate this event prior to the Annual Conference gathering in Roanoke. The Annual Conference team will establish a plan to...
Pray for Turkey & Syria
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck southern Turkey and North Syria at 4:17 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 6, 2023, resulted in thousands of deaths and many more families displaced. United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) partnered with International Blue Crescent...
Open eyes lead to new windows for family in need
Open eyes lead to new windows for family in need By the Rev. RJ Jun, Director of Serving Ministries The Serving Ministries office received a call from The Open Table in August. This agency is an Advance Special Partner of the Virginia Conference...
Aren’t we all odd buckets?
By Bill Pike , Trinity UMC, Richmond On the morning of Friday, November 11, I suspect some of the bucket brigade who showed up at the Virginia Conference office to move and load flood buckets are a bit stiff, maybe achy in the arms and shoulders, and moving a little...
United Methodist churches throughout Virginia aid in disaster relief
Bucket brigades formed in large and small congregations to create cleaning kits needed for disaster relief November 10, 2022 GLEN ALLEN, VA – The Rev. Bob Pihlcrantz, the disaster coordinator for the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church (VAUMC),...
Annual Conference Offering for Wesley Theological Seminary
From left to right - Jim Andrews, Rev. Barbara Miner, Rev. Tom Berlin, Rev. Dr. Jim Driscroll (Military Chaplaincy DMin Director), Rev. Dr. Peter Moon, Rev. Dr. David McAllister-Willson (President of Wesley Theological Seminary), Rev. Seungsoo 'RJ' Jun Photo credit:...
Celebrating 24 Years of Ministry:
A Series Celebrating the Ongoing Connections Between Virginia Conference Congregations and Congregations in Ukraine and Russia Editor’s Note: In August, an article was published about recent disbursements of funds to United Methodist communities in Ukraine and Russia,...
Invitation to join, support Holy Rollers
Hello Virginia Annual Conference family! As you know Annual Conference is coming up soon, June 16 – 18 in Hampton. Something you may not know is that there is a group of folks called the Holy Rollers who ride their bikes to Annual Conference each year (when...
Could we dream of a used car trading ministry?
By the Rev. RJ Jun, Associate Director of Serving Ministries “RJ, we need some cars to be donated.” This request from a VAUMC Refugee Response team member created a moment of silence during the monthly Zoom meeting where the greatest needs of our new neighbors are...
Mission partners share reflections, history on current invasion in Ukraine
VAUMC Conversations is a conference podcast hosted by the Rev. Seungsoo “RJ” Jun, Associate Director of Serving Ministries. The monthly podcast focuses on ministry work and strengthening the United Methodist connection. For the March episode, Jun invited clergy...
Communications
By Communications Office
Basics of copyright and CCLI
By Hunter Bryn, Conference Digital Media Specialist Copyright, copyright, copyright…the super fun, confusing, set of laws that may make your head spin. Copyright protects original works of authorship. In simple terms, if you create it; you own it and no one else may...
A.I. and how you could use it in your churches
By Hunter Bryn We have all been down that rabbit hole of searching for a stand out graphic or image to illustrate a sermon of theme during a church service. There are SO many websites, from Church Media Squad to Church Motion Graphics to Sharefaith. These are great...
We’ve got THAT podcast!
Looking for a podcast? Virginia clergy and conference staff may have what you want to listen to. Learn more… Find listing of clergy and conference staff podcasts here.
Diversity Kitchen
Diversity Kitchen is a video series created in the hope that by brings people of different cultures together over the love of food and Jesus that further conversation and relationship-building can begin in our denomination and world.