He talks to Steve Wilke about his pending retirement, and Todd will introduce you to Dr. Cheryl Rude, who will take over as executive director in January.

The group was led by Col. John Chivington, who was a Methodist Episcopal pastor. As part of a resolution passed by the 2012 General Conference, The United Methodist Church has been taking part in actions of repentance while seeking to build relationships with Native persons in light of what happened on that cold Tuesday long ago.

This video shares about the healing run, but also shares stories bravely told by descendants of survivors, told prior to the start of the run this year. The path traces as closely as possible the path from the site near Eads, Colorado, to Denver, where the volunteer soldiers were based. The run came shortly before a new exhibit opened in the Methodist Building in Washington, D.C., dedicated to remembering and repenting for the atrocities at Sand Creek. Joey Butler of United Methodist News Service provided a preview. United Women in Faith recently provided an in-depth story about the massacre and its lasting impact on Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples. You can read Tara Barnes' Response magazine story here.

In the episode, Roland makes reference to GBGM's "This Moment Matters" campaign. Learn more about it at https://umcmission.org/giving/this-moment-matters

Download this podcast. You also can read a story about the event by David Burke by clicking here.

Pastor Juan Carlos Veloso, who serves a Hispanic church in the area, shares what he encountered that day and the ongoing challenge to share the love of Christ with people broken by the after-effects of the raid. Also, Rev. Chad Boling, who also serves in south Omaha, talks about his work with a rapid response team that has worked to keep people informed and resourced. Both pastors also share how you can help.

Youth sports should be a time of fun, development and building character. But it's often quite the opposite.

Matt Williams — a standout catcher at Duke University who played in the Chicago Cubs organization — joins Todd to talk about a one-day workshop titled "Coach Different." Matt, the digital engagement team director at Resurrection, a United Methodist Church who has coached young people, wants to give youth coaches a chance to learn how to reduce stress, make the best use of their time and increase the positive impact they can have on boys and girls of all ages through sports.

A 90-minute workshop March 31, 2025, in Olathe at the Resurrection West campus can help coaches learn how to coach with purpose.

Fill out the registration form.

If you have questions about internships in the Great Plains Conference, please reach out to:

Rev. Dr. Ashlee Alley Crawford — aalleycrawford@greatplainsumc.org

Rev. Melissa Collier Gepford — mgepford@greatplainsumc.org

This episode features one gathering in December at The Table, with Bishop David Wilson, members of his Cabinet and representatives from Bonfire.

In this episode, Todd talks with Rev. Dr. Gerald Liu, PhD, the conference's emerging faith communities cultivator; Amy Haines, a newcomer to the NCD board; and Rev. Changhyun Kim, who has started a new Korean-language faith community in Olathe, Kansas.

Learn more at https://www.greatplainsumc.org/disasterresponse.

Donate to the fund: https://gp-reg.brtapp.com/GPDisasterFund. 

Some apologies before you start listening: A bad cable was discovered — but not until the editing process. The process used to eliminate the high-pitched hum that was throughout the interview recording resulted in poor audio quality from Amy's microphone. However, listeners can still hear her analysis of the issues coming before the General Conference.

In this discussion, Lisa shares her reflections on what have become known as the "3 R's" and shares other insights on topics surrounding the General Conference, scheduled for April 23 to May 4, 2024, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The priorities are regionalization, removal of restrictive language involving LGBTQ+ persons from the Book of Discipline, and stopping further disaffiliations from the denomination.

This episode tells the stories of three ministries assisted by these grants in Nebraska — an entrepreneurial idea at Connection Point in Lincoln, children’s and youth curriculum for The Vine United Methodist Church in Scottsbluff, and a different way to help Brady UMC in the North Platte area worship without a pastor.

Learn more about the Nebraska foundation.

It was the idea of former Great Plains Clergy Excellence Director Rev. Dr. Dee Williamston, now bishop of the Louisiana Conference. She and Bishop David Wilson of the Great Plains — the first Native American bishop in the denomination — teamed up to lead the group on an educational experience that expanded minds, filled hearts with love — and most importantly challenged the emotions of all who took part.

This is the third of a three-episode series on the trip.

The trip was a civil rights immersion trip to help educate, inspire and stir to action followers of Christ. One of the goals was to give people the tools they need to combat racism and to push for equity in our society.

In this second of three episodes, I think it’s important that we explore the emotions that people felt on the trip — and what has continued to resonate with them since coming home.

Our group spent much of its time in Montgomery. We saw the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and walked in the parsonage where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King lived. We spent the better part of a day at the Legacy Museum, a mission of the Equal Justice Initiative (or EJI). It’s an amazing museum that uses the latest in technology to help tell the story of racism — from kidnappings in the African continent to the often-deadly voyage to North America to the brutality of slavery. It also explains the injustice of Jim Crow laws and addresses the modern-day inequity of mass incarceration.

Our group saw the bus station where Freedom Riders were beaten, walked a memorial dedicated to honoring the lives of the numerous people lynched over the years, including right here in Kansas and Nebraska.

We traveled to Selma and walked the bridge where Dr. King, John Lewis and others were abused by white supremacists, including police officers.

In Birmingham, we talked with people who are members of 16th Street Baptist Church, where four girls were killed by a bomb. And we toured the Civil Rights Institute, which tells the story, decade by decade, of the push for equity in this country.

February is Black History Month, so I wanted to share some of the stories from our trip. I wanted to provide an opportunity for listeners to feel the emotions, embrace the potential for change in our country by hearing the stories of people — Black, brown and white.

And, in this concluding episode of the three-part series, I wanted to convey the ways people believe they have changed — And their hopes and dreams for how our world can change … for the better.

The Caring Congregation, an organization founded by retired United Methodist elder Rev. Karen Lampe, aims to teach congregations of all sizes how it can provide better care for one another and the communities they serve. A special online webinar is scheduled for Feb. 23-24 to provide training either for individuals or groups who want to learn more.

You can register for the webinar here.

You can order "The Caring Congregation Ministry: Implementation Guide" at one of these stores:

• The Caring Congregation website
• Cokesbury
• Amazon
• AbeBooks

LINKS

Powwow Photo Album — https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjASZbF

Immersion Trip Album — https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjARU6e

Blog about the Oklahoma Trip — https://www.greatplainsumc.org/blogdetail/in-laymans-terms-pondering-culture-after-a-native-american-immersion-experience-17589860

Videos:

• Day 1 — First Americans Museum — https://www.greatplainsumc.org/videodetail/native-american-cultural-immersion-trip-day-1-17557337
• Day 2 — Washita Massacre Site — https://www.greatplainsumc.org/videodetail/native-american-cultural-immersion-trip-day-2-17563970
• Day 3 — Skyline Urban Ministries — https://www.greatplainsumc.org/videodetail/native-american-cultural-immersion-day-3-17566093
• Day 4 — Tulsa Race Massacre and Mary Lee Clark UMC — https://www.greatplainsumc.org/videodetail/native-american-cultural-immersion-trip-day-4-17566883
• Day 5 — Ponca Tribe Powwow — https://www.greatplainsumc.org/videodetail/native-american-cultural-immersion-trip-day-5-17574572

The Congregational Excellence team of the Great Plains Conference wants to help clergy and laity process what has happened, come to grips with our current reality and, — and this is most important — realize there is hope for the future. So in late April and early May, author Rev. Rebekah Simon-Peter will be making a book tour with workshops in five Great Plains cities — North Platte and Columbus in Nebraska, and Ottawa, McPherson and Hays in Kansas. She is chief visionary for Rebekah Simon-Peter Coaching and Consulting Incorporated, which has a flagship program titled “Creating a Culture of Renewal.”

The event she is facilitating with us in the Great Plains is Lessons from Pandemics Past.

The theme this year is “And They Dreamed.”

You can learn more and register by going to www.greatplainsumc.org/laity-summit.

And check out this story from United Methodist News Service.

Rev. Dr. Schade has provided proposed sermon outlines to be used with the issue guide. These are not provided as requirements but rather to serve as resources for pastors interested in using the Sermon-Dialogue-Sermon method.

• Download the PDF version.
• Download the Word document version.

Unlike many of us, Jesus didn't just give thanks for what already had happened, but He also thanked God prior to performing miracles and before willingly dying for humankind — lessons in showing great faith that God would provide what was needed.

• Looking back at what God already had done for him and the Israelite people.
• Praising the traits and truths of God.
• Understanding God listens to our prayers.
• Having faith that God will answer.

Host Todd Seifert, conference communications director, interviews the Rev. Sarah Marsh, the new coordinator for mercy and justice ministries. They talk about the difference between mercy ministries and justice ministries, and they discuss the partnership the conference has with two organizations that are building grassroots community organizing efforts across Kansas and Nebraska.

• You can learn more about LPI by going to its website: https://lpi-elpaso.org/.
• Watch a video of this interview.
• Listen to more "In Layman's Terms" episodes at https://toddseifert.com/podcast/.

In this episode, Stephanie references several videos you may want to check out for yourselves:

• Pianoside Church.
• The online children's Christmas pageant.
• Provide a devotion or sermon by phone.

Rev. Michael Marion and Rev. Ashley Prescott Barlow Thompson sit down with Todd to talk about how the pandemic forced them to make decisions and how the congregation is adapting even 13 months after the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Using the stories from the Old Testament history books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the goal is to share stories about how people and churches are preparing to re-engage with their congregations, their communities and with God through their own faith practices.

This first episode in the series sets the stage by taking a brief look at Jewish history and the way people in Jerusalem viewed the foundation being set for the new temple after their return from the Babylonian exile.

Have ideas from your church? Or are you doing something to strengthen your spiritual disciplines? Contact Todd Seifert at tseifert@greatplainsumc.org.

Oliver shares how the movement of the 1960s is similar to the cries for racial justice that we experience today, what attracted him to leaders like Malcom X and Martin Luther King and what can we do today to move forward on the important topic of racial justice.

Eugenio Hernandez, the conference’s multimedia production specialist, took it a step further by recording this video of the interview discussions with the Rev. Dee Williamston, superintendent of the Salina and Hutchinson districts, and the Rev. Robert Johnson, lead pastor of Saint Mark United Methodist Church in Wichita, the Great Plains Conference's largest predominantly African-American church. This podcast is the audio version of that interview.

Williamston and Johnson share how their ministry has changed over the past nine months, signs of hope they have seen since George Floyd’s death, and what they think needs to happen so the next generation lives in a more equitable world.