Resources

Northwest District Grant

The Northwest District is excited to offer an opportunity for churches to apply for ministry grants in the Spring and Fall. Grants will be awarded to churches that are requesting funds to support current ministries or develop future ministries. Below is the criteria that the Mission Council will use in granting funds:

Grants will be primarily used to help establish congregational ministries that extend the work of the congregation into the surrounding community;
The congregation must demonstrate a high level of financial commitment from its membership;
The congregation must demonstrate how it will fund the ministry on an ongoing basis after the ministry is established;
Grant requests will only be considered for congregations that paid 100% of conference and district apportionments the previous year.

Grant applications can be downloaded by clicking this link.

Fall Deadline: August 1stwith the announcement of grants by September 1st .
Spring Deadline: February 1stwith the announcement of grants by March 1st.
If you have any questions, please contact the district office.

Rentention Records

The General Commission on Archives and History makes these guidelines available to facilitate the planning and creation of retention schedules for your annual conference and local church. They are available in two versions: pdf for formatted viewing and printing on line and as an MS Word document. Both versions can be downloaded and printed out. To read the pdf version you will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader version 5 or later.

Managing Records of the Local Church [Word Version]

Supply Pastor(Lay Minister) Resources

Supply Pastor (Lay Minister) Sample Communition Liturgy

Pulpit Supply List - Updated April 2017

Licensed Local Pastor - Course of Study

Course of Study is a program of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, administered by the seminary, for the purpose of educating licensed local pastors in the United Methodist Church. The Saint Paul Course of Study School offers a variety of formats:

Summer Session-4 Weeks in July/August – each course is 1 week long (Mon – Fri)
Winter Session-2 Weeks in January – each course is 1 week long (Mon – Fri)
Fall and Spring–Weekend Sessionss

For more information about courses and deadlines: http://www.spst.edu/cos/

501(c)(3) form

There is an on-line process for each church to receive their own Group Tax Exemption Ruling letter. Please go to www.gcfa.org and then choose FORMS in the left-hand section of the home page. Then choose GROUP RULING under the Local Church heading, see direct link below. You need to know the church’s FEIN to begin the process. Let the District office know if you have any questions.

http://www.umgroupruling.org/(S(au0kz125z0i4tlwqqzdtas4q))/Default.aspx

Accountable Reimbursement Information

GCFA Q&A's & Qualifying/Non-qualifying lists

Book of Discipline, 2016 Cokesbury

Click here to access a free online version

Church Insurance: Additional Insured Information

“By listing the Conference & District as additional insured on the church's policy it simply insures that should there be a lawsuit the church's legal team, the district's legal team, and the conference legal team will all be working together on a solution. By listing the conference and district as additional insured the churches are in no way providing insurance for either. Both the districts and the conference carry their own insurance. It simply makes sure that all the legal teams have to work in the best interests of all parties. We all have a stake in the final outcome. By working together instead of against each other or independently the outcome is usually cheaper in legal fees and lower in assessed damages. This is why most insurance companies are willing to provide the service for no charge or for very little. So far Church Mutual, Brotherhood, UMI, and Grinnell have made the additional insured riders available at no cost to the church.

The technical name for this is ascending liability. So far in our experience whenever there is a charge of misconduct in the local church the district and conference are also named in the lawsuit. This helps us manage the risk inherent in this reality. The additional insured only comes into play when there is in issue in that church (Example: if Wesley UMC, the District and Conference are named in a suit, it does not mean that First UMC becomes involved.)”