Your “Charge Conference” will now be a “Church Conference”

• Like with Charge Conferences, all church members are invited and welcome to attend.  
• Unlike Charge Conferences, all church members in attendance will have voting rights for anything voted upon at Church Conference.

Church Conference Forms

• Forms are scheduled to be available in the church’s Arena account beginning August 1st and must be completed at least 10 days prior to your scheduled Church Conference.  Please login to your church Arena account before August 1st to be sure you have access.  Your church’s Arena account information is provided on the preceding page.  Pastors and Church Administrators will have access to all forms.  Some forms can also be accessed by committee chairs if they are entered into Arena as such (i.e. Finance Chairs will have access to the Finance Report within their own Arena account if they are identified as “Cmte Chair” of the Finance Committee in Arena).  

• Draft worksheets will be available for download on the BWC Church Conference website.  You may choose to use these to collect information prior to entering it into Arena, but this step is optional. (http://www.bwcumc.org/charge-conference-evals/).

• The Candidate for Ordained Ministry form and Clergy Compensation Report will have elements that are entered into Arena, but will also require forms to be scanned and uploaded prior to church conference.  These forms will be available for download on the BWC Church Conference webpage.  The Laity Sexual Misconduct form will continue to be a printable form that is submitted directly to you to be kept securely on file at the church.  Please do not send this form to the BWC or bring it to Church Conference.  This form will also be available for download on the BWC Church Conference webpage.  

Nominations - Updates to Arena are Mandatory:  

It is imperative that you have updated your committee listings in Arena to date (instructions attached) and that changes are entered at least 10-days prior to your Church Conference.  We will be providing a nominations listing based on what is entered into Arena and per the start and end dates you assign.  Please be sure committee chairs are accurately identified within their respective ministry areas (not just in Church Council)  in order to be sure that the correct persons have access to pertinent forms and information.  Furthermore, you (Pastor and/or Church Administrator) or a designee you’ve assigned to manage Arena should be prepared to coordinate, manage, and monitor the completion of all required forms.

2017 Church (formerly Charge) Conference trainings will be held on August 2, 2017 at Cedar Grove UMC and August 3, 2017 at Hall UMC.  There will be two trainings held at each location.  The first training is scheduled from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon, and the second training is from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.  We encourage churches to send at least two representatives as we will provide a tutorial on the new platform. Access to the live platform is scheduled to launch on August 1, 2017.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact your Annapolis District Administrator, Willine Kamara at wkamara@bwcumc.org. 

We thank you for your patience and flexibility as we attempt to perfect and streamline the business of Church Conferences.  Please reach out to us if you have any questions.

Blessings and thanks, 

Willine

Annapolis District Administrator

Baltimore-Washington Conference

11711 East Market Place

Fulton, MD 20759

1.800.492.2525 ext.441

410.309.3441

Wkamara@bwcumc.org

www.bwcumc.org