You are cordially invited to a day away for authorized ministers in the Florida Conference.  This 24-hour retreat will begin at 3 p.m. on April 27th and end at 1 p.m. April 28th.  We’ll gather at the Conference church house at 9300 University Blvd. in Orlando for a time of relaxation and refreshment. Registration is required for planning purposes, but there is no cost to attend. Thursday dinner and Friday lunch will be provided by the Florida Conference at this event. Registration deadline is April 21. Register today!

According to an article in the Orlando Sentinel on Feb. 1, 2023, "Former Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran is slated to become the next president of embattled New College of Florida, while Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing to cut diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and curtail faculty tenure on state university campuses. All of these planned changes apparently are intended to further DeSantis’ campaign against what he describes as a 'far-left' agenda in higher education." Conference Minister Rev. John Vertigan is urging the church to raise its voice and object to the "hijacking of higher education at New College and on campuses across the state of Florida." Read his pastoral letter here.

In the latest issues of Celebrate Florida, one Florida Conference church collected more than 9 tons of food for the hungry in its annual drive, and two members from the church were invited to the White House for the signing of the Marriage Equality Act. Meanwhile, several other congregations raised thousands of dollars each for the UCC's disaster response to Hurricane Ian, while some of our churches damaged in Hurricane Ian began the process of repairing and rebuilding. Read all about it!

If you've been missing our e-Celebrate and Celebrate Florida email newsletters, you may have missed the announcement last December that we discontinued e-Celebrate, which had been published every other week, in favor of a new weekly newsletter that we're calling The Sunshine Connection until we come up with a better name. If you'd like to start receiving The Sunshine Connection, you can sign up here. In addition, starting this year, Celebrate Florida will be published quarterly, at the end of March, June, September and December, rather than every other month as it had been. If you've already subscribed, you don't need to do anything. If you'd like to subscribe or update your email address, go here.