The original login information came in an email from the conference, probably forwarded through your district office. This information contained a user name for each church and a password that applied to all the churches. The crucial question here is: Has someone already logged on and changed the password?

If the answer is No, then follow these steps:

A) Find the username by downloading and opening the Church Username document to the left. Usually the name is just "umcneb\" plus the church name, lower case, as one word with no spaces (thus my churches, "umcneb\lookingglass" and "umcneb\newmangrove"--be sure not to use the quotes but do use the correct backslash), but I might be wrong with your church, so look it up. My apologies to anyone from outside the Elkhorn Valley District, but I thought it best to just upload our document; you'll have to contact your district office.

B) The letter from the Conference says that the universal password for all these churches is "UMCChangeNow!" (but, of course, don't use the quotes).

Remember the username and password for when you log in at the next step.

If the answer is Yes (someone has logged in and changed the password), follow this step:

FIND the person who changed the password and GET the username/password combination from them. This may have been the pastor; it may have been some other church officer.  But this person should have the necessary information.  (I can see where this could be a problem, having several officers sharing essentially one login account.  I'll mention this later, but my overall advice is simple: play fair and no one will get hurt.)

You are now ready to move on to the next step.

You can go to the Conference Dashboard in one of several ways:

• You can follow this link here.
• You can go to the district website front page, scroll down, and find our links to various locations including "The Great and Powerful Dashboard," or...
• You can enter the URL directly into your browser: umcnebcom.umcneb.org. (Incidentally, the instructions say "Don't add 'http://' or 'www.'"I don't know why it says this for the http: designation; your browser will almost always add it anyway.  Otherwise it isn't a web page!  The www. designation, though, will foul things up, so don't use it.)

Here's the login box with all the pertinent information filled in.  Notice the long username complete with the backslash.  Yes, I've been using the Google Chrome browser lately.  Click on the picture for a larger version.

When you get there, you will automatically get the login box on top of anything that's currently in your browser window.  If you followed Step 1 above, you have all the information you need.  If you haven't, you might have to go back and get the information requested in Step 1. Once you submit your login information, you should be taken to the Dashboard's main page, the next step.

Here is the home page for the dashboard.  The story link in the main window will currently get you instructions.  The "Church Documents" link on the left will take you where you need to go. Want to see this? Click on the above image for a larger picture.

Welcome! You've arrived at the front page of the Conference Dashboard. There are a lot of things on this page, and it can be kind of confusing.  But for right now, at least, the instructions for finding your church documents are right up at the top.  In the main window under "Dashboard," click on "Local Church Statements" to bring up those directions.  

By the way, you will need the program Adobe Reader to see your documents, which are in .pdf format.  Your computer probably has a version of Reader on it, but if not (or if you need to update it to the latest version), here is the link to download the program.

The reports are sorted out by churches, which are sorted by district. The Looking Glass church is in the Elkhorn Valley district, so that's where I'll go next. If you click on the wrong district, you should end up with an empty folder. Click the image above for a larger view.

At this point it's just a matter of finding the documents for your church.  Find the "Church Documents" link in the left hand column.  This takes you to the next window down.  This window gives you the list of districts.  Find yours (you do know your district, don't you?) and click on that link to get to the next layer down...and the next step.

Almost there! Open up your church's folder. Click on the above image for a larger view.

Once you've clicked into the district folder, you should find your church, the one you've logged in. There should be a folder with your church's name and the i.d. number used by the conference. Is this starting to look easy yet? We have just a couple more clicks to go! Start by clicking on the folder to open it up.

This should be a list of the documents you are authorized to view. Click on the file name to open it in your browser window.

Inside the folder should be the documents you are authorized to view.  I'm not sure what the filenames will be in the future, but it will probably (as in my example) include the church's i.d. number once again.  (I don't happen to have a sample pension document--sorry!) But at this point you really cannot go wrong. Clicking on the document will open it in your browser window. Click on the down arrow and you will find "Send Me" as an option, with a sub-option to "Download" this file. That means you can save it (without opening it first) somewhere on your computer for later use.

And here it is: the current Mission Fund statement. Your window may look different, depending on your browser and the plug-in it uses to run Reader.

Your browser should be capable of opening a Reader .pdf document. It will look just like the usual Mission Fund statement, including all the church i.d. and mailing info. From here you can save it, print it as often as you like, send it as an email attachment, whatever. Just make sure to send a copy back to the conference Treasurer with your remittance.