Topics of interest to those in educational ministry
Happy Easter Monday! This day after Easter has had various meanings and celebrations over the centuries. For many who serve in churches this day is a time to take a deep breath after the busyness of Holy Week. It is interesting that one of the many names for this day is Renewal Monday. It is within that spirit that this post emerged. Continue reading
Report from 2015 NEXT Church Conference Fourth Presbyterian Church Chicago, March 16-18
What is the NEXT Church?
It’s a movement within the PC(USA) that—in the midst of severe drops in giving, worship attendance and controversial issues like gay rights and Israel-Palestine conflict—shows that the denomination (and it’s churches) aren’t dead. But instead the PC(USA) is changing, expanding and transforming into the body of Christ that God calls it to be. Here’s how the NEXT Church expresses it on their website.
For me, what truly nourishes my heart and soul at the NEXT Church Conferences is morning and evening worship, connecting with friends and colleagues (as well as making new ones), the presentations on new ways of doing ministry/cultural trends/justice and societal issues, and workshops.
While the conference doesn’t explicitly talk about Christian Education ministry, it is faithfully educating Christians about what it means to be the body of Christ and to do God’s work in the world—to (according to this year’s theme) go “beyond our walls, our fears and ourselves” to be Christ’s hands and feet. Continue reading
Last week I had the opportunity to spend a week in Florida and visited three different places designed to both entertain and educate, thus edutainment parks. They were the Holy Land Experience, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in the Universal parks, and Disney World. I could do a blog review of each, because there are definitely positives and negatives to each experience, but instead I was struck by their differing overall aims and how it shaped the way they crafted their experiences for the visitor. Continue reading
How do you know that what you are doing in your educational ministry makes a difference? This is the question at the heart of assessment. Many churches seem to perpetuate the same ministries and programs, because “we’ve always done it this way.” But, are the programs and events we are doing really making a difference in the growth of faith within our congregations? Continue reading
At Faith Presbyterian (https://www.facebook.com/faithpresgso), we embrace our traditional worship style and space while making our service accessible and engaging for all. Children and their families are welcome at the front of the sanctuary with activities geared toward their age level. Our family worship guide follows the pattern of the service and offers extra enrichment ideas and activities for children and active learners of all ages.The outline of a traditional worship service centered around The Word is beautiful and quite freeing when we remember that The Word is The Living Word of God – incarnate in Christ, written in scripture, and enacted in the world.
For Lent, we are using a themed sermon series inspired by Rev. Whitney Wilkinson following the “Landscape of Lent.” Each week, we add a new visual element to represent some aspect of the scripture – ashes, wilderness, wind, water, mud, cave, palms, bread – and we will close with Easter in the garden. Continue reading
Bright Threads Ministries…weaving people of all abilities into the fabric of congregations
Are there people with disabilities in our congregations? If we have two families with children with disabilities there are at least twenty more nearby without a church home. If there is one adult with a disability in worship on Sunday there are at least forty more in the surrounding neighborhoods. Continue reading
GenOn Ministries’ (formerly known as The LOGOS Ministry) fifty year history has produced many excellent resources and training events to equip church leaders in developing young disciples. GenOn provides resources to lay a firm foundation for faith formation which includes an intentional evaluation and planning tool as well as curriculum for ordered, cumulative learning. GenOn’s primary training event, the LOGOS Encounter, emphasizes three key practices in effective ministry (The theology and practice of Christian Relationships, a Balanced Ministry approach to spiritually nurture the whole person, and a scriptural, prayerful Process of Call to identify volunteers to serve). Many free resources or samples of resources are available on GenOn Ministries’ website: Continue reading
It can be a challenge to keep up with the variety of resources out “there” in cyberspace – whether on “insert name of large online bookseller & purveyor of all sorts of things,” various social media outlets, websites, wikis and the like. I’m even having a time keeping up with all the GREAT information being shared on this new, dynamic, social-media integrated hope4ce platform!
Today I offer some resources for 21st Century learners – and leaders of learners. One is an approach to evaluating the resources that come your way. The other is a list of some of my current favorite resources. Perhaps you’ll have others to add to share – I hope so.
In the future, I’ll share some other collections of resources assembled around various topics that just may be of interest to this diverse, energetic group of folks who care passionately about nurturing faith among children of God of all ages.
21st Century Resources for Lifelong Learners
Rev. Sarah F. Erickson, D.Ed.Min.
Director
The Center for Lifelong Learning, Columbia Theological Seminary
I am about to attend the second of two memorial services this week –people of strong faith who I’m sure are with God and who are no longer in pain. While knowing that they have moved from life into life, it is still difficult to bear their loss. Our beloved former president of Columbia Theological Seminary, Steve Hayner, will soon be lifted up in communal remembrance. He and his wife, Sharol Hayner have let us walk with them in this journey through pancreatic cancer by means of the CaringBridge website. In tribute to their incredible witness of faith, I lift up here a portion of one of Sharol’s posts from October 8, 2014 on discipleship during difficult times: Continue reading
Israel Galindo asks us to rethink the concept of curriculum in today’s reblog of his post earlier this week in Columbia Connections. Curriculum is more than the printed resources we may choose and use on Sunday mornings. I wonder how you’ve used this concept in your church.
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