2011, Right around the corner...
Saturday, July 31, 2010
I can tell you that - as a pastor who has served in both local church and academic settings - the program calendar is a big aid to ministry planning. I know a lot of people keep their calendars digitally on a laptop or handheld device, but I still prefer that oh-so-old-fashioned feel of paper betwixt me fingers!
You can find out more about the available varieties of the program calendar at this link. From the cover, it looks like the new program calendar emphasizes the Four Areas of Ministry Focus that the Council of Bishops and Connectional Table have developed as the key ministry initiatives for the church. These include:
1) Developing principled Christian leaders for the church and the world.
2) Creating new places for new people by starting new congregations and renewing existing ones.
3) Engaging in ministry with the poor.
4) Stamping out killer diseases by improving health globally.
An article on the Four Areas of Focus can be found at this link. (And though the language often gets overlooked in these types of programmatic statements, I think the idea is that these are all ways that we can bear praise to Jesus Christ and live faithfully as his church -- all that his salvation might be proclaimed to the nations. The theological framework is, as I will always argue, important.)
Labels: Four Areas of Focus, UMCOM
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 7:39 AM
1 Comments:
I agree that these calendars are very useful. However, the thing that makes the least amount of sense to me about these calendars is that the electronic version, which requires no paper, is significantly more expensive than the paper version.
I think would use the electronic one more since I have a digital calendar, but I also feel like it is bad stewardship of my church's money (I realize I am fortunate that my church provides mine) to get the more expensive calendar. Thus, I received my paper calendar in the mail the other day.
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