The CEU News Continuing Education Update January 2020 A Publication of the Wesley Leadership Institute Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church
Featured Events Vision Day Fresh Expressions February 1, 2020 Knoxville, TN 0.4 CEUs Fresh Expressions is about empowering and equipping God’s people to develop creative expressions of church that can reach the increasing diversity of our society. Vision Day is a great way to discover more about Fresh Expressions. In an interactive format, you will have the chance to: - Hear how Fresh Expressions is renewing the church - Talk about the development of Fresh Expressions US - Learn more about the Mission-Shaped Church Sermon Academy February 11 Alcoa, TN 0.5 CEUs Lent and Easter are high moments in the year. Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday are critical in Jesus' story. This Sermon Academy, led by Rev. Charles Maynard, will focus on texts and topics for the season and offer tools to assist in preaching in 2020. The cost is $25.00 and includes lunch and materials. Register now! 0.5 CEUs
Ministers Convocation 2020 February 17 - 19 Pigeon Forge, TN
2.0 CEUs
Join us for another exciting Minister’s Convocation event in February! Through our combination of speakers, whether your congregation is downtown, suburban, or tiny and rural, there will be helpful ideas and inspiration for everyone to take home to their local church. Our leadership this year will include: Carey Nieuwhof, Jasmine Smothers, and Jeremy Troxler. Registration information and more details can be found here and on the Holston events calendar page. Register now at the early bird rate!
Events - Coming Soon! Check the Holston online calendar for a full listing of future events. January 2019: National Conference on Youth Ministries January 6-9 Arlington, TX 1.5 CEUs UMC LEAD January 12-15 Seattle, WA 0.7 CEUs SEJ Cabinet Consultation January 20-23 St. Simon’s Island 1.0 CEUs Creativity Orlando January 21-23 Lake Buena Vista, FL 2.5 CEUs Winter Conference January 26-29 St. Simon’s Island 2.5 CEUs Launching Leaders: Developing Leaders in the Local Church January 30 Online Course 0.1 CEUs February 2019: Fresh Expressions Vision Day for Holston Conference February 1 Knoxville, TN 0.4 CEUs Caring w/Compassion: First Responders & Families February 10 - March 28 Online Course 1.0 CEU Sermon Academy February 11 Alcoa, TN 0.5 CEUs Church Leaders: Preparing Yourself for Lent February 12 Online Course 0.1 CEUs Ministers Convocation 2020 February 17-19 Pigeon Forge, TN 2.0 CEUs
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Welcome to 2020 and another year of great continuing education opportunities! It has come to our attention that some of the large group emails going out from this office have landed in junk mail folders. We have been assured that this issue is now resolved. Nevertheless, you may want to review your junk folder from the last couple of months. There was a mass mailing on Convocation 2020 and a Christmas newsletter from Congregational Development, among others, that may be lurking in your junk files. Just move them to your inbox to read.
Book Review Lasting Impact: 7 Powerful Conversations That Will Help Your Church Grow by Carey Nieuwhof (Note: Carey Nieuwhof will be one of our plenary speakers at Convocation 2020. This is a review of his latest book.) You've probably noticed ... Churches aren't growing. Young adults are walking away. Volunteers are hard to recruit. Leaders are burning out. And the culture is changing faster than ever before.. There's no doubt the church is in a moment in history for which few church leaders are prepared. You can look for answers, but the right response depends on having the right conversation. In Lasting Impact, Carey Nieuwhof leads you and your team through seven conversations that will help your church grow and have a lasting impact. What if ‌ Having the right conversations could change your trajectory? There was more hope than you realized? The potential to grow was greater than the potential to decline? Your community was waiting for a church to offer the hope they're looking for? Your best days as a church were ahead of you? Maybe the future belongs to the churches that are willing to have the most honest conversations at a critical time. That's what Lasting Impact is designed to facilitate.
A Message from Our Director... As we begin the new year, it is time to pause and reflect upon the year past as well as the year that lies in front of us. For me, 2019 was a year of getting settled. I am still adjusting to my role as the Secretary of the Annual Conference and the Director of Clergy Services although I have been in these roles now for 18 months. Somewhere in the midst of these two assigned roles is a smaller role that does not appear on my business cards: Director of the Wesley Leadership Institute (WLI). The WLI was a dream of Bishop Chamberlain. As I understand it, he initially sought to create an entity that would provide clergy and laity the opportunity to engage in continuing education. As the dream developed, it became more centered on just clergy. There was a Board of Directors that sought to provide leadership and direction for the WLI. Somewhere along the way, the Board ceased to be, and my office took on the full responsibility for the WLI. Sue Weber is the ongoing face of the WLI, and her monthly newsletters seek to remind us of our continuing education obligations. It seems as if the grand idea of providing an “Institute� of learning and continuing education for ministers got lost somewhere in the ensuing years. I think that 2020 is going to be a time for me to reflect more fully on the WLI and seek to breathe some new life into this idea. Some of the things I am pondering right now are the following: With the advent of our new conference web site, I will seek to create a Wesley Leadership Institute section to help promote the ideas and concepts of continuing education and lifelong learning for the ministers of our annual conference. I am thinking of creating a curated series of magazines. Each magazine would focus on a particular topic of growth or learning that would be relevant to ministers as they seek to lead their local churches. Let me explain the term curated. Curated means that the magazines will contain articles, videos, podcasts, or audio that have been specifically chosen to coincide with the topic of that particular magazine. Off the top of my head, some of those curated topics might be: Church Finances Working with Volunteers Church Administration Guidelines and Roles of Various Committees Worship Practices Theology of the Sacraments Preaching Evangelism Fresh Expressions Mission Leadership Issues and Styles These magazines, using the ISSUU platform, would be linked to our web site and would be expandable. That means that new articles and ideas could be added at any time. This will create a constantly evolving resource for our ministers and churches.
Yes, perhaps WLI can also get back to that idea of providing material for the churches/laity of our annual conference as well. This will be one of those goals that will not happen overnight. It will be one of those kind of goals that I will not be able to do by myself. I could use your help in making this goal a reality. Specifically, I could use your help in the following ways: I could use your help in determining what major topics (magazines) would be of the most use to the ministers and churches of the annual conference. Send me an email with your suggestion(s). Once those magazine topics are decided, I could then use your help in finding material that would be appropriate for that topic. Most all of us regularly search the internet or come across articles, videos, podcasts or audio clips that we find useful and relevant to our ministries. All I need for you to do is share a link to those items and let me know in which magazine you think the article should appear. I will review it and decide on whether or not to include the article. Volunteer to be a curator. I would love to have persons vetting and examining the links that are submitted. I would first need to meet with you and talk about guidelines and parameters of what would be included in each magazine. I would like to have some people to help me ponder the future direction of the WLI. If you would like to be part of an informal group for this purpose, please let me know. As you can see, 2020 could turn out to be quite an active year for the WLI. I invite you to help me make it a turnaround year during which the WLI takes on a new direction and vibrancy for the ministers and churches of our annual conference.
- Terry Goodman
CONTACT INFO: Director: The Rev. Terry Goodman terrygoodman@holston.org
Phone: 865-293-4147
Admin. Asst. & Editor: Sue Weber sueweber@holston.org
Phone: (865) 293-4135 Website: Wesley Leadership Institute