The CEU News - June, 2023

Events - Coming Soon!

Check the Holston online calendar for a full listing of future events.

Congregational Leadership: UM History and Doctrine

June 7-13 Online 1.0 CEUs

Designed for Part-Time Local Pastors, this course will cover the development of The United Methodist Church in America. Topics to be covered include the life and ministry of John and Charles Wesley, how the Methodist Societies in England functioned, early Methodism in America, Methodist and EUB doctrine, and mergers and splits in American Methodism.

Building a Leadership Network to Grow Our Ministry Effectiveness

June 15 Online 0.1 CEUs

One of the most important roles of any leader is to build networks. Whether in the business world or local congregation, the ability to create network connections is of utmost importance to effective leaders. In this session, Dr. Rodney Smothers will discuss these ways that networks impact our ministries along with ways to develop effective networks:

Communication Cool Tools Webinar

June 23 Online 0.1 CEUs

GCFA’s Communications Department has curated a collection of resources that’ll maximize the impact of your ministry’s marketing initiatives - many of them FREE. From content creation and graphic design to data organization and video production, these cool tools will allow you to make the most of your time and energy! Join the award-winning team as they share their expertise and passion for supporting your ministry.

Building with Strengths for Small Congregations

June 29 Online 0.1 CEUs

Small congregations are not miniaturized big congregations. They have different challenges. Fortunately, they also have different strengths–ones that are deeply forming, urgently needed, and generally unavailable in big settings. Teresa Stewart will help you learn how to build with these strengths and stop imitating models that never fit to begin with.

The Non-Anxious Leader: Family Systems Basics

July 5 - August 1 Online 3.0 CEUs

Effective leadership depends on being able to separate your personal anxieties from the issues that affect your church or organization. Learn why understanding your own

family of origin is the key to effective leadership, what you can do to grow in this capacity, and the most important characteristic of effective leaders.

Caring With Compassion: First Responders and Their Families

July 10 - August 26 Online 1.0 CEUa

First responders and their families need support and advocates in local communities, and this course is designed to guide clergy as they learn how to provide this encouragement.

From Your Heart to Theirs: Delivering an Effective Sermon

July 10=21 Online 0.1 CEUs

This course is for preachers who have completed the basic preaching course but want to increase their preparation for a variety of situations with a variety of sermon types. It will guide participants in developing a sermon in advance and give them an opportunity to practice it in a group, without the worry of trying it out in front of their congregation for the first time!

A Day w/the Bishop: Black Methodists Matter

July 15 Alcoa, TN 0.5 CEUs

Goals: Worship and Spiritual Renewal Community Building Leadership Development Advocacy and Social Justice Building Bridges of Racial Reconciliation

Leaders: Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett, Rev. Sharon Bowers, Rev. Dr. Candace Lewis, Rev. Brian Tillman, Rev. Annette Warren and others

Looking Ahead

Bishop’s Trip to the Holy Land

February 21-30 Holy Land 3.0 CEUs

Join Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett & the Holston Conference on a Holy Land Classic Journey, departing on February 20, 2024. You will see Caesarea by the Sea, Mount Carmel, Megiddo, Nazareth, Sea of Galilee, Tel Dan, Caesarea Philippi, Golan Heights, Bethsaida, Jordan River, Jericho, Qumran, Masada, Dead Sea, Bethlehem, Herodion, Jerusalem, and much more.

Read Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett’s invitation.

Download full brochure here.

PeoplePortal User Instructions

(Includes directions for submitting CEU requests)

Event Evaluation Form

CLERGY NOTES:

This is the last month to earn CEUs that can be applied to the current appointment year. All CEU credits earned after June 30th will be applied to the new appointment year. However, you may still submit events attended during the July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023 period for credit after June 30th up to the date of your charge conference. (Check your CEU total credits earned and submittal instructions for other events attended in “quicklinks” above.)

Book Review

Fresh Expressions of the Rural Church

- by Michael Adam Beck & Tyler Kleeberger

The rural church was a community’s centerpiece. The place where people gathered to worship and hear a sermon, break bread together, and support each other through the joys and struggles of life with the land. In many ways, the rural church captured a central aspect of the church’s mission: to be the guiding hand for the life of a place.

Can rural congregations flourish again? Can new Christian communities succeed in rural areas? Could healthy rural churches catalyze a better future for their declining communities?

This book collects stories from the diversity of rural contexts across the US. It lays out a fresh theology for rural life and offers principles for harnessing the potential of what some consider the forgotten spaces. Each chapter includes a helpful Field Exercise - questions for discussion and suggested actions for leadership teams to work through together. Chapters conclude with a Field Story illustrating how the chapter’s main ideas can work in a real church setting.

Fresh Expressions of the Rural Church helps us to reconsider our Wesleyan roots and the gifts of our rural contexts, a seedbed packed with possibility for new communities of faith to form and flourish.

- Heather M. Jallad,

Fresh Expressions specialist, North Georgia Conference, UMC

Beck and Kleeberger have taken a sample of the good soil that is faithful rural mission, identified the challenges, celebrated the riches, and offered us a powerful way to learn and be in partnership and connection with the gifts of God. - - Ken Carter, Bishop, Florida & West North Carolina Conferences of the United Methodist Church

Make the Most of Time Management

- by Prince Rivers, Editor - Alban at Duke Divinity

The unique challenges of ministry add to the complexity and importance of time management. So much of congregational work is unscheduled and unpredicted. We rarely get more than a few days’ notice for a funeral.

Lukas Blazek/Unsplash

Roof leaks and interpersonal disputes may require our immediate attention, despite the pressing demands of the current liturgical season.

Congregational leaders do their work at the intersection of spirituality, administration, pastoral care and community engagement. A minister could easily spend an entire day tackling the list of tasks in any one of these areas. For that reason, most pastors live with the unshakable feeling that they will not ever get everything done. And they’re probably right.

We may be overlooking an important piece to the time management puzzle, though. Calendars and sticky notes only remind us of what needs to be done. It is just as important to discern what to leave undone. Making a to-do list is not the same as prioritizing what needs to be done and when. When Martha complained to Jesus that Mary was not helping her with meal preparation, Jesus told Martha that her sister had chosen the “better part.” Mary decided what she was not going to do so that she could do what was most important.

The objective of time management is not figuring out how to do everything. Leaders who are driven by purpose and vision must regularly discern what needs to be done. Revisit what you and others think you should be doing and choose what not to do. If we do not choose what to neglect, the list of core responsibilities will grow ad infinitum. That is not sustainable — or fun. When we intentionally decide what not to do, we limit our choices, which makes it easier to prioritize our daily and weekly goals. We cannot do everything, so let’s decide what we don’t need to do and do more of what matters.

I remember the first time in my pastoral ministry that I turned down an invitation to do something someone else wanted me to do something I was not that interested in doing. This happened in my first or second year as a pastor. The details escape me now, but the feeling is still palpable. Exercising personal leadership regarding how I spent my time gave me a deep awareness of how important and precious time is.

This week, you will make choices. I hope you will decide what you are not going to do as you determine what you need to do.