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> New program offered for youth leaders, educators
> Amesbury pastor wins reporting award
> Central Area search committee interviews fiveNovember, 2002
New program offered for youth leaders, educators
For nine years, the Massachusetts Conference has offered an educational program for new youth leaders. Last year, the Conference began offering a similar program for new Christian educators. But once people complete those programs, they have not had many opportunities to continue their training.
Until now.
The Massachusetts Conference is sponsoring Pathways—Continuing the Journey, an educational and spiritual enrichment program for educators and youth leaders who have completed either the Education for Effective Youth Ministry program or the Learning to Teach program, or who have served in a local church for more than five years.
Carl McDonald, Associate for Youth and Young Adult Ministries, said it made sense to offer a program where educators and youth leaders would be together because there is so much crossover in their ministries.
“This is an effort to provide networking opportunities, and also to expose the more experienced person to the most current resources,” McDonald said. “Beyond that, we will be concentrating on opportunities to nurture educators and youth leaders through retreats and other spirituality resources.”
Pathways will be a two-year program, with four sessions each year. It begins Feb. 1, 2003, with “Bible Discovery” with Sue and Don Remick.
> Go to more information on Pathways
Amesbury pastor wins reporting award
G. Jeffrey MacDonald, pastor of the Union Congregational Church of Amesbury, UCC, was named Religion Reporter of the Year by the Religion Newswriters Association.
MacDonald, a correspondent for the Religion News Service, received the $3,500 first place Templeton Award, which honors the breadth and depth of a journalist’s skills.
“This journalist’s work reveals the highest level of professional skill and rare imagination that grasps and shapes excellent, insightful stories from materials that others might pass over,” the judges wrote of MacDonald’s entries. His work showed that he “is relentlessly curious about the world and the people in it, has a powerful instinct for the story, rare analytical power and a concise, effective and unobtrusive prose style.”
MacDonald is also a contributing writer to the national section of the United Church News.
Central Area search committee interviews five
The Central Area Search Committee interviewed five candidates in October, and planned to call for second interviews in early November.
The committee, searching for an Associate Conference Minister for the Central Area, received 26 statements of interest and 13 completed applications.
Harry Flad is currently serving as interim area minister, following Richard Sparrow’s move to the national setting of the United Church of Christ as Search and Call coordinator.