Resources e-letter 11/6 - December 2011

This gives details of a new set of Training Notes just added to the site.  TN64, Help! I'm a consultant, is designed for mission accompaniers and other church consultants but the points apply more widely than this. There are also details of other resources relevant at Christmas.

Help! I’m a consultant

These notes are designed to encourage and support anyone who has a responsibility as a 'mission accompanier' or 'church consultant', helping a church to move forward in some way. There are five short sections: 

  • We're not consultants, we're ...
  • Our role is to take a church out of its comfort zone
  • A spectrum of views to move a church along
  • Who do we think we are?
  • What about our expectations of ourselves?

Each section makes five points. The notes conclude with a set of concerns and fears presented by one group of such consultants at a training session, and a reminder that we go in Christ's name.

As one point puts it, consultancy is only a means of helping people move on. It's no big deal in itself. It's a fancy term for travelling a short distance with people who would value some perceptive company.

To download or print this out, go here or see TN64 on the Training Notes page of the Resources section. To see a complete listing of all the Training Notes, go here.
  
  

Christmas items

If you are only just writing a Christmas family letter, make sure you read TN63, How not to write a newsletter, first!

If you have new lesson readers for the Carol Service you might find some of the ideas in TN1, Preparing to read the lesson, of value.

Finally, if you or others are preaching on the theme of incarnation over the Christmas season, remember this could become a sermon on the value of administration in church life today. It’s one of the themes suggested in TN21, Ideas for a sermon on administration.
  
  

Registering on the website

If you have already registered on the website you can log in and then comment on these sets of Training Notes (and on all the 95 other resource items too!). If not, you can register today: in the right-hand column of every page on the site there is a Log in / Register link in red. Click this and follow instructions to ‘register as a website user’. It is quite straightforward and you will then be helping start debates on the issues that the website is covering. Thank you!
  
  

For all Church Administrators

If you are employed by your church as an Administrator in any form, then if you are not already a member of the UK Church Administrator Network (UCAN). You are missing out on so much! The members’ pages of the website contain a growing collection of resources, there is a bimonthly specialist mailing, and now a range of Area Training Days. We’ve already run these at St Albans, Belfast and Birmingham. Forthcoming events include Guildford on 1st March 2012.

In January we shall be announcing details of the next national day conference for senior-manager Church Administrators which will take place in London on 28thJune 2012. This has as its theme the idea of administering a church in a difficult economic climate.

You will find full details about these on the UCAN events page of the Administrators section of the website. To join UCAN (there is no subscription, only a request for occasional voluntary contributions to cover expenses), go the UCAN application page. It is all done online.