Excellence in Ministry Sign Up!

Come one, come all! Sign up for your small group by clicking here and then mail or email your copy into the NWOA Office!

This Wednesday!

All Authorized Minister Meeting at  

Grace United Church of Christ

 4481 N. US Route 23, Fostoria  

Join us for the All Authorized Minister Meeting on Wednesday, February 26 at Grace UCC - Fostoria from 9 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. You might have heard or read about the Excellence in Ministry Program which is coming in September 2014. Now you will have a chance to experience the program and hear more about it! Looking forward to our time of fellowship and experiencing the future of our covenant life together. 

A donation of $5 will be taken up at the meeting to cover the lunch provided by the church. 

If the Association had a reservation from you for the Feb. 5th event which was cancelled due to snow, we will assume you plan to attend on Feb. 26th unless you notify us otherwise.

If you did not reserve a seat yet and are able to attend on February 26th please notify the Association office by phone or email.  419-447-8323 or joan@nwoa.org

The Faith Formation Team in conjunction with the Excellence in Ministry Facilitators

Coming September 2014!

Coming out of the Massachusetts Conference and landing in our association is the Pastoral Excellence Program!

You can read about the Mass. program here. And watch the following video to learn of the countless benefits this program has given the clergy who have enrolled.

Questions? Email Luke Lindon!

4-1 Earth Outdoor Ministries

A video showing good environmental stewardship of our camps.

Strengthen the Church and Home Connection

There's a new curriculum out that is generating a lot of buzz. It's called Gather Round. You can read all about it from the UCC's Faith Formation newsletter.

Author Brian McLaren states,

"Many of us have lamented the fact that some of the flashiest and most widely marketed curricula teach children about God, the Bible, and the Christian life in ways that students will need to unlearn when they reach adolescence and adulthood. "We’ve hoped and prayed for curricula that would lay a foundation in childhood that will still serve as students come of age. I'm grateful that Gather ’Round is a creative leader in this needed approach. I'm so glad to have finally discovered them."

All age groups study the same Bible texts simultaneously. "Talkabout Walking with Jesus" helps families engage these stories at home with activities, conversation starters, prayers, Bible trivia and more! Click here for a FREE sample!

Chasing Ice Documentary

Chasing Ice is the story of one man’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. Within a few months, the adventurous film-makers captured the largest glacier calving event ever seen on camera, or witnessed by humankind. See the movie below:


This film would be a great Mission 4/1 Earth movie night for your church! If people are on the fence about the issue or just don't know how they feel about it, this movie does a great job at raising consciousness. Even if you know a lot about the issue, the artful way it is presented here is worth viewing.

For more information, please see the movie's website.

Social Media's Impact in a Picture

Just in case you need a little more convincing about the power of social media, just check out this photo taken by NBC News of St Peter's Square. 2005 is Benedict's announcement and 2013 is the announcement of Francis as pope.

It speaks volumes.

So once again, are you using social media in your ministry? If you need help, check out our recent posts on the subject, or email Luke!

Earth’s Resurrection: A Mission 4/1 Earth Theological Reflection

In the beginning God created the earth and proclaimed it was good.

And it was.

The earth was full of life-giving air, water and soil and a myriad of creatures, each unique. God created humankind and they too were unique and full of potential. God ordained that humankind should have dominion over this creation. Earth sustained and nurtured humans and animals alike and provided for all their earthly needs. These human creatures learned and grew and used their God given intellect to create tools and methods to enhance their lives.

 But they neglected to follow God’s vision and purpose for creation and they sinned. They also used the earth and its resources to further selfish motives and they gave in to greed, sometimes subtly and other times not so subtly. The earth was not being cared for as God intended. 

The story of creation and the life of this great earth is akin to the resurrection story. 

 God’s People were covenanted to offer love and praise to the creator, to love with full hearts, to walk humbly and to do justice, but their own agendas got in the way and they sinned and betrayed Christ for a bag of the earth’s silver. Christ was crucified and buried. But the story does not end there. 

 Christ was resurrected and the spirit of Christ lives in this world and its people. The earth needs gentle care and thoughtful action to turn around the misuse, greed and lack of Christ like living that abounds. The earth, full of Easter hope, needs us to live in a renewed covenantal relationship with God and with God’s creation.

written by Donna Dorsch

Mission 4/1 Earth: 20 Ways to Contribute

During the 50 days of Mission 4/1 Earth (April 1 -- May 19, 2013), members of the United Church of Christ's 5,100 congregations will attempt to amass 1 million collective hours of engaged earth care service through conservation, advocacy, education and changed behaviors. Here's suggestions to ignite your participation in the big 1 million-hour goal.

You can get more news and way to get involved by follow Mission 4/1 Earth on Facebook.

What is Mission 4-1 Earth?

On April 1, 2013, the 1.1-million-member United Church of Christ will launch an aggressive public witness campaign on the environment. The Rev. J. Bennett Guess explains the whole-church mission project and invites your participation.

Our blog will cover how our NW Ohio churches are covering this Mission and post some resources for you to use!

For more information, please click here.

Help A UCC Minister!

Rob Leveridge is a UCC pastor in Chicago. He's look to record a worship album with UCC ideals and theology. Here's what Rob writes:

I write songs for worshipping communities that desire to draw near to God and embrace God’s calling to create a world of greater justice and compassion. My songs are easy to learn and sing and play, but the lyrics engage the dynamism and challenge of faith in the God who offers “Good news to the poor, recovery of sight for the blind, release of the captives, and freedom for those who are oppressed."

Check out his video below! And if you feel led, you can support his campaign by giving toward his Kickstarter campaign.

Area Faith Formation Opportunities

This is taken from an email from Ed Heilman of Park Congregational to help publicize what's going on in our association. If you have any submissions, please email Luke Lindon at lukeATsylvaniaucc.org 

March 7th Bill Bartholomew of St John's UCC in Elmore, is speaking at St. Andrews on Mexican Spirituality. Bill has been studying this for decades. Call or e-mail Bill if you want to know more.

March 15th from 4:30-6:30 Alan Jones is speaking at Sylvania UCC. Check their website for more information.

March 17th at 4PM Ed Heilman is speaking with Imam Shamsuddin Waheed at Toledo Masjid Al-Islam on 722 E. Bancroft on "Learning from Jesus: Benefiting from the Messiah." A meal will be shared after the discussion. For more information see toledomasjid@yahoo.com and remember no shoes are worn in the place of prayer.

April 23-24 at the Village, Cheri Holdrige, and Dr. Karyn Wiseman, Professor of Homiletics at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia will be presenting a two day mini course on Creative Worship Design, and Preaching Without Notes. It is called "Times Change-And So Does Sunday Worship." 1.5 CEU credits are available. The cost is $75 for one day, or $125 for both days. Go to www.villageohio.org for more information.

The NWOA Clergy gathering will be at the Family Table Restaurant 846 South Wheeling St. Oregon Oh. at 11:30 AM. The food is good. The company is even better. Join us if you can.

New Study Cites Social Media Vital to Pastors and Congregations

I ran across and article entitled "New study shows forces driving church growth & loss" over at the ReadtheSpirit website. 

It is a great little article that I hope you'll check out. There was a section that referred to our latest series called "Getting your Church Wired." 

Cynthia Woolever, one of the authors of the study, states that ."..every savvy pastor must adapt to new social media and worship technology … The explosion of innovative communication technologies strains the budgets and the imaginations of many congregations and their leaders. It also raises new boundary and ethical issues for leaders to navigate.”

She goes onto state:

Yes, the mastering of current technology is a part of the required skillset for pastors—and they’re fooling themselves, now, if they think it isn’t. That’s one reason younger clergy have a huge advantage. Younger pastors use Twitter, they email, they text, they use Facebook.
When I was doing interviews with pastors, I would have to contact them to set up these interviews. I quickly discovered that anyone under 45 would reply to me within 10 minutes and we’d get the interview set up right away. Older pastors—they might not even have an email account. We would have to call the church office where a secretary would screen calls. I might not be able to reach the pastor for days. That’s a problem for people in the congregation if they can’t reach their pastor in the ways they communicate with everyone else.
But things are changing. I remember back in 2001, we would beg churches to get a website. We would say: “If you don’t have a website, anyone under 45 doesn’t think you exist.” Now we don’t have to make that argument anymore. Most churches at least have static communication like a website—but most churches still haven’t gone into more interactive technology. Churches need to explore what’s possible today and what their worshipers are using all the time. After all, the people in the pew expect these things as they communicate with each other. And, the people in the pew are a highly educated group of people.

I hope that appeal reaches you and helps you jump onto a more interactive site!

The Perfect Gift for the Pastor of Your Church

In light of our recent posts! Check out The Definitive-ish Guide to for Using Social Media in the Church by Bruce Reyes-Chow.

I was part of a webinar with this dude and he knows what he's talking about! Worth a look!

The Four Websites Your Church Will Ever Need

At least until the next 4 websites come along and replace these. But these will do for now!

Facebook
Today there are 800 million people on Facebook and of those, 350 million people connect to Facebook on mobile devices. Facebook is not just for college students any more as the fastest growing segment happens to the Baby Boomers.

Some churches are using Facebook as their primary website. You don't have to belong to Facebook to view material on the site. This keeps the site updated and current. Better to have no website than to have one that's not current!

One of the best resources on how a church can embrace and use Facebook was written by Danielle Hartland's which you can read by clicking here.

Wordpress or Blogger
You not only need to create a church website, you need to MAINTAIN one too. And there's the problem for most churches. Most church websites are poorly maintained. Many start out looking great and end up abandoned.

Why not use a blogging platform like Wordpress or Blogger? These tools are all online. You sign up for a site, go to your site, sign in, and access the site's dashboard control panel to post new announcements, photos, and make design changes. This means you you can manage your site from ANY computer in the world as long as you have the password to your account. No software to download or install.

You can have a pastor's blog, an "about the church," directions to get to your location, and tons of other stuff! Here's an imaginary church example to inspire you!

Podomatic
The church where I serve, Sylvania UCC, had audio recordings up on the website since 2010. But no one knew this. So we decided to use Podomatic, because in one click, they can have our sermons sent directly to their iTunes account... and it's all FREE. You can pay around $100 for extra storage and bandwidth, but if you're only putting up 4 or 5 at a time and not using the site to archive a whole year of preaching, you should be fine. Check out Sylvania's Podomatic site here.

The cool thing about podcasts is that your peeps can download the MP3 of your sermon and take it with them on their iPods, iPhones, iPads, whatever. Unlike Youtube, they can take the sermon in their car or out for a run. Plus most churches don't have the capacity to do a good video presentation of the sermons and most people I know don't want to look at a talking head for 20 minutes. So audio is the way to go here, IMHO.

Plus I also started my own podcast, the PLP to discuss whatever I want... like my trip to Chautauqua or whether or not you can believe in ghosts and still be a Christian.

MailChimp
Use MailChimp if you ever dream of doing online newsletter. You can do full color, interactive, professional looking PAPERLESS newsletters that are sent directly to your congregant's email. It's like NWOA's The Vine. It is also free. There's a pay option as well, but there's not much bang for your buck and most things you can do for free.

The Case for Social Media

Okay.

We've covered the ethics, the landscape, and a bit of the history of social media.

We checked out some of the problems it has caused and how it has affected our society and how it's even rewiring our brains.

Now I hope to argue for why you and your congregation should jump straight into the strange and ever-changing landscape of social media.

I will outline the three big reasons to do so. Please feel free to question, disagree, and add your own perspective here.

1. Old Media is Expensive. New Media is Free. 
A Florida pastor decides to host "Burn a Koran Day." Not one of the traditional media channels cover his offensive event. Not print. Not TV. Not even radio (and there's lots of crazy stuff on the AM channels!). Yet this pastor of a church of under 100 sets off riots in the Middle East.

How?

Youtube.

This is a negative example. But it holds power.

Through the use of social media, your church is not just local (like the diner place-mat ads we take out). Your church is not just national (like we can't afford). It's GLOBAL. 

Through the use of social media, we can by-pass the traditional channels of evangelisim/marketing/advertising. And we do this at no financial cost. The only cost is learning how to use the tools. Even that is free and easy as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and many others, all have super helpful tutorial sections on their sites.

2. Increased Visitor Traffic
1 in every 9 people on the planet is on Facebook.
Traditional Websites and Social Media Sites reach 80% of those who are already on the internet.*

Odds are extremely good that a first visit to your church will be via the internet. When visitors show up, they already have a sense of what your church is about. What we have on our hands are free tools to help us be "Fishers of People" (Matt 4:9). The mission of the church is to go and make disciples (Matt 28:19) and the web is an invaluable tool to help you attract visitors.

3. If You're Not Online, Who is?
I'm sure your congregation is the nicest bunch of people on the planet. I'm sure your liturgy and theology are rock solid and rooting in Scripture, your tradition, and history of your community. But how will visitors know this if you're not on the web?

And who is on the web? That Florida pastor is. And that's not good for all Christians in general.
The church down the block is.
The mega-church in your area is.
You don't have to have the massive, expensive production that they do. You just have to communicate clearly what your about and that will attract people.

So go out and be a blessing that bends the internet towards the good (like Paul Rausenbush stated).

Get your community online and start fishing for people (like Jesus stated).

*From Toni Birdsong's Social Media presentation

Social Media Outreach Resource

Hey Group! I hope this series has been informative thus far.

I was recently at a conference given by Toni Birdsong. Toni is a media consultant and co-author of the book Sticky Jesus. I thought that what she had to say would be incredibly helpful to you. And guess what?

Through the miracle that is the interwebz, you can check out her slides from her presentation! Just click here!

This presentation will help you

• Understand the social media frontier
• Shift your thinking
• Formulate a game plan for your church

Please let me know what you found helpful or whatever questions that popped up while you were reading.

Otis Moss III: Digital Faith and Analogue Religion

The Rev. Otis Moss III (OM3) is the pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Trinity is the largest church in our denomination. 

While Trinity has been known for its social programs on behalf of the disadvantaged, the church is starting to be known for taking the lead in digital outreach as well.

The church has a membership of 7,500. On an average Sunday, 5,000 to 5,500 people attend service in person while at the same time 3,000 attend virtually. Recently, the church updated its technology to become even more interactive. The church has an active Facebook page, Twitter handle and an e-newsletter, which is delivered to 8,500 people. It even has electronic giving, which now supports 18% of the church’s budget.

All of this is done at minimal cost to the church. Most of the digital tools that Trinity employs are free to use. Facebook, Twitter, MailChimp (an e-newsletter site) and Youtube are all free to use. All it takes is time. And odds are you already have someone in your congregation that knows how to use these sites. But more on that in the next post.

To hear OM3 (that's his Twitter handle by the way) talk more about how digital culture can work for your church, please check out his lecture from Chautauqua from this past summer.

The Internet as a Blessing and a Curse

This summer, Luke Lindon was the chaplain for the United Church of Christ Society at the Chautauqua Institution. He heard a great talk by Paul Raushenbush entitled, "BEHOLD! I set before you a blessing and a curse; the internet and our spiritual life."

You can watch the full lecture here:


The main thing to lift up from the lecture is “One thing is very clear: The Internet and the technologies involved with it are not going away,” Raushenbush said. According to a poll administered by Pew Research Center in 2011, 79 percent of religiously active Americans use the Internet.

Whether you're looking up a scripture passage, looking for worship materials, or reading the UCC Daily Devotional; the internet is part of your spiritual life.

Yet many view the internet as a hostile place. Raushenbush states “It’s all about the intention. There’s good and bad — it’s what we bring to it.” Raushenbush stated that the internet is a useful tool, perhaps the most remarkable, at delivering information. There are blessings and curses that go with this tool. The trick is being actively engaged in social media and the internet so that we, as Raushenbush stated at the end of the lecture, "how we — all of you — can be a part of the force that bends the Internet away from the curse and towards the blessing."

The hope of the Faith Formation Team in this series is to get your comfort level with the "new media" up so that your church can be a force of blessing on the internet.

What are your thoughts on this talk? Was it helpful in laying out the issues of the internet? Are there lingering doubts or concerns that weren't addressed? Do you have a story of the internet being part of your spiritual life and blessing it?

Getting Your Church Wired

A Digital Church

Introducing our fall project: 

Getting Your Church Wired: A helpful guide to social media, online ethics and your congregation. 

The internet has given our churches new tools to use for evangelism, yet many churches don't know about these tools or fear them. The Faith Formation Team will guide you through the ethical use of these tools, what tools are helpful (and which aren't), and how to create opportunities for connection throughout the week (not just Sunday morning).

If you’re looking for resources, helpful tips, or even how to ethically use the internet then this series is for you. You can send any questions, comments, or requests for topics you want covered to Luke Lindon, lukeATsylvaniauccDOTorg. 

Why did we spell out Luke's email like that? Well, here's your first tip: to avoid spammers who search the internet for email links! Luke doesn't want to be notified of the lottery he has won in Gambia, his long-lost royal relative's inheritance, or his Russian bride. He does want your requests for topics, issues, and questions. So please, send away!

Thanks!