The new book by GRACE members Israel Galindo and Marty Canaday, Planning for Christian Education Formation: A Community of Faith Approach (Chalice Press) is immediately available in print and e-book format.
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The upcoming book by GRACE members Israel Galindo and Marty Canaday, Planning and Organizing for Christian Education Formation: A Community of Faith Approach (Chalice Press) will be released in March of 2010.
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I’m pleased to announce the release of a new resource for children’s missions education: Ready! Set! Go! Children on Mission Throughout the Church Year. The book was written by the students in my Teaching Children course, co-taught by Barbara Massey, Minister to Children at the River Road Church, Richmond, VA.
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I was asked to offer the Prayers of the People this Pentecost Sunday. At my former church I regularly gave the Pastoral Prayer in the worship service. As a matter of course a pastoral staff member led in that prayer during Sunday worship, and on occasion, a church member would. The practice is opposite at my current church, where the norm is to have the Prayers of the People led by a church member, and on occasion, a pastoral staff member leads it. Here is the prayer for Pentecost Sunday:
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GRACE member Terry sent an e-mail to the rest of the gang soliciting Ash Wednesday service ideas. Several in the group shared ways their churches have observed Ash Wednesday services in the past. But I enjoyed the response from GRACE member Pat who not only offered some pretty nifty ideas, but a funny story to boot. Here is Pat’s response with ideas for Ash Wednesday services:
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Well, I can now cross out “Illustrate a book” from my list of 50-things-to-do-before-I-die (yeah, just 50, I’m not ambitious). I’ve had the privilege of illustrating the latest book by my friend Bill Tuck. He asked me to illustrate his new book on the character of Christ with some of my ink drawings. The book, titled The Compelling Faces of Jesus, is published by Mercer University Press and is available through various outlets. Here is the book description:
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If you have ever talked to someone about the Christian Year who isn’t familiar with it, then you may recognize the blank stare on their face that you get in return. Use the Seasons of the Spirit’s “The Seasons of the Church Year†poster, and you have a great starting point for this discussion.
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Eight years into the new millennium has diminished the novelty of that turn of the calendar. I can’t remember when was the last article or workshop I’ve seen with a reference to how to anticipate and address some concern “in the next millennium†or “in the new millennium.†And I, for one, am glad of it.
Reading history gives perspective and I try to read as much of it as I can. I finally got down the “to-read†books pile deep enough to pull out a book nine years in the waiting. And Robert Lacey’s The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 1999) was worth the wait.
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Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I think I heard more voices than ever this year suggesting that we consider toning down the cultural excesses of Christmas gift-giving. We’ve certainly not eliminated gift-giving in my world of family and friends, but it has become more modest in recent years.  Counterintuitively, Christmas has not become less important to us; if anything, the opposite is true, because it offers us time as family to be together.
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