Twenty individuals representing elements of the four modules of education established in 1996 and other major educational efforts of the United Church of God met at the home office for three days March 21 to 23 to review and discuss coordination of the Church's efforts in education.

"The combined efforts of the field ministry, office staff and members are producing 'good fruit' in the education area," said Church president Roy Holladay. "I think all of the participants would agree that this conference was a good start in assessing and refining our educational efforts."

The History of UCG Educational Efforts

The Council of Elders established the framework of current Church education efforts eight years ago. In March 1996, the Council proposed a focus of four basic modules of education to guide the instructional efforts of the United Church of God. Those four modules—general, ministerial, focused and youth education—were approved at the Birmingham, Alabama, Council meetings in May 1996. The four modules were fleshed out with appropriate vision and mission statements and launched by the Council on Jan. 9, 1997.

Since that time, the sheer volume of material the Church has produced in its educational efforts has grown from a stream to a flood. Multiple thousands of pieces of literature, audio- and videotapes (including Feast video and United Youth Camp video productions, member and minister education efforts, the sermon-tape program and literature on tape for the visually impaired), CDs and DVDs have gone out. Increasing numbers of "hits" on the five centrally coordinated Church Web sites demonstrate the growing reach of this education medium. Internet users access videos of UCGIA educational material and television programming, literature, requests for Personal Correspondence replies to questions, Virtual Christian Magazine and regular installments of the Bible Reading Program.

Other vehicles include The Good News magazine, booklets, Bible Study Course, United News, World News and Prophecy, Ministerial Quarterly, Vertical Thought magazine, Anchor, reprint articles and study papers. Internal communications in the form of reports from the Council, letters from the chairman and the president, etc., add to the mountain of educational material. Factor in broadcast advertising promotions, radio and cable-access TV productions, and the picture broadens yet further.

Numerous discussions, meetings and planning sessions have clearly propelled the Church's very successful education efforts to date. But in the seven years since the launch of the core approach in early 1997, there has not been a comprehensive review of the entire scope of UCG's educational outreach by as many of the contributors to that effort as occurred during the Education Conference. Church president Roy Holladay had proposed the three-day conference to further coordinate the Church's educational efforts.

Reports: Where We Are Now

The following 14 reports kicked off the conference:

• Ministerial Candidate program; four module coordination (Richard Pinelli).
• Ministerial Education (Don Ward).
• Youth Education (Doug Horchak).
• Sabbath school curriculum (Jim Servidio).
• United Youth Camps (Larry Greider).
• Teen Bible study guides (Larry Greider).
• Vertical Thought magazine (Dave Treybig).
• Youth Corps and Young Adult weekends (Doug Horchak).
• General Education (Jim Franks).
• Focused Education (Dennis Luker).
• Ambassador Bible Center (Gary Antion).
• Council of Elders Education/Ministerial Services Committee (Richard Thompson).
• Godly Leadership Task Force (Mark Winner).
• Media (Peter Eddington).

With a broad-based summary of ongoing efforts now before them, the group turned its attention to hammering out vision and mission statements and capturing in exact words an overarching philosophy of Church education to help keep all ongoing and future efforts tightly coordinated and focused.

Serving All Ages

Next on the docket was how to tackle specific concerns that were raised. The group acknowledged that the Church faces a growing challenge to make church services more inspiring to all who attend. The Church is a family with all ages and backgrounds represented, and the weekly Sabbath service is a prime educational vehicle for its members. Those in the ministry face the weekly challenge of helping those family members see "why is this important?" Younger ones in the audience, especially, need to see what the connection is to this life, as well as "the life to come." They need to see what makes Christianity work, not just why it works.

Since the Church needs to serve all ages in its educational outreach, Mr. Holladay led a discussion on "cradle to grave education."

Building Relationships Within the Church

One of the challenges facing all churches in our society is the retention of their youth. The Church of God, though distinct from others in virtually every other way, is no different in this one.

The brainstorming turned to facilitating the building of relationships within the Church, a huge key for most young people. Dr. Ward pointed out how important it is for the ministry of the Church to understand child growth and development principles, since children learn method much more readily than content when they're young. He spoke of his concern from the earliest days of his church experience at seeing young children excluded from the learning processes—being "kept quiet" instead of learning to connect with the message in age-appropriate ways.

All agreed that the most common factor in those who leave the Church is the presence of a relationship with a boyfriend/girlfriend outside the Church. At some point, each young person must connect with the truth itself, though that process is usually quite different for "second-generation Christians" than for "first-generation." The core of child development takes place early in life—usually well before the teen years. How can the Church strive to speak to that development when it is happening? As they grow, how can we integrate the youth into Church operations?

Where Do We Go From Here?

The conference then moved to evaluating "where we are now and where do we go from here" in each of the four modules of education.

General Education will be changed by adding the topic of "race relations" (with the accompanying task force chaired by Todd Carey) to this area, moving it to where it properly belongs from its present location in the Focused Education module.

Focused Education will add one component, work in the area of addictive behaviors, to its list. That will bring to five the areas focused on—alcoholism and substance abuse, addictive behaviors, abuse (sexual, physical and verbal), homosexuality and marriage dysfunctionality.

Ministerial Education will strive to identify more clearly the delineation of efforts among the educational products of Ministerial Services, the Ministerial Education Task Force, Ambassador Bible Center and the Ministerial Candidate Program. The latter is a function of Ministerial Services, but sometimes interfaces with ABC when potential elders need to receive formal instruction in Bible classes.

Youth Education also deals with overlapping efforts. Vertical Thought magazine is a product of the Church's media efforts, but is clearly part of its outreach to youth. Ambassador Bible Center is a separate arm of the education efforts, answering directly to the Church president (not Ministerial Services, which has oversight of the four modules of education). How do all these interact and support each other? Can we further structure educational weekends for young adults? What about resources for parents of young children—does this belong here or with General Education? How can we continue to refine our Sabbath school/Festival instruction program?

Measuring Effectiveness

Finally, the group turned its attention to two questions—what effect is our "product" having, and what do we need to do to reassess our review processes for that product? The amount of material being generated is massive—more than most can easily assimilate. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's most important to make sure we're "hitting the target" of what people need.

No one assessment mechanism will automatically fit all programs. The review processes will take some time to fully flesh out—the next year will no doubt be a year of development. The assessment process will need to measure both effectiveness and efficiency.

In wrapping up the proceedings, Mr. Holladay thanked all for their participation and stated that he envisions a conference of this sort being held annually in January. This will enable its results to be incorporated into the Operation Plan each year.