3 Subjects: Posts, updates and a Webinar

1. I'm very surprised to find we're just about up to 500 posts on this blog. If I get some time today, we might make it.

2. I've been out of the office for a couple of days...hence the lack of updates on here. This week will see that made up for!

3. Most important of the three subjects here:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2009 4:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time - that's four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, or 16 hours behind NZ time, if my calculations are correct - Lynne Baab will be holding a webinar called Facebook and Twitter 101 for Congregations, in other words a webinar for Facebook and Twitter Beginners.

Lynne Baab is a well-known author and experienced webinar leader. She'll be connecting with Alban Institute from New Zealand and will provide an overview of the following:

how Facebook and Twitter both work;
how groups, such as congregations, can use them;
a brief discussion of whether we need to be concerned about online relationships replacing face to face relationships.

If you've been wanting someone to help you evaluate whether or not your congregation should be considering these social networking options, this webinar has been designed just for you. (And if you're in New Zealand, you can get involved in this Webinar....just make sure you've worked out the time difference!)

Lynne M. Baab is a Presbyterian minister and author of the Alban book Reaching Out in A Networked World: Expressing Your Congregation's Heart and Soul, as well as six other books and a Bible study guide. She recently completed a Ph.D. in communication at the University of Washington. She lives with her husband in Dunedin, New Zealand, where she is a lecturer in pastoral theology at the University of Otago. She is the author of two other Alban Institute books: Personality Type in Congregations, and Embracing Midlife.

Reading the Numbers Rightly

On the Albran Rountable blog, Wayne Floyd writes: Americans are notorious for trying to quantify everything; we take our numbers very religiously. [I think, New Zealanders are not much different]

“Clergy Voices: Findings from the 2008 Mainline Protestant Clergy Voices Survey” is one recent and provocative encyclopedia of statistics profiling the ordained leadership of current Mainline Protestants. A colleague just plopped the hefty 45 page report on my desk, and I’ll resist commenting on it until I’ve actually read it!

Even then, it’s not easy to decide the significance of the quantitative ‘facts’ we’ve read.

Floyd then goes on to look at the problems with numbers - and how we read them. For example, did the United Church of Christ really triple in size between 1990 and 2001, and then halve again before 2008 - or were the questions asked to learn these figures completely different?

Webinar & Book

After reading an article on the number of words being introduced to the English language on a daily basis - one about every hour and a half, (culminating in some million words in the language by the end of April this year) - I've just been introduced today to the word, Webinar, which is apparently a seminar conducted on the Web. You pay your sub, and you're then allowed access to the real-time audio-visual. In the case I have in mind, it will be conducted from Dunedin by Lynne Baab, a North American Presbyterian minister living here in the city. The webinar is being hosted by the Alban Institute, and the blurb states:

Words, photos, graphics, and links work together on websites to communicate the values and priorities of the congregation creating the website.

Most leaders of congregations are experts in using words for sermons and newsletters but have less experience with the ways in which photos, graphics, and links can express a congregation's values and priorities. In addition, websites require some different strategies in the way words are used.

In this webinar, we'll look at the ways words, photos, graphics and links can be used effectively on websites to meet the needs of congregation members as well as reach out to potential visitors.

The webinar starts on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:00 p.m. Eastern (American) time. Amusingly, if you click on the link called Registration Information, you'll find a note saying:
Unless otherwise indicated, our events start on the first day with lunch served at 12:00 noon and close on the last day with lunch served and departure immediately after lunch.
I'm guessing lunch won't be on the agenda for this webinar, although it doesn't actually say so (LOL!)

And one other thing. Lynne published a book in 2008 which relates to her webinar. (I keep repeating the word so you'll remember it!) The book is called, Reaching Out in a Networked World: expresssing your congregation's heart and soul. I've just received a copy today and am looking forward to reading it.

Shaping Spiritual Leaders

A book from the Alban Institute:
Shaping Spiritual Leaders: Supervision and Formation in Congregation, by Abigail Johnson.

Supervision—the shaping of spiritual leaders—occurs formally and informally in many aspects of congregational life. Every year, thousands of pastors supervise field education students and interns; staff members and lay leaders often supervise committee members or other staff; clergy and lay leaders supervise each other as a way to offer support and establish accountability. While supervision enhances the work of all concerned, it is rarely explicitly addressed in congregations.

For over fifteen years, Abigail Johnson has supervised and trained others to supervise candidates for ordination within the United Church of Canada. Recognizing that supervision is as important in the formation of lay leaders as in the life of candidates for ordination, she has developed this book to guide all who supervise others in a congregation. Johnson views supervision as a ministry and shows how leaders can use their own innate gifts to enhance their supervision skills. By shaping the supervision relationship based on the gifts of the people involved as well as the context in which the relationship occurs, supervision can become an opportunity for mutual growth and learning that strengthens all other areas of ministry.

This book provides a hands-on approach to supervision, addressing key areas such as identifying a learning focus, covenanting, managing conflict, understanding and using power and authority, offering and receiving feedback and evaluation, and celebrating and ending the supervisory relationship.

Supervisors who pay attention to these and other key areas will help those they supervise develop their gifts for ministry in all forms.

Published by Alban Institue, 2007.