New Directions Ministries, Inc

This program began in 1973 when the Joint Committee on Non-Metropolitan Work of the General Convention formed the Leadership Academy for New Directions (LAND). New Directions Ministries was incorporated in 1981 with an elected board of directors and a part-time trainer/program coordinator. New Directions affirms the basic principle that the church is the body of Christ. It also recognizes the ministry of all baptized persons and that each faith community is responsible for its own life, ministry, and mission. It stresses a shared leadership model which uses the gifts of locally ordained deacons and priests. New Directions is convinced that the church must develop a viable alternative to the one priest/one parish model. Regional leadership must be developed since many small churches cannot have a full-time priest. The principal training tool of New Directions is LAND. It also works with Rural Social Science Education, a program developed at Texas A&M, which provides training in rural sociology by extension. See Leadership Academy for New Directions (LAND).