My colleague, Bronwyn Skov, and I are reprinting this blog post by Sharon Ely Pearson, Christian Formation Specialist at Church Publishing, with the hope that you will take a minute to participate in her survey on curricula in use throughout the church.
Please take a moment to read her blog post and participate in the survey. Your feedback helps determine the types of new resources made available in Church Publishing in the coming year.
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by Sharon Ely Pearson
Morehouse Education Resources (MER), a division of Church Publishing Incorporated seeks to serve the church and its Christian formation needs in providing the best resources and programs to assist churches in supporting lifelong learning in the Christian faith. Whether it is regarding children, youth or adults, MER strives to listen to the needs of the church to offer curricula and program resources for building faithful communities that empower their members to live their faith out in the world.
In addition to continual conversation with Christian educators across the church, I find it helpful to survey the broadest audience possible every 18-months or so to discover what resources are being used in congregations. I am always interested in what individuals who oversee ministry with children, youth or adults would like to published that they cannot find. It helps in our resource development as we seek to bring resources to the church where the need is greatest.
Take the survey here.
Anyone who is involved in Christian education in a congregation is invited to take the survey. Participants will be asked to choose what curricular resources they are currently using with each age group from a large menu of programs across the denominational spectrum. Respondents will also have an opportunity to share what they wish was published for their use and will subsequently receive survey results. The survey should take no longer than ten minutes to complete.
The last Curriculum Survey was taken in October 2010. With those results, new resources were brought to the drawing board. For example, the popular “Embracing series” was developed and published after many respondents shared the need for easy-to-use adult studies that were DVD based from a mainline denominational perspective. “Skiturgies” was also developed, a resource bank of pageants, plays, rites and rituals that local congregations wrote and performed from a desire of those who had written original material to be able to share their productions with a wider audience, inexpensively and easily accessed.
Take the survey here.
The survey will close on May 1, 2013. Results will show nationally, regionally and denominationally the curricula, which is being used most frequently with each age group as well as the perceived needs of the church. With the face of curriculum changing in our digital world, it is expected that there will be major shifts in responses from 2010. Survey results will offer comparisons and learnings, with results being published on the Church Publishing website as well as my monthly newsletter of over 7,000 subscribers, “Living IN-Formation,” in early June 2013.
If you’re looking for new curriculum, check out the Curriculum Pages in Building Faith’s Resource Room where new charts overviewing children, youth and adult curriculum has just been updated.