Church Resources

Make National Youth Workers Convention a time for learning and growing with relevant, practical seminars. Make it camp for youth workers - have fun with other crazy people, stay up late, laugh a lot, eat really bad food! Make it a spiritual retreat - get reconnected to God in the prayer chapel, with a spiritual director, or in Soul Care seminars. Make it yours - check out all the ways you can personalize NYWC this year to make it the experience you want it and need it to be!! Check it out at www.nywc.com.

California Southern Baptist Convention is a fellowship of about 450,000 members in approximately 1,800 languages and multi-ethnic congregations that cooperate with the Southern Baptist convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America. Each week throughout California, 60 language groups and almost 100 ethnic groups are represented in congregations throughout the convention. For more information visit their website at www.csbc.com.

Child Safety a Local Church Responsibility

How vulnerable are the children and youth of your church to volunteers or staff with criminal histories? Can staff members at your church confidently look a young mother in the eye and say everything possible has been done to make sure her child is safe? "Of all the crimes against children in the U.S. every year, thousands will occur within the walls of churches and youth centers," said Matthew Robbins of Backgroundchecks.com. "With crime and abuse at an all-time high, churches must develop hiring programs that work to prevent dangerous situations before they occur."

Because Southern Baptist churches are autonomous, the responsibility to provide safe, responsible employees and volunteers falls on the local church. Through an agreement between LifeWay Christian Stores and Backgroundchecks.com, churches have access to discount screening services. Because most criminal records are kept at three levels -- federal, state and county -- Backgroundchecks.com has compiled a proprietary database called US OneSEARCH, the largest national criminal conviction database publicly available. The program offers services ranging from motor vehicle record screening to education and employment verification.

Background screenings may be helpful, but they also must fall within legal guidelines. Backgroundchecks.com provides support by promoting strict adherence to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which was put in place to protect consumers from misuse of their background information. Some pastors or hiring committees may feel uncomfortable performing background checks on volunteers or staff members, but the consequence of not performing these checks can be devastating.

Information on LifeWay Christian Stores' OneSource program is available at www.lifewaystores.com/backgroundchecks.

LIFEWAY has made an exclusive deal with OfficeMAX to bring serious discounts to Southern Baptist Churches. This deal saves 15-70% on over 12,000 products. Hopefully, this will save your church some money. You can find out more at Lifeway's website. http://www.lifewaystores.com/lwstore/officemax.asp

LifeBibleStudy: New Options for Your Adult Bible Study & Small Groups Full Year Edition - 48 lessons designed for adult Sunday School and Bible Study classes. Semester Studies - Each Semester Study contains 16 lessons covering a large portion of the Bible. Topical Studies - 4-6 week Bible Studies perfect for classes scheduled around a short time frame. For more information, visit us online at lifebiblestudy.com

A new generation of church goers, don’t have a check book to write out their tithe. They don’t carry cash, but they are willing to give. Like it or not we must keep up with the times. You will find some options for credit card processing at the link: http://credit-card-processing-review.toptenreviews.com/

ABC News Flash - "People Turning to Church for Financial Answers" Many people abandon traditional financial advisers for help from a higher power. 01/24/2008 http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4182646

♦♦♦ OFFICE RESOURCES FOR BORROWING ♦♦♦

BECOMING A CONTAGIOUS CHRISTIAN - Communicating Your Faith in a Style That Fits You. Imagine everyone in your church...

Confidently discussing matters of faith with friends
Talking about Jesus in a style that's personal and natural
Living each day with a vision and passion to reach others

It can happen! Becoming a Contagious Christian works with any size gathering, from small groups of two to fourteen, to Sunday school classes and other large groups of fifteen to 1,500 or more.

"Teaching the Jesus Way" with Dr. Bruce H. Wilkinson. Building a Transformational Teaching Ministry

Leader Training Pack Contains:

Teaching the Jesus Way: Building a Transformation Teaching Ministry
Teaching the Jesus Way Videocassette, featuring Bruce H. Wilkinson
16-page use guide with 2 1/2-hour and 5-hour teaching plans by Wayne A. Poling
8 handout masters for use in the training sessions
CD-ROM with computer presentation visuals, video clips, handout master, and teaching plans.

MasterLife A Biblical Process for Growing Disciples. MasterLife is a sequential, developmental, small-group discipling process that enables believers to make Christ Master and to master life by developing personal, lifelong, obedient relationships with Him. Believers will learn to practice these basic Christian disciplines as they grow toward Christlikeness:

Spend time with the Master
Live in the Word
Pray in faith
Fellowship with believers
Witness to the world
Minister to others

MasterLife consists of four six-week courses, each designed to take believers to a deeper level of knowledge, commitment, and service in their Christian walks.

His Heart Our Hands - A ministry Evangelism Toolkit which will help your church to:

Discover lost and hurting people
Develop witnessing relationships
Create opportunities to contagiously communicate the gospel
Be known in your community as "The Caring Place"
Mentor and unleash the multitudes in your pews
Help God's people catch a vision for God's purposes

The Net - Evangelism for the 21st Century

The NET is designed to assist churches in training believers to effectively do evangelism in our changing culture. To communicate the gospel in this postmodern world. The NET equips Christians to tell their story in a very natural and biblical way. The NET works for churches of all sizes and is adaptable to any ministry style.

Conducting Effective Crusades: The Billy Graham Model

Area crusades require extensive organization and planning, and these videos contain the valuable lessons you need to conduct an area crusade. Find answers to the following questions and many more.

Setting Youth Free to Make Right Choices - for Junior High and High School Students

A five-session video series for junior high and high school students. Including:

Five interactive video lessons with dramatic vignettes and music videos
Video introduction and commentary by Josh McDowell
Comprehensive Leader's Guide with creative activities for five 60-minute lessons
Truth Slayers companion book
Right From Wrong Workbook samplers

The Setting Youth Free to Make Right Choices video series is part of the national Right From Wrong Compaign. This campaign is designed to enable you to teach your youth to make right moral choices based on God and His Word as their absolute standard of right.

Fingerprints of God - Recognizing God's Touch on Your Life teaches us to recognize six things we can experience because of God's touch: honor, intimacy, shelter, guidance, redemption, and refinement.