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April 4, 2003 == MEDIA ADVISORY
<<<a picture of Edward Seely is attached>>>
A new center at Calvin College will provide a raft of resources for people
doing everything from planning a worship service to teaching Sunday school to
leading a small-group Bible study.
The Ministry Resource Center (MRC) is billed as a collection of practical
resources for all aspects of congregational ministry. It is a joint project of
both Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary, run by the Calvin
Institute for Christian Worship and located on the fourth floor of Calvin's
Hekman Library (as well as virtually at http://www.calvin.edu/library/mrc/).
It is funded through Calvin's Lilly Vocation Project.
The Center informally opened in January 2003 and has been using the last few
months as a bit of a "beta" test period. But Center manager Ed Seely says the
MRC is now fully operational.
Seely, an ordained pastor with 35 years experience church ministry (primarily
church education), says the Center will benefit a variety of people: pastors,
worship planners and leaders, church school teachers, youth ministers and
more.
"The materials in the Center's collection are also useful for others such as
those in prayer ministries, urban neighborhood ministry and volunteer
services," he says. "The MRC is designed as well to help patrons realize how
gifts in art, theater, music, dance, writing, languages, counseling, business,
technology, accounting, or management can be used in ministry."
Seely says the center is designed to be a carefully monitored collection of
biblically and theologically sound resources. The materials will be selected
on the soundness of their teaching -- age appropriateness, reputation of the
author, quality of writing -- with the emphasis on those materials designed for
use in ministry settings. Resources will also reflect Calvin's standards for
appropriate sensitivity to issues pertaining to gender, nationality and race.
This last point is significant, says Seely, because the Center will not only
serve a local audience, but also a worldwide constituency through the
Internet.
The Center will concentrate on collecting resources often used by the leader
and participants in the actual ministry setting, things such as adult education
material, art and worship, children's ministry, liturgical dance, music and
worship and youth ministry.
The new Ministry Resource Center is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m.
to midnight, Fridays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
A two-person staff, Seely and coordinator Amanda Drost, is available to assist
patrons during regular business hours, while others are available to assist
after hours.
Contact Seely at 616-526-8865 or edward.seely@calvin.edu
NOTE TO MEDIA: Seely will speak on Thursday, April 17 at 10 am in the Calvin
Seminary Auditorium on "Defusing Fear of Innovations: Facilitating Changing in
the Church." Says Seely: "Worship wars, other congregational conflicts, and
church splits typically result from a common phenomenon: the attempt of
well-meaning but misguided church leaders to implement innovations that went
badly, not only for the church but for their own ministry and for their family.
Now insights from social science research, integrated with concepts from the
Bible and Reformed theology that I've tested for decades in the local church,
provide a model that will facilitate change while maintaining concord in the
covenant community."
-end-
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