message from pastors

To: Adult Sunday School Class Conveners/Coordinators:
From: Pastoral Team
Re: Combining Adult SS Classes April 6, 13, 20

Gary will include in his report tomorrow (February 10) that one of one of the needs emerging from the December member visits
and questionnaire, the January 19 "Re-membering College Mennonite Church" experience, and his observations, is for teaching
about a biblical framework for understanding the church. While that sounds generic, it will likely be new for a (vast?) majority of the congregation. It is based onCongregational Discipling (Herald Press, 1997), which emerged out of a three year study by a joint MC/GCMC task force. It has been embraced by 150+ MCUSA congregations of various stripes and sizes.

At the Tuesday meeting, the Church Board supported this direction for a series of post-Easter sermons (March 30-April 20), with at least an elective S.S. class for in depth teaching. The Pastoral Team, after further processing, encourages all Adult S.S. classes to combine on three of those Sundays, April 6, 13, 20, for in depth teaching that cannot be conveyed in sermons. The Pastoral Team believes that it is important for this material to have maximum exposure in the congregation, since future transitional processes will build on it.

Note: The March 30 (a fifth Sunday) S.S. hour has already been set aside for congregational singing.

So, we are encouraging all adult classes to combine on April 6, 13, & 20. We appreciate your gracious response to this request and the extra work entailed in adjusting your curricular schedules. As noted in the beginning of the transitional period, flexibility in making room for transitional work will shorten the overall length of the transitional period.

We wanted Gary's Sunday report to be as specific as possible with next steps, so this e-mail message is our attempt to give conveners/coordinators a 23 hour heads up.

If you have the opportunity Sunday morning, please encourage your class to attend the congregational meeting at 1PM. The entire report will provide context for the importance of the above series.

If you have questions, please contact Gary, or any member of the Pastoral Team.