The Sustainist

More Life Skillz Circles

Five years ago, First Presbyterian Church, San Bernardino, wanted to invest in the wellness of the students of the High School next door.  It was the beginning of engaging the Holy Currency incubation process through which church members build relationships with faculty, staff and students, discovering the truth of what the students needed and how best to connect with them; thus the beginning of Life Skillz Circle. Caring adults from the church would show up every Monday morning at 8 am with breakfast and meet with a group of students for an hour in a class room.  Starting at 9th grade, the majority of the students graduating this year had been with Life Skillz Circle for 4 years.  Based on the response from the students, the church has expanded the program to include an intern program through which students work at the church on Saturday learning life skills in working, giving and receiving.  

I was honored to be invited to their Pentecost Sunday celebration, when they honored the graduating Life Skillz students.  This is their 3rd graduating class.  All of them are going to college!   They maintenance contact with the students by giving them a Breakfast Card which entitles a former Life Skillz student and a friend to have breakfast with a church member on demand for the next 5 years.  

See the latest video which show the responses of the students to this amazing program:

If you want to incubate a similar program at your church, please contact the Kaleidoscope Institute at [email protected] and we love explore with you how to provide wellness for the students in school near you.  Or come to Summer Institute in Los Angeles and learn about Holy Currency Incubation process.

 

Creating Sustainable Campus Ministries

(Excerpt from an article in the General Board of Higher Education of the United Methodist Church website: https://www.gbhem.org/article/campus-ministry-leaders-focus-creating-sustainable-ministries)

A visionary model for rethinking how campus ministries can provide meaning and purpose and yet be sustainable was presented during a training event sponsored by the Office of Collegiate Ministry at the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM). As the leadership development agency of the denomination, the Annual Conference Leaders training supports GBHEM’s work to equip the current and future leaders of the church.

Collegiate ministry leaders from Annual Conferences and campuses heard Rev. Dr. Eric Law, founder and executive director of the Kaleidoscope Institute, describe how his Holy Currencies model can help campus ministries face financial constraints.

“One of the recurrent issues in campus ministry is, how it is sustainable,” said Law, who engaged attendees at the April 23-26 training event in what he calls “re-incubating campus ministry.”

Holy Currencies is a holistic model for stewardship and congregational vitality, which enables church leaders to understand, develop and utilize five other kinds of currencies besides money that are essential for creating sustainable and missional ministries.

Higher Education and Ministry and the Kaleidoscope Institute have worked together previously, and United Methodist congregations have found the Holy Currencies model to be an effective way to help leaders create sustainable churches.

“The Holy Currencies are the six blessings that are required for any ministry to be sustainable,” Law said. In addition to money, the holy currencies are time and place, gracious leadership, relationship, truth and wellness.

Participants in the four-day training session included members of the Annual Conference boards of higher education and campus ministry, collegiate ministers and board members of collegiate ministry programs.

. . .

In addition to experiencing the detailed sessions led by Law that covered how to use the Holy Currencies model, event participants were also offered six months of group coaching with Law on the implementation of the model.

“What if we think of campus ministry as an entrepreneurial ministry where campus ministry actually produces something, a product or service that people actually want and will be willing to pay for it. What would that look like?” Law said.

For example, Law, who previously served as a campus minister at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said he combined faculty, staff and students into a ministry with homeless people.

“We actually served food to the homeless every Wednesday. We worshiped together, and we ate together,” he said. “That’s how you rethink campus ministry as a dynamic place where energy flows, where money flows, where talent can be discovered and used, truth can be had and shared, and leadership can be developed.”

When a campus community operates that type of ministry, Law said students and staff will have a regular reflection on how the ministry connects with their relationship with God.

“If you have a rich person and a poor person sitting at a table, and they are talking to each other, something is bound to happen, which is kind of what Jesus did," Law said.

How do we help people understand that they need a break? Here is the video of the interview on the Currency of Wellness for Lay leaders that I did with Sandra Montes of the Episcopal Church Foundation. #HolyCurrencies  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2oX_5zhFMo

You can also find the accompanying article at http://www.ecfvp.org/vestry-papers/article/686/wellness