Online Credential Renewals Available NOW!

Credentialed Ministers, you can submit your annual credential renewals online at this site.  It is available right now, and I would encourage you to take care of this as soon as possible!  The online process is very easy, I just submitted my renewal.  You will need your AG Passport login info, and you should have received that via email from General Council.    Hard copy renewal forms will be mailed out by November 15th.  The deadline is December 31.

Consulting Resource for Churches

Pastors and Church Leaders, Dick Hardy of the Hardy Group is offering a new resource designed for churches in the 100-500 person size range.  It is called "Lead Pastor Tele-Consulting Networks."  Dick Hardy comes highly recommended as a consultant by these people, and you can find out more information about this valuable resource here.

Youth Conference 2011, Report from Mark

This year was a great year for us!  We had almost 1100 students and leaders from the road and off the road system.    Almost 1/3 of our students came from villages and from the South East which means that they had to fly to Anchorage (some had to take a ferry to get to the airport!). 

Highlights:
1100 in Attendance - on location
3564 individual computers logged on to watch our live production streamed
43 States!
41 Countries!

Speakers: 
Banning Liebscher / Jesus Culture, Redding, CA

Banning did a great job.  He spoke on holiness and intimacy.  Banning did a great job connecting with the students and leaders.  I love his passion for revival, however, what I loved even more was his clear and compelling call to live holy.  He was very clear that without holiness, we will never see the supernatural that many of us desire.  Banning will be back to Alaska!

Jay Mooney – National Youth Director
Jay spoke our Speed the Light service and a leaders session for us.  Jay hit it out of the park!  He spoke a powerful, compelling word on Jesus’ challenge to Peter about “taking” care of my little ones!  He set the stage for our STL offering.  We had just over $26,000.00 come in for our offering at the conference.   There are several things we did that I think will help us with sustaining STL giving!

We printed self-addressed, postage paid remittance envelopes that students/leaders could use, and take home with them.

The envelopes gave people 3 options to give:
1.  Cash
2.  Credit/Debit cards ($11,000 worth of the giving)

3.  Recurring automatic debit ( we have almost $1,000.00 of recurring [monthly] giving now)

We also asked students to make a 30 day STL goal and to send their offering in with the envelopes!  We are excited about what that will do long-term for STL awareness!

Jay also spoke to our leaders concerning campus ministry.  Many of my youth pastors came up and said..."WOW" Jay painted a picture for campus ministry that everyone in this room can get involved in.  Thanks Jay for your leadership!

We also recorded a live worship CD this year with a 60 voice youth choir!  It was epic!  Our worship leader was Adam Barta (www.iclv.com) who is on staff as the Worship/Creative Arts pastor at the International Church of Las Vegas!  He is super easy to work with and I believe is one of the top worship leaders in North America!  Super humble and amazingly anointed!  Our producer was from Seattle - Brandon Bee (brandonbeemusic.com). 

Lastly -- we launched a 30day Push manual that is a workbook companion to or Alaska Youth Ministries App (iTunes & Android).  It is a growth manual designed to help students deepen core spiritual habits 30 days following conference.   You can download this manual for free @ www.akyouth.org.

Blessings,

Mark

MCA baptisms

Exciting night at MCA last night, as 13 people were baptized!  Many of them were from the new MCA site "Island Revival", led by Pastor Moe. Praise the Lord!

www.MinistryDirect.com

Have you discovered the value of Ministry Direct, produced by the General Council?  They produce many videos that help in areas such
as legal issues, ministry, preaching, etc.  Below I have
embedded two examples. 

The first is a roundtable discussion of Children's Ministry, and
the second is a discussion by Dick Hardy about working with Church
Boards, part 1. You can see many, many more excellent resources at www.MinistryDirect.com.

Youth and Children's Ministry Training Resources

The children's and youth specialists from Valley Forge Christian College presented some excellent resources at the DSOM Summit for people desiring to grow in their gifts of ministering to children and youth.  Essentially, Valley Forge is offering internet classes that are fully accredited for $99 per credit hour.  This type of class would work very well for either full-time or lay leaders who want to be trained in their giftings but can't afford to leave their location.

The Youth track includes classes such as Youth Ministry Leadership, Youth Culture, Introduction to Youth Ministry, etc.  More information on the Youth Ministry track can be found at www.youthstudiesonline.com.

The Children's Ministry track includes classes such as Pastoring Children, Early Childhood Ministry, Ministry to Children with Disabilities, Child Evangelism, etc.  More information can be found at www.cmuo.com.

DSOM Summit

Dr. Wade and Susan Cogan and I (Brad) are attending the annual District School of Ministry summit in Columbus, Ohio.  This is a time when the School of Ministry leaders get together to learn from each other and look ahead to future improvements.  The 27th DSOM has just recently been approved, it is exciting to see this movement growing.

One thing I am really excited about is that Alaska is giving back!  We are currently the only DSOM doing the Simulcast Venue.  Today, we demonstrated the Simulcast system to the rest of the DSOM leaders.  Dr. Campbell was in Anchorage at the Network Office, and he and Dr. Cogan demonstrated how the system works.  It was received very favorably, and many saw possibilities for how their District could utilize this technology.

Dr. Cogan leading the Discussion

Another way Alaska is contributing is with textbooks.  Pastor Jack Aiken of Eagle River saw a need for a good Ephesians textbook.  So he wrote and published one!  He gave us a copy to distribute free to each of the District Schools of Ministry today. 

The New York District School of Ministry has developed Hispanic curriculum for the entire CM level.  They have blessed each DSOM by providing us with a copy of this.  That is the beauty of the DSOM movement and why the cost is so low....everything is shared.  Alaska is already taking advantage of this curriculum, and the first AKSOM Hispanic  venue will be taking place on November 12th.  I (Brad) will be teaching Life of Christ, and Pastor Gil Nantes will be translating.

Supt. Dave Dillon, the Superintendent of the Appalachian District and pictured below, is the President of DSOM, and this event was hosted by the Ohio Ministry Network.  It was a great time of sharing and fellowship.  We are grateful for what the Lord is doing to equip the called throughout our fellowship, whether it be through DSOMs, Bible Colleges, or Church Based Schools.  I am excited about how God will use AKSOM to continue to develop people for ministry in Alaska.  Dr. Wade Cogan is doing an excellent job as Director.  His wife, Susan, does a great job doing the administrative tasks.  Thanks also to Dr. Campbell for serving on the leadership team, and to the professors, Voice to the Village, the students, and all the technical support staff who help make AKSOM possible. 

As a reminder, you can tune in this Saturday at 9:30am at www.aksom.net to view the Simulcast.