Letter from Pastor Andy

For the past 12 months, I have been enrolled in a 21-credit graduate program that is a joint venture of the Dakotas and Minnesota Conferences of the United Methodist Church, the Lilly Grant Foundation, and Dakota Wesleyan University, entitled The Non Profit and Church Leadership Program.

This program was created to give pastors new tools and skills in administration centered around four focus areas - Finances, Human Resources, Project Management, and Communications. In addition to these four 12-week online classes, we were scheduled for three in-person classes in July of 2019, January of 2020, and July of 2020 in South Dakota. Because of COVID-19, our last in-person session is now an online session, and today was our FINAL day of class together (beginning at 6 a.m. Alaska Time!) Read more

Another feature of the program were two separate Applied Projects. My first project was to assist the elected lay leadership of St. John in establishing a Permanent Endowment for funding the future ministries of the church. Because of the work of our excellent team of lay leaders (Benée Braden, David Wight, Jan Cawvey, Paul Hanson, Cindy Dawson, Kenny Gerondale, and David Bates), the endowment was established at our Charge Conference in December 2019.

My second project was meant to benefit not only St. John, but other churches in the Alaska Conference. There is a program in the United Methodist Church called the Certified Lay Ministry program, in which participants complete the BASIC course, and then future advanced courses in order to be certified as a Lay Servant, Lay Speaker, or Lay Minister. Many of the advanced courses can be taken online through www.beadisciple.com; however, the BASIC and PREACHING courses must be taught locally. My project was to restart this program in the Alaska Conference, and to continue to offer these two courses multiple times each year into the future. In May, we had seven persons (four from St. John!) complete the BASIC course, and four of these seven persons (two from St. John) went on to complete the Preaching class, making them eligible to be Certified Lay Servants.

Today, I have completed the requirements for the Graduate Certificate in Non-Profit Church Leadership Administration!

I want to say THANK YOU to you St. John. Your support and love and partnership is the only way I completed this course of study, and I am so grateful to be a part of you. God bless you as richly as you all have blessed me and my family.

Grace and Peace, 

Pastor Andy