Reading for Pastors
by Best Practices Editor, Loren Seibold
Multiculturalism is a major conversation, now that we have a black president. Monte Sahlin has a piece in his blog about multicultural congregations. Quote: "[Seventh-day Adventist church] leaders are either in denial or feeling their way in terms of what this
means for the future of the faith. Although its worldwide membership
has a decidedly small White minority and its national churches are
quite diverse in a number of places, those nations where this
denomination has its best growth and greatest penetration are places
where there is a dominate ethnic majority and relatively little
diversity. " Alvin Kibble observes that the election of Barack Obama went unremarked by the church leadership - a reflection of that same confusion, perhaps?
Also, see this piece from The Atlantic on "The End of White America" - a cogent analysis of multiculturalism and how it is affecting all of us.
The Church Resources Center debuted their new website at Myrtle Beach. It includes training videos, materials, and resources of all kinds. You can check it out for yourself at http://www.vervent.org.
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 The Best Practices Night Owl Café was a great success!
Thanks to all of you faithful readers (and new friends) who joined us for some late night conversations at Myrtle Beach last week. We talked with Mike Coe about his entrepreneurial ministry in Mt. Dora, FL, with Raj Attiken about emerging, emergent, and missional churches, and we had a lively conversation about small churches, their problems and challenges. I found the conversation so much fun that I'd like to continue it: First, I've asked Dave Gemmell if we can have a Best Practices Night Owl Café at other Vervent activities this year, like our worship conferences. We're still working on the details, but I'm hopeful we can get Best Practices readers together to talk about ministry challenges every place the NAD Church Resources Center is represented. Second, I've started a Best Practices Night Owl Café blog page, where we pastors can share. This isn't a forum, exactly. In each issue, I'm going to pose a question, and you can go to the blog and share your answers and read those of others. This week's question: What's the most helpful book related to ministry you've read in 2008, and why? Click on "comments" to answer.
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 After-School Homework Club
by Isaac Boateng, Columbus, OH
The key to the dramatic growth in Isaac Boateng's church? Serving the needs of people. Here he tells us about an after-school tutoring program that has attracted hundreds of community people to his church building. LGSBack in 2000 when our church began to grow (mostly from African immigrants) we begin to notice a need: some of our members - those who do not have much education themselves - found it difficult to help their children with their homework. By the time the children reach middle school, the classwork is beyond the understanding of these parents. Many of our parents, even if they would prefer church school education for their children, can't afford it. Still, we wanted to keep them close to the church, and assist them in their education. So we began an after school program in the church fellowship hall to tutor students who needed help. The original program (now called Sonlight Community Services) has grown into a community outreach. Anyone is welcome, though it attracts mostly immigrant families. We specialize in assisting K-8 school children with their homework, and when they have no homework we help them improve their reading, writing and math skills. We've also added a summer school that runs for 8-9 weeks every summer, five hours a day, Monday through Friday which has had an average of 100 children each summer for the past five years. We soon realized that the community would be supportive of what we were doing: with a 501(c) tax status we've secured community funding from The Columbus Foundation, United Way, Ingram White Castle, Children's Foundation and Children's Hunger Alliance.Our success with the after-school tutoring program has enabled us to add programs for adults, too: GED (high school diploma equivalency), ESL (English as a second language), and Computer Literacy for Adults. When immigrant people can improve their English or get a high school diploma, they often do better at work or can secure better jobs.Parents who bring their children to the program are very thankful and several of them have visited our church. Contact Isaac at ibboateng@yahoo.com.
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