How Can The Church Build Its legacy Through Education

To educate a congregation is to accept a “Calling” but to empower a nation with the teachings of Christ or religion is a “Gift” bestowed to us by God. Yet! The Power and the Legacy to glorify His name are archives and literature that the church keeps and produces to communicate with its congregation and the community it is supposed to serve. A Church Library is a duty every ministry should have as a tool to mobilize its resources and effectively maintain its teachings to keep the “Word” alive and the devil at “Bay” while protect vulnerable souls from evil.

So! It goes without saying that no church should be without a library. The library should be part of the communication and education center for all church matters. This means that the church should formulate or establish a team of education and communication members to manage and execute every other mission pertaining to the development, activities and ministry of the church.

Therefore, the literature and its communication deployment within this context should be produced, created and published by the church. All literature should be about the teachings, scriptures and related information that will empower the readers and the congregation. These publications should encompass languages within which the church is able to liaison with the congregation to accommodate, self-development, African Religious History, Eastern and Western religious teachings for educational purposes.

Eight Resources The Church Library Should Never Be Without

1. The churches monthly Newsletter
2. The ministries monthly Sermons Booklet
3. A Journal of the church past, present and future goals
4. Choir and or Music Score/Songs division or dept.
5. The history Yearbook of the church
6. All Audio Files and Podcasts belonging to the church
7. A Video Channel to broadcast the services of the church
8. A Social Media online presence to reach out to the youth

The Biggest Enemy & Evil That Society Should Fight Against Is Ignorance

However, in the churches’ pursuit to establish a communication center and to assign duties and responsibilities to its volunteers, it must have the churches’ education committee already in place. It is only natural that the church should first investigate which curriculum it will need to embrace or follow in order to form or influence the basis from which their literature material will be produced.  Apart from choosing people and volunteers in the congregation to offer their skills, expertise and knowledge in the establishment of these structures and projects; the church should communicate its intention and plans to the congregation. The church should attempt to find community qualified personnel to assist and support these undertaking and efforts.

To kick-start the challenge and the move to go forward in the implementation of the library goals, the 8 components mentioned above should form the foundation upon which this library is to be established. The church should start this process with a simplest of them all i.e. The Church Newsletter. The rest will follow on gradually as and when the church grows in time and more resources and personnel becomes available to meet required needs.

While many might think it is difficult to implement a newsletter; surprisingly it does not even require a huge capital outlay or investment nor hard-labour to establish the 1st steps. It only requires the will power, desire and the enthusiasm of the church leaders and volunteer congregants. Believers Chat Room can assist in the training interventions of the church admin staff to get going within 30 days and to explore how the congregation will respond to their first publication release.

The Churches Newsletter

Why should the church have its own church newsletter? Well! First and foremost the primary purpose of the church is to reach out, preach, teach, empower, disseminate and communicate the Gospel and Christianity, if the dogma is about Christianity or God as the essence of creation, if the focus is about God. Whatever, the message is about. This information can be used to empower the congregation as well as the community, outside of the church. The non-congregants are part of the mainstream searching sheep; who are left-out of the church because they’ve not found a reason to belong in the church. This is where you find members of the famous “Gabola Church” disposition is affected by alcohol abuse, drug peddling and addictions of all kinds.

The newsletter can be produced weekly and distributed to the church as part of the education drive to reinforce the teaching. Other information related to the church can also be included in the newsletter, e.g. upcoming wedding celebrations, special baptismal events, bible classes, prayer meetings, community crime rehabilitation programs and the churches Sunday school activities etc. The youth can be involved in the production and coordination of the newsletter to instill a sense of responsibility and purpose to develop their leadership skills and good qualities.

The Sermons Booklet

The Second item in the menu of archiving information for the library to be considered seriously by the church; is the production and printing of the churches Sermons Booklet. Why is it important for the library to have such a booklet? The sermons booklet serves two main important functions that the church can use to keep hope and the Gospel Teachings Alive and flowing, by constantly updating people with the latest information.

• The church should distribute it on a monthly basis to remind the congregation of the last past four sermons where upon the teachings made an impact to the congregation. This follow up strategy is how God empowers us to remember Him and constantly praise Him. Otherwise if this booklet is not in the hands of the congregation every month, they'll forget why they went to church in the first place.
• The second aspect of this booklet is a reminder and a reference book for the congregation to use as a personal encyclopedia of teachings to entertain their spiritual sentiments . It does have an impact to the readers psyche and it keeps their atmosphere and focus on the teachings. Rather than the church leave this to be in the hands of “social media” abuse of fake news. The booklet is a mini-version of the big picture i.e. salvation and our constant war against evil.

This sermons booklet allow members of the church the opportunity to be soaked in the message rather than be lost to negative programming and messages that will destroy the atmosphere built by the pastors’ sermon.

A Church’s Journal

The third item is the churches quarterly journal which serves the purpose of capturing weekly and monthly summaries of church activities. The difference between a journal and the newsletter is that the newsletter is a weekly update of what the church is planning to do in the future on a weekly and monthly basis on current, upcoming events and activities of the church. Whereas, a journal captures what has already happened in the church and is recorded as a milestone on progress attained and it measures challenges that need to be addressed and attended to by those in the structures of the church execution rooster. The journal should be produced quarterly because it is part of the communication system that gives meaning to all other top 2 i.e. the Newsletter and the Sermons Booklet.

Formation Of The Church Choir

In my early days as a young man I belonged to my churches’ - “church choir” and it meant a lot to me as a believer and follower of religion. Things have changed; I now worship all churches of the world, after I’ve discovered that they are all the same. They all preach and talk about the same God and Gospel differently. This is because the world is God’s perfect school where everyone is in a different standard and class attending their assignments of life learning a particular "lesson". So! These religions and doctrines are subjects and courses which are assigned to different students of life i.e. us “human-beings” on earth in order to graduate to another school or university in another dimension. If we pass with good grades to the next world after death i.e. the “hereafter”, so to speak to become better citizens of the universe.

As a result! The Bible, the Quran the Gita, the Tao the Torah and their entire related sister of holy books are songs of hope and poetry of love to remind us of how great and mysterious the Creator is. Therefore, worthy of our praise to belong to a church choir. Archiving these songs and music score is the only treasure we can cherish. Copies of this music can be used to teach our young generation music of praise and how these compositions inspired our struggles to fuel our souls with hope and be steadfast on the path to spiritual liberation.

We can have this music preserved as Sheet Music or CD copies and or Streaming Podcast Episodes. This can be shared with the congregation on their cell phones to be informed to us by the music education department of the church. This is how the church should build its legacy when travelling towards the future, to capture and reference the essence of our timeline.

Our youth should belong to the choir of the church. And this choir should have a choir master whose passion and love for music is contagious to the members of the choir. This will bring about a positive impact on the churches' vibe and library when a catalogue of these songs is compiled. If the church fails to engage the youth in its programs – these youth are going to become followers and customers of the drug under-world. Drug cartels and institutions of prostitution are going to become colleges of crime and recruiters of these vulnerable generation. We need to do something now and quick to integrate the church programs into our gospel and ministry of The Christ, before it is too late.

History of The Churches Yearbook

Fourth, on the list of the churches library should be the compilations and production of the churches Yearbook which is produced and printed by the church every year. This yearbook should be planned a year in advanced. Yet! the content is created and compiled each month and communicated to the congregation and the community constantly to be released towards the beginning of the following year. The churches education and communications department is the central hub whose responsibility is to source out, deliberate and to extract from the church important information to create this Yearbook.

The yearbook will be a kaleidoscope of memoirs that comprise and include pictures, key people in the church, their roles and responsibilities, members of the congregation, children’s photos collage, the churches milestone and achievements. History will mostly be captured in this yearbook. Ceremonies, events, and every other little activity which represents the churches input in the development and engagement with the congregation or community it is supposed to serve. It is the most colorful and spectacular item of the library. It will be a literary asset that will be seen, read and owned by the library where generations of church members will forever know and appreciate how their lives where enriched and affected by belonging to your church.

In most cases the yearbook is sold to members of the congregation for a fee to raise church funds, or a specific church cause. The yearbook in essence reminds every one of the past achievements and challenges life has been in our travels as seekers of truth. It can be compiled as a collective contribution by the church and its people. Get the congregation involved and let someone spearhead and take responsibility for this as a project. Believers Chat Room can show you how this can be achieved. You will be proud after 12 month what your people are capable of contributing. Give them the opportunity to improve communications efforts to mark and tick church goals for any period in the printing of the churches yearbook.

Audio Library and the Music Scores

The music department of the church should take responsibility for the management of the music, audio and production of the church's CD or recordings of the scriptures etc. It is part of the media production menu to create, record, maintain and archive everything related to audio issues of the church. The sound systems and hardware material of the churches as well as recording of sermons is priceless. Nothing should be left to chance. Archiving the audio early on in the life and history of the church is vital in capturing original material that will transform and give direction to the future the church wants to see manifest in these archives.

Video Library archives

The same principle should apply to the establishment or management of the video library as it is done by the music department of the church. The responsibility for the management of the video productions of church recordings of both scriptures and music should be synchronized and undertaken alike by the department.

Social Media & Website Presence

Social media is one of the most pressing element that should not be left out in the equation of all items mentioned above. The reason is quiet simple. The church should have their ear on the ground with what our children are doing on social media front pages. Are we on the same page with their agenda or we are just lame ducks sitting in the dark unaware of the mischief they cause? Just because we’ve assumed lack of participation on these platforms to monitor our young generation; it should not make us underplay our intrinsic role as watchdogs to pass the buck to someone else to take our responsibility for their misconduct? No! It shouldn’t be the case! Adults should draw the line and know where these conversations are coming from and going in relation to the Gospel and our ministry of the “word”. We need to rope them in and not ignore them to be hijacked by criminals on these platforms. The role of the church is to be the guardian of light in establishing a rapport with key centers of power; that influences their future to deter them from attempting to misbehave.  We become the means to bridge the gap between parents and these children.

In Conclusion

That in a nutshell is how the church should view, plan, visualize and go about setting up the library strategy of the church. If the church wants to survive the new millennium challenges or to meet the needs of the people on the ground. It’s message and teachings; should be consistent and fed constantly to serve, impress and to empower or execute, a new vision that will transform our communities to see the church grow beyond its current state.

A Must Have Church Strategy & Implementation Document
Although these initiatives don’t come cheap financially or laboriously, it is worth the effort. So- is the grace of God. He will help us tackle what can become an impossible task if we apply our minds and commit ourselves to a goal. God will ensure he works His plans through us with us; when we become receptive channels of communication. To honour our call of duty where upon rests our individual responsibilities. Believers Chat Room can assist your church on a "bosberaad" workshop at Magaliesburg Training Center to initiate this church strategy and implementation document. The best alternative is to attend a compete two day training course for different churches to enroll or send their key personnel. These is where I will show you how this strategy document is put together and executed to get the new vision moving forward.

May God bless South Africa and all people who live in it!

Peace!

For more info call: 083 928 8165 

By: Isaac Khonjelwayo

Artist   - Art Exhibition

Magazine - Publisher

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