Lay Servant Ministries

Exploración de una cultura del cuidado en la congregación

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 18:11:24 GMT

Esta guía completa para líderes contiene seis sesiones de enseñanza de 90 minutos, diseñadas para el curso de Ministerios de Líderes Laicos Exploración de una cultura del cuidado en la congregación. Basado en el libro The Caring Congregation (La congragación que cuida) de Karen Lampe, este recurso equipa a los ministros laicos con habilidades prácticas para el ministerio de cuidado pastoral. Los participantes aprenderán técnicas de escucha profunda para establecer conexiones significativas, cómo brindar cuidado durante tiempos de pérdida y crisis, cómo mantener límites saludables en las relaciones que implican el cuidado y cómo comprender las diferencias culturales en los enfoques del ministerio del cuidado.

Exploring a Culture of Care for a Caring Congregation: Leader’s Guide

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 13:26:48 GMT

This comprehensive leader's guide contains six 90-minute teaching sessions designed for the Lay Servant Ministries course "Exploring a Culture of Care for a Caring Congregation." Based on Karen Lampe's book The Caring Congregation, this resource equips lay servant ministers with practical skills for pastoral care ministry. Participants will learn deep listening techniques for meaningful connections, how to provide care during times of loss and crisis, how to maintain healthy boundaries in caring relationships, and how to understand cultural differences in care ministry approaches.

Ministry with the Forgotten

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 17:00:51 GMT

Dementia diseases represent a crisis of faith for many family members and congregations. Magnifying this crisis is the way people with dementia tend to be objectified by both medical and religious communities. They are recipients of treatment and projects for mission. Ministry is done to and for them rather than with them.

While acknowledging the devastation of dementia diseases, Ken Carder draws on his own experience as a caregiver, hospice chaplain, and pastoral practitioner to portray the gifts as well as the challenges accompanying dementia diseases. He confronts the deep personal and theological questions created by loving people with dementia diseases, demonstrating how living with dementia can be a means of growing in faith, wholeness, and ministry for the entire community of faith. He also reveals that authentic faith transcends intellectual beliefs, verbal affirmations, and prescribed practices. Carder asserts that the Judeo-Christian tradition offers a broader lens, defining personhood in relationship to God's story and humanity's participation in God's mighty acts of creation and new creation; thereby contributing to hope, community, and self-worth.

Pastors and congregations will be better equipped to minister with people affected by dementia, receiving their gifts and responding to their unique needs. They will learn how people with dementia contribute to the community and the church's life and mission, discovering practical ways those contributions can be identified, nurtured, and incorporated into the church’s life and ministry.

From the Foreword:

"Bishop Carder has written a generously wise book that is a gift to the church and a healing resource for people living with dementia and all who walk with them and alongside them. Those who are seeking a book on pastoral care and dementia will find here a wealth of theological insight, practical recommendations, and reflections that are grounded in deeply lived experience. But this is not simply a book about living with dementia or caregiving for those who live with dementia, nor simply a book about pastoral care. It is rather a testimony from the wilderness, a memoir of 'trust-end-faith.' It is a book about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in our modern, technological world. It is a book about what it means to be known and loved by God, full stop. It is a book about what it means for love to endure, when all else fails."
—Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD; Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center; Esther Colliflower Associate Professor of the Practice of Pastoral and Moral Theology, Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC

Loving People and Planet in God's Name

Mon, 17 Apr 2023 14:46:30 GMT

This PDF is the Leader's Guide for Loving People and Planet in God's Name. This Leader's Guide includes lesson plans for five two-hour sessions to help lay servant ministers learn more about climate justice, how to talk about climate justice using a biblical and theological framework, and how to work with their communities to do meaningful ministry around creation care. This advanced Lay Servant Ministries course is based on the book Climate Justice: A Call to Hope and Action.

From Pew to Pulpit

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:42:17 GMT

A down-to-earth, practical introduction to the ins and outs of preaching for lay preachers, bivocational pastors, and others newly arrived in the pulpit

Recent years have seen a considerable increase in the amount of financial resources required to support a full-time pastor in the local congregation. In addition, large numbers of full-time, seminary trained clergy are retiring, without commensurate numbers of new clergy able to take their place. As a result of these trends, a large number of lay preachers and bivocational pastors have assumed the principal responsibility for filling the pulpit week by week in local churches. Most of these individuals, observes Clifton Guthrie, can draw on a wealth of life experiences, as well as strong intuitive skills in knowing what makes a good sermon, having listened to them much of their lives. What they often don't bring to the pulpit, however, is specific, detailed instruction in the how-tos of preaching. That is precisely what this brief, practical guide to preaching has to offer.

Written with the needs of those for whom preaching is not their sole or primary occupation in mind, it begins by emphasizing what every preacher brings to the pulpit: an idea of what makes a sermon particularly moving or memorable to them. From there the book moves into short chapters on choosing an appropriate biblical text or sermon topic, learning how to listen to one's first impressions of what a text means, moving from text or topic to the sermon itself while keeping the listeners needs firmly in mind, making thorough and engaging use of stories in the sermon, and delivering with passion and conviction. The book concludes with helpful suggestions for resources, including Bibles, commentaries, other print resources and websites.

This title has replaced product DR384 Go Preach!.

Click here for the Leader's Guide.

The Worship Workshop

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:41:58 GMT

The Worship Workshop, rather than providing simply another manual for doing worship, offers instead an interactive workshop that helps worship teams develop more meaningful and memorable worship for the congregation. By combining liturgical history and the creative process, The Worship Workshop encourages worship teams and staff to break out of the traditional worship box in order to create diverse ways to present the Good News in worship.

Through a variety of activities, ideas, and informational handouts, The Worship Workshop helps worship committees, planners, and designers evaluate the state of their current worship, get more people involved in the planning and designing process, explore the diverse designs of congregational worship, learn the history of worship, and utilize the arts and artists in worship.

This is the Participant's Book. The Leader's Guide, Planning Worship, by Taylor Burton-Edwards, can be purchased here.

Polity, Practice, and the Mission of the United Methodist Church

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:41:48 GMT

"Commissioned by the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry for use in United Methodist doctrine/polity/history courses." This in-depth analysis of the connection between United Methodist polity and theology addresses ways in which historical developments have shaped--and continue to shape--the organization of the church. This revised edition incorporates the actions of The United Methodist General Conference, 2004. The book discusses continuing reforms of the church's plan for baptism and church membership, as well as the emergence of deacon's orders and other changes to ordained ministry procedures. The text is now cross-referenced to the Book of Discipline, 2004, including the revised order of disciplinary chapters and paragraph numbering. Denominational statistics are updated, along with references to recent works on The United Methodist Church and American religious life.

The Leader's Guide, Life Together in the United Methodist Connection, by Beth Galbreath, can be purchased here.

La vida de devoción en la tradición wesleyana

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:39:40 GMT

Este libro describe los aspectos más importantes en la vida de devoción de Juan Wesley y cómo estos principios pueden ser aplicados a nuestras vidas. El libro está diseñado para tener un estudio semanal por siete semanas y sigue una estructura alrededor de lo que Wesley llama «medios de gracia». Por lo tanto, incluye estudios sobre la oración, la Escritura, la Santa Cena, el ayuno y otros temas. Los grupos y cada persona individual crecerán espiritualmente a medida que aprenden acerca de las enseñanzas de Wesley en relación a la gracia de Dios y la vida en Cristo.

Guía del líder: La formación espiritual a través de la disciplina diaria

Devotional Life In the Wesleyan Tradition (Korean Translation)

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:38:56 GMT

This workbook describes major features in John Wesley's devotional life, and it illustrates how you can apply his ministry to your own life.

Structured around Wesley's "Means of Grace," the 7-week study covers prayer, scripture, the Lord's Supper, fasting, Christian conferencing, and providential means of grace. Developed for individual or group study, the workbook also offers suggestions for organizing an initial group meeting and developing a successful group study.

For the Common Good

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:31:19 GMT

This PDF Leader's Guide is designed to be used with the participant's book, For the Common Good. It includes discussion guides and activities to help individuals discover their spiritual gifts, identify their abilities and skills, and find ways to use them for God’s glory. It also offers a model for implementing a system based on spiritual gifts to identify and call forth leaders in the congregation. The Leader's Guide offers plans for four 2½-hour sessions to fulfill the 10-hour requirement for an advanced Lay Servant Ministry course.

God's Mission, Our Journey

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:28:59 GMT

This course will provide participants with a better understanding of a holistic approach to participation in God's mission to the world and equip lay servants for more effective missional engagement in their own communities and beyond.

This is the Leader's Guide. The Participant's Book, A Mission Journey, can be found here.

Teaching Biblical Faith

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:27:34 GMT

This Leader's Guide is designed to be used as an advanced course in Lay Servant Ministry. Based on the book Teaching Biblical Faith, the Leader's Guide contains five two-hour sessions to provide church leaders with the tools for biblical study. In this course, participants will explore why scripture study is important, practice historical study of three scripture texts, experience praying the scriptures, and practice teaching with small groups of supportive colleagues.

Ministry with the Forgotten

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:27:26 GMT

This PDF is the Leader's Guide for Ministry with the Forgotten: Dementia Through a Spiritual Lens. This Leader's Guide provides five two-hour sessions of teaching plans to help lay servant ministers understand dementia from a spiritual standpoint and become more comfortable ministering with people affected by this condition. The advanced Lay Servant Ministries course based on the book Ministry with the Forgotten will equip lay servant ministers to lead their congregations in ministry with people with dementia and those who care for them. It will enable participants to learn about dementia, see people with dementia as disciples of Jesus, and discover how to relate to them in a helpful manner.

Opening Ourselves to Grace

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:27:12 GMT

This leader's guide explores the basic practices of Christian faith and life from a Wesleyan perspective by examining John Wesley's understanding of spiritual practice, Bible study, and other helpful resources. This guide is designed as a companion resource to the Opening Ourselves to Grace: Basic Christian Practices DVD/CD-ROM, which is available for separate purchase through Upper Room Books: https://upperroombooks.com/book/opening-ourselves-to-grace/. Together, these two resources expand the previous three-hour Lay Servant Ministries refresher course into a ten-hour advanced Lay Servant Ministries course.

Connectional Living and Connectional Giving

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:27:04 GMT

This PDF leader’s guide is a required resource for a Lay Servant Ministries (LSM) advanced course. It supplements the book Earn. Save. Give.: Wesley’s Simple Rules for Money (Abingdon Press; 2015) by James A. Harnish, as well as the free resource The United Methodist Church Handbook (2017–20), Therefore Go: Making Disciples for the Transformation of the World (available from UM Communications).

This LSM advanced course focuses on the following:

an understanding of John Wesley’s admonitions—to earn, save, and give all you can;
various scriptures and how they relate to our connectional living, which leads to connectional giving and connecting to Wesley’s teachings;
the ways in which an understanding of why we give and where we invest our resources is imperative to living our faith through the United Methodist connectional system;
an understanding of the apportionment structure through the general church, jurisdictions, annual conferences, and districts, and how that relates to the local church and decisions made in the local church;
understanding and being able to make a presentation on how living in connection as part of God’s creation leads us to giving in support of mission/ministry in that connection; and
training for Lay Servants to present the connectional giving story to groups in their congregation and other congregations in support of district superintendents.

Leading Public Prayer

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:26:57 GMT

This leader guide was written as a companion to the book Shaping the Prayers of the People, by Samuel Wells and Abigail Kocher (Eerdmans, 2014). This text offers a model of profound and accessible congregational prayer. At once inspirational and practical, it will empower and equip laypeople and clergy alike to offer heartfelt, informed, thoughtful, and appropriate prayers on behalf of the people of God. It leads persons to consider what public prayer is and offers practical guidelines for avoiding common pitfalls. It explores prayers as an integral part of worship and discusses the kind of language we need to address God.

This course will replace the current/existing "Leading in Prayer" course, which was said to be too long. The Lay Servant Ministries Education Committee decided to divide the subject matter into two parts: personal prayer and public prayer. The personal prayer portion has now been published as the PDF leader guide Embracing Personal Prayer—A Leader's Guide (DRPDF898) utilizing the text Lord, Teach Us to Pray, by Margie Burger. This product fulfills the public prayer portion of the prayer course. NOTE: This course is required by The Book of Discipline to become a certified lay speaker.

Embracing Personal Prayer

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:26:42 GMT

At the end of this course, you will be able to establish a daily practice for communicating with God and listening for God's answers. You will find ways to come to the Lord in prayer (singing, fasting, praying the Scriptures, praying for others, and using intercessory prayer). You will explore the many names of Jesus and God you can use for adoration in your prayer. You will identify your need to overcome the barriers you may now be experiencing in your prayer life. Finally, you will be provided useful tools for structuring your prayer life and focusing on the Lord.

The participant's text for this course is Lord, Teach us to Pray by Margie Burger.

Lay Servants as Christian Transformational Leaders

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:26:34 GMT

This Leader's Guide is the accompanying piece to DR 881 Lay Servants as Christian Transformational Leaders – Participant's Book. It is a PDF that can be downloaded and used to support the course outlined below.

Building on the previous Lay Servant course "Does Your Church Have a Prayer?", this Participant's Book will guide Lay Servants seeking to be more empowered to lead their congregations toward vitality. Written with two distinct purposes, Lay Servants as Christian Transformational Leaders will first define the three types of Christian transformational leadership and the four qualities of Christian transformational leaders. Then the course will focus on congregational vitality, organizational life cycles, assessing current realities, and leading transformational change. The Participant's Book is available for purchase here.

Called To Preach Study Guide

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:26:20 GMT

The Leader's Guide for the course following From Pew to Pulpit. (Downloadable PDF only)

This title has replaced DR387 You Can Preach!

Click here for the Participant's Book.

Leading Missional Small Groups

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:26:12 GMT

This course teaches the Wesleyan way to form missional communities and congregations. It is based on the conviction that just as holiness of heart leads to holiness of life, it is communities of holy love that participate in God’s mission to the world.

This is the Leader's Guide for the book Transforming Community.