School for Regional Church Leaders to Open in January
Diocesan Press Service. November 15, 1974 [74318]
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Bishop William Davidson of Western Kansas, Chairman of The Joint Commission on the Church in Small Communities, has announced the formation of the School for Regional Church Leaders. This will provide a new type of advanced professional training and continuing education apparently available nowhere else. It is designed specifically for those clergy and church officials responsible for supervision, coordination, planning, or training in regions or areas within which the Church serves small towns and rural areas. Such persons may be pastors of cluster parishes, rural deans, archdeacons, supervisors or directors of regional program, etc. The School is not exclusively limited to rural church leaders, since many regional groupings (archdeaconries, presbyteries, associate missions, etc.) include both urban and rural churches. Although operated under the auspices of the Episcopal Church, enrollment in the School is opened to qualified officials of any Christian Church.
The School will involve a residential session at Roanridge, Kansas City, Mo., January 20-31, 1975. After returning home, participants in the School will engage in a further project related to their own particular work and will be individually visited during the Spring by a staff member of the School. In October, all will reassemble for a final week at Roanridge.
The faculty will include the Rev. Dr. Charles L. Winters, Jr., Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee; the Rt. Rev. William Davidson, Bishop of Western Kansas ; the Rev. Arthur B. Williams, Jr., Associate Director of Program of the Diocese of Michigan; Mrs. Joan Bordman, Field Representative of the National Committee on Indian Work; and the Rev. Raymond Cunningham, Jr., Church consultant and educator, Wassaic, N.Y. This School will also utilize the outstanding resources of St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, and of Resources Management, Inc. of St. Louis. The Rev. Dr. H. Boone Porter, Jr., Director of Roanridge, will be the dean of the School. The School is operated under the auspices of the Joint Commission on the Church in Small Communities of the Episcopal Church and is part of the national program entitled "New Directions for Churches in Small Communities. "
Registration forms and other information may be obtained from Roanridge, 9200 N.W. Skyview, Kansas City, Mo. 64154.
Regarding the purpose of this School, Dr. Porter says, "Small churches in small towns need regional cooperation in order to build effective programs of worship, witness, education, and social concern. Regional leaders who can bring about such cooperation are in positions of great strategic importance. We want to help such leaders do the best possible job so that they can enable our thousands of small churches to experience new life and growth. The opportunities for mission today in our small communities are tremendous. Smallness need not be a barrier to spiritual strength."