CSMO Expands Its Horizons
Episcopal News Service. February 16, 1989 [89030]
NEW YORK (DPS. Feb. 16) -- The Church School Missionary Offering (CSMO), one of the Episcopal Church's oldest and best-known mission education programs for children and adults who work with them, is taking a significant leap forward in 1989. For the first time, CSMO will participate fully with the Church's ecumenical partners in offering the 1989-1990 Friendship Press materials on the Philippines and the world of Islam to provide the central mission themes and resources to enhance mission education for the children of the Episcopal Church. The Rev. Howard Williams, coordinator of Children's Ministries in the Education for Mission and Ministry unit of the Episcopal Church Center, first announced this key program change in November 1988 (DPS 88237).
Church educators, who have played an active ecumenical role in the development of the Friendship Press materials, are enthusiastic about their use in the reshaping of CSMO. Another feature of the 1989-1990 CSMO design is structuring of the offering in the context of the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief. Children and adults who work with them will be supplied with material about the work of the fund in the Philippines and in other parts of the world, and CSMO's fund raising will be directed to the use of the Presiding Bishop's Fund in its worldwide mission endeavors.
Linkage with the Friendship Press-NCC cycle of educational materials will also expand CSMO's timetable. Program and materials for CSMO are designed to be used any time during the year -- from spring of 1989 to spring of 1990. This time span will allow for richer educational opportunities and more reflective approaches to preparing children for mission in ways that reach more deeply into their daily experience and understanding.
Adults who lead CSMO programs will also be offered new opportunities and insights. Among the most ambitious programs is the 1989 NCC Ecumenical Travel Seminar to the Philippines (April 30-May 17, 1989), with an emphasis on helping North American church persons to see and relate the experiences of the Philippine church to issues in their churches at home. An in-depth program, it will provide firm theological grounding for growth in mission awareness at all age levels.
The religious, social, and political realities of Islam and its role in the Middle East and in the world has heightened the interest of Americans of all ages in the nature of Islamic practice and belief. The crossroads meeting of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in the Holy Land -- holy to all three beliefs -- has made understanding Islam all the more important to the young people of the Church. The expanded timetable of CSMO study may well allow some Church groups to take advantage of both study tracks offered in the Friendship Press materials. The Presiding Bishop's Fund, the pivotal agency in the Church for CSMO focus, is deeply involved in programs in both the Philippines and in Jerusalem and the Middle East.
Mailings to parish and diocesan educators in February will detail ordering procedures for the materials needed to open the new world of CSMO to young people, and will also offer material about the work of the Presiding Bishop's Fund and a sample offering box.
Editors and others not already on the CSMO mailing list may contact: Office of Children's Ministries, The Episcopal Church Center, 815 Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017. Tel. (800)334-7626, ext. 251 or 252; or (212) 867-8400, ext. 251 or 252.