SACEM's New Directors' Workshop is held prior to the annual conference each year. In 2009 it will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, beginning on Thursday, March 5. It will continue through Friday morning leading into SACEM's Annual Conference. The New Directors' Workshopis for new SACEM members and new Directors ofcontinuing education and lifelong learning for ministry programs. There is no additional charge for the New Directors' Workshop for those new directors who register for the Annual Conference March 6-9.

In the June issue of The Continuing Educator I wrote about the season of change affecting those involved in continuing education for ministry. Little did any of us realize the range of changes that would occur world-wide since June 2008! The last few months have brought a whole new focus to the idea of change as the deteriorating global financial realities have rippled through our individual and organizational lives. Congregations, seminaries, retreat centers, denominations, and judicatories are scrambling to try to respond to the changes. Endowments, gifts, enrollments, staffing patterns, planning, and programs all are affected.

Lifelong Learning:Challenges and Opportunities in a Digital Age

Around the theme of "Lifelong Learning: Challenges and Opportunities in a Digital Age," Dr. Mary Hess of Luther Seminary in Minneapolis stimulated reflection and discussion among participants with her two keynote presentations. In her presentations she shared YouTube videos and other web sites to demonstrate the extensive social networking and digital culture ethos which influences, and even pervades our present educational contexts.

In times of change learners inherit the earth
while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped
to deal with a world that no longer exists.

(Eric Hoffer, 1973, p. 32)