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.

This mentoring time has proven very effective, year after year, in assisting persons newly arrived into positions relating to continuing education/lifelong learning. The New Directors' Workshop AND the Conference are consistently helpful to leaders in seminary contexts, judicatory structures or denominational agencies, local congregations, conference and retreat centers, as well as ministry consultants. 

The preliminary schedule for the 2009 New Directors' Workshop is:

Thursday, March 5:

Introduction to SACEM

    What it does
    What are other institutions doing?
    Networking possibilities
    Overview of website

Introduction of participants’ programs and what they have inherited at their institutions

Approaches to continuing education

    Judicatory, seminary/divinity schools, counseling/spiritual care

Approaches to peer learning

    Becky Youngblood…spiritual/cultural immersion
    ..self directed, self formed groups
    Michael Wilson….rural, bi-vocational ministers

Overview of ministerial continuing education, past 30 years

What are participants’ visions (if they have them), are you looking for areas of partnership?

Distance learning….Dick Bruesshoff

How to imagine program planning and design

Assessments…what purposes they serve, what to do with them,

Discussion