I woke up Saturday morning exhausted and crying and unsure if I could pull it together. Thanks to an amazing husband, I made it out of bed and started the day.
By 9:00am Jeff had hung a dry erase board and rearranged the furniture, transforming our living room into a functional conference room. Steve Bryant prepared for the workshop and made handouts and copies. Wilson came in early to do a quick cleaning job. Marie Claire, Claire Marin and Carter found movies and games to occupy themselves for the day. And we were ready to receive the 10 participants for the Writer’s Workshop.
Though the published start time of the meeting was nine, we started the meeting at 10:20am when nearly all the participants had arrived. It was a fun and productive day! Steve opened the day with an exercise based on Philippians 1:3ff, asking them to write their prayers for the Malawi UMC and we talked about characteristics of good writing showing some examples from existing Upper Room devotionals. Then we invited them to do a free write based on Ezekiel 37, the Valley of Dry Bones. It was a blessing to hear testimonies from these clergy, lay leaders, women, men, and youth about how the dry bones of Malawi are coming to life in our midst.
Listening & Learning
Jeff went to get pizza for lunch, set it all up in the dining room. After lunch he collected dishes and began washing them. There was a bit of tension as Jeff traipsed back and forth with food and dishes. And one woman flat out said that Jeff should not be doing dishes; she commented to the group and privately to Jeff later. We said that we felt comfortable sharing the work and responsibilities of the home. They asked Steve about this and he affirmed that he and Marcie also share the responsibilities at home and in the kitchen.
We concluded the meeting by walking page-by-page through the newsletter prototype, making decisions about design, language, images and content. It was exciting and instructive to hear their discussion and see this first quarterly newsletter of the church take shape. We hope to publish and distribute by 1 October.
You can't have a workshop without a wipeboard
The Publications Team seems to be one of the most organized, hardworking and consistent committees of the church that I have worked with thus far. They meet fort-nightly, follow a plan that they worked out together with Steve Bryant (GBOD) and work diligently to meet their goals, including a pamphlet to be distributed throughout the country, buying and selling Bibles and hymnals to the church members, a consistent Sunday School curriculum, and this quarterly newsletter.
Few print resources are available to the pastors and the lay people. In the future they hope to publish a Book of Worship with prayers and liturgy, Bible Studies and a Christian catechism to be shared with members and unchurched alike. Some of this work will be done in conjunction with support of the Upper Room and some will be completed with funds that they are raising on their own.
young adult, youth, clergy and laity
It is an exciting time as they discern those resources that are critical to their work and ministry, and partnering with them to make those resources a reality, in both English and Chichewa. Jeff and Steve were also excited to find a fairly new, simple and relatively inexpensive technology that allows anyone with a cellphone to send text messages to large groups of people. This could be an effective way to contact and share information with pastors in even the most remote areas of the country or to provide texted devotionals to members of the church.
I hope to post the first newsletter as soon as it is finished so that you can hear about the ministry, news, vision and testimony of the UMC firsthand!
