wfn.org | Church secretaries get advanced certification program

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Nov. 27, 2002 News media contact: Laura J. Latham7(615) 742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-71B{556}

NOTE: For related coverage of the General Council on Finance and
Administration meeting, see UMNS story #555.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - The United Methodist Church's U.S. association for
church secretaries received approval for a program of advanced certification
to supplement its existing certification process. 

The Professional Association of United Methodist Church Secretaries had
submitted a proposal to the denomination's General Council on Finance and
Administration that was approved Nov. 23 by the council's directors. 

The association represents nearly 600 members in local churches, general
agencies and other offices throughout the denomination.

The group had sent its proposal for the advanced certification program to the
finance agency a month earlier, requesting authorization and a $5,000 grant
from the General Administration Contingency Fund for 2003. The grant would
cover 45 percent of the program's cost for the first year, with the remainder
coming from the member registration and the association.

The proposal also included a request that the denomination's finance agency
budget $5,000 every other year starting in 2005, to support the certification
program, with a 10 percent increase over the previous amount for each
two-year period.

The secretaries' association has offered a certification program to its
members for 17 years. The advanced program will give certified members an
opportunity for continuing education. About 500 church secretaries have
become certified since the program began in 1985.

Before the vote, the proposal had received approval from finance agency's
connectional services and finance committees.

Curriculum for the advanced certification will focus on communication skills,
self-assessment, conflict management, theology and the church, balancing life
and work, time management and an individual project to be chosen by the
member with assistance from an instructor. Individual projects will focus on
value to the church or community and personal development.

The association will notify its members of the program by mail. The program
will begin with a Feb. 21-22 session at United Methodist-related Candler
School of Theology in Atlanta.

Sheilah Kyburtz, the association's national president, said the advanced
certification would be "beneficial to church secretaries and all churches ...
especially in this day and age with things changing so quickly." She
expressed appreciation for the finance agency's long-standing support of the
group.

More information is available at www.paumcs.org, the association's Web site.

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