wfn.org | Development of Covenant People curriculum is suspended

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6791 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

15-August-2001
01276

Development of Covenant People curriculum is suspended

Rising deficits, falling sales force a 'retooling' 

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - With Covenant People deficits rising and sales slumping,
Congregational Ministries Publishing (CMP) announced this week that
development of the new denominational curriculum has been suspended.

	According to the Rev. Lynn Shurley, chair of the Congregational Ministries
Division (CMD) Committee, the move to suspend the curriculum will save about
$150,000 per month until the General Assembly Council (GAC) decides the
long-term future of Covenant People at its September meeting in Tempe, Ariz.

	CMP publisher Sandra Moak Sorem said sales of Covenant People this year
were well below their level this time last year and at the end of June were
almost a half-million dollars below budgeted sales projections for this
year.

	Two years worth of Covenant People curriculum has already been produced -
covering the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 school years. Halting work now means
that the third year of the three-year curriculum will not be produced.

	But Shurley and Sorem insisted that the decision to halt development of
Covenant People does not mean that the PC(USA) is abandoning denominational
curriculum for Presbyterians.

	"We're not abandoning denominational curriculum," Shurley told the
Presbyterian News Service in an Aug. 15 interview. "But we need to do
something different. We have to figure out a more cost-effective,
user-friendly means of doing it that responds directly to the expressed
needs of congregations."

	"All of our research - and we've done a lot of it - shows that
Presbyterians want specifically Presbyterian curriculum," Sorem told the
Presbyterian News Service Aug. 14. "But Covenant People isn't it. It's just
too expensive to produce and too complicated to use."

	Noting that only 10 percent of the PC(USA)'s 11,300 congregations have
bought Covenant People, Shurley admitted "the market is just not there,
despite glowing reviews by those who have used it."

	The bottom-line, Shurley added in an Aug. 15 interview, "is that while
we've managed to cut our costs by half in the last year, that's not enough
to overcome the lack of sales."

	Sorem said "retooling" of Presbyterian curriculum should be completed for
the 2003-2004 school year and that CMP and its network of "POINT" people and
resource center directors will work with congregations to fill their
curriculum needs during what would have been the third year of Covenant
People in 2002-2003. "We will still have the full array of Covenant People
years one and two available with a new rotation workshop model for using
it," she said, "as well as our popular, growing Bible Quest and Present Word
curricula."

	Bible Quest and Present Word, which were developed ecumenically "are doing
quite well," Sorem said. Sales this year for both are ahead of last year and
ahead of budget projections for this year.

	Sorem described Covenant People as "a noble first effort to take a whole
new look at how to do curriculum." She said churches with trained Christian
educators had a much easier time figuring out how to use Covenant People,
which featured so many options that ordering became "bewildering" for some
churches. That same complexity meant that Covenant People was also
time-consuming for teachers to plan, she added.

	"Covenant People is a good, sound product," Sorem said, "so we don't
believe there will be huge development costs for what comes next." What
comes next, she added, "will be more traditional with more materials
available online. And our next product will be more usable by small churches
with untrained Christian educators and churches that use multiple
grade-level models for Christian education."

	CMP staffing will be impacted by the suspension, Sorem said, "but we don't
know how much yet. There'll be plenty of work to do as we prepare what comes
next, but, of course, there won't be any income during that stage of the
process."

	Sorem and Shurley agreed the decision to suspend development of Covenant
People was, as Shurley put it, "very tough." Sorem said, "I believe the GAC
is committed to good curriculum and to good stewardship. CMP believes that,
in the interest of good stewardship, it's ultimately easier to just stop,
take time to fix it, and then go on."
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