Education Initiative 2010

>> President's Message

All across North America Adventist Education is facing challenges of declining enrollments and increasing costs. Minnesota Conference recognizes these challenges and yet also reaffirms its commitment to our young people! At the February 2 Executive Committee a special education initiative was voted that will consist of the following:

1. “SchoolWorks”

Some of you may remember the “ChurchWorks” program that was held in December 2006 at Maplewood Academy. It was a very special event that energized every church that sent a delegation. We will immediately begin plans to organize a similar program that focuses on our Minnesota schools. To our knowledge, Minnesota Conference will be the first conference in North America that will attempt something of this magnitude. The Executive Committee of the Board of Education will be meeting immediately to begin planning this event. The planning committee will chose a date for the event, identify the key challenges our schools face, select presenters for each topic, and decide on the audience. It is our desire to have representatives from every church across this conference. Even if a church does not have a local school, we want to help every church in our conference create an attitude of ownership and connection to our Adventist schools. This “SchoolWorks” event will be scheduled to take place sometime in 2010.

2. DVD/Brochure

A goal has been set to have at least 1,000 families from all across our conference giving a monthly donation to Adventist education. The donations may be given to a designated school or may go into a general fund for Adventist Education that will be set up at the conference office. We would like to see that every child has the opportunity to attend one of our schools regardless of affordability. This will only be possible if we all pool our resources. We are already in the process of developing a DVD and a brochure that will roll this out.

Yes, we are facing challenges in Adventist education, but we also believe that they are opportunities for God to bless. We solicit your prayers as we move forward with these two projects.