Update from our Spiritual Leader

By Rev. Dr. Kenn Gordon

What an amazing year of anniversaries for our centers. Not only have I had the opportunity be involved in several 20- and 25-year anniversaries, but I also had the pleasure to speak at three 50th anniversaries: Granda Hills, CA, Reno, NV, and Westlake Village, CA.

1963 must have been a heck of a year for Religious Science and Science of Mind. There is something to be said about the longevity and staying power of these great works. What is it that keeps these centers have done that has enabled them to stay open and teaching for 50 years? Whatever it is, we need to do more of these things. 

What I notice in these works now is that each has a powerful minister who guides and directs a strong community. I see these centers have a consistent leadership that empowers and pushes forward their people. And I see that their boards and laity are committed and have embraced the ownership of the center itself.

One of the key values that Centers for Spiritual Living has is shared leadership. As I travel around to all of the centers in our movement, I can’t help but notice that everywhere that shared leadership is applied, the center is thriving and growing. Shared leadership isn’t always easy to do. What I’ve found is that it often takes longer to teach someone how to lead than it takes to just do it by myself. However, if my observations are a good an indicator, as I think they are, I can’t help but think that shared leadership is an investment we should all make. 

So, here is to all of you who have already done this. Let us know that whoever is spiritual leader in 2064, that he or she will be filling their year with these wonderful anniversary celebrations.  

Ukraine Update: Last month I reported on the wonderful work being done in Ukraine. I was part of the celebration acknowledging the 10th anniversary of this work started by Rev. Barbara Leger, not the 6th, as noted in the article. Take a moment to learn more about Science of Mind in Ukraine by visiting www.scienceofmind.org.ua/eng/

Blessings,
Dr. Kenn Gordon

Update from our President

By Rev. Dr. John B. Waterhouse

There’s a new initiative developing in our organization to capture information about significant leaders of the past and present within our movement. This effort is being spearheaded by the Spiritual Leadership in Religious Science Committee, whose members are Dr. Marilyn Leo, Dr. Margaret Stortz, and Dr. J. Robert Gale.

Together they are seeking to solidify our history by developing a data base of persons indicating Significant Leadership in Religious Science. By doing so, they will be preserving for future generations the names and backgrounds of many who have significantly contributed to bringing Science of Mind to the world.

The committee intends to capture factual data about individuals who may not be as readily known as those who have so often been written about in our history (i.e. Ernest Holmes, William Hornaday). The committee’s findings will be maintained in a readily accessible data base in the Science of Mind Archives & Library Foundation for generations to come.

We are asking for your assistance. If you have direct personal experience of people who have made significant contributions to the advancement of Religious Science, we want to know. This would include people involved in all of the following organizations: The Institute of Religious Science and School of Philosophy, The International Association of Religious Science Churches, Church of Religious Science, Religious Science International, United Church of Religious Science, United Centers for Spiritual Living, International Centers for Spiritual Living, and Centers for Spiritual Living.

If you have contributions to this initiative, please send your information to Dr. Marilyn Leo at drmarilynleo@gmail.com. When you send your information, please make it as factual as possible and include: (1) names; (2) positions held; (3) activities, and (4) any biographical and pertinent information. After the data base is created, anecdotal and personal experiences about these individuals will be requested.

Thank you for your support and assistance in this important project.

So many blessings!
Dr. John

Member Support & Education Update

By Rev. Gregory Toole, Director

Upcoming Regional Ordination Panels

Ordination Panel Dates for 2014

January 13 & 14 at North Hollywood Church of Religious Science, North Hollywood, CA

April 23 & 24 at Centers for Spiritual Living, Golden, CO

If you intend to participate in one of these panels, you must contact our office to be scheduled at least 30 days before the panel dates.  All path to ordination requirements must be met and your panel approved by the Ministerial and Practitioner Licensing Committee before you can be scheduled for a panel. Any questions or to request to participate in a panel, please contact Nancy Mitchell-Edwards at 720-279-8983 or via email at nmitchell-edwards@csl.org

Education Summit
The Education Committee held a summit in Golden, Colo., on October 30 - 31. It was a truly vibrant and productive two days. Look for a summary of the outcomes over the next month. Participants included:
Dr. Karen Kushner, Educ. Comm. Chair, Princeton, NJ

Dr. Deborah Gordon, Educ. Comm., Kelowna, British Columbia
Dr. Arleen Bump, Educ. Comm., Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Dr. Kim Kaiser, Educ. Comm., School of Ministry Dean, Santa Rosa, CA
Diana Bull, Educ. Comm., Lakewood, CO
Jeanette Vinek, RScP, Educ. Comm., Kelowna, British Columbia
Dr. Tom Sannar, Educ. Comm., San Diego, CA
Rev. Bob Deen, Educ. Comm., Ministerial Educ. Manager, Golden, CO
Rev. Gregory Toole, Educ. Comm., Dir., Member Supp. & Educ., Golden, CO
Dr. Heather Clark, Educ. Comm.; Leadership Council Chair, San Clemente, CA
Dianna Ferguson, Education Department Staff, Golden, CO
Maureen Thurston, RScP, Education Department Staff, Golden, CO
Mari Avicolli, Laity Council, Philadelphia, PA
Rev. Barbara Leger, Global Services, Cherkasy, Ukraine
Dr. Jim Lockard, Growth and Development Commission, Simi Valley, CA
Dr. John Waterhouse, President, Asheville, NC
Dr. Petra Weldes, Dr. Kenn Gordon’s representative, Dallas, TX
Dr. Christina Tillotson, School of Ministry Dean, Encinitas, CA
Rev. Katherine Economou, School of Ministry Dean, Encinitas, CA
Rev. Ras Smith, School of Ministry Dean, Lakewood, CO

New School of Ministry Regional Center
I am pleased to announce that in response to our request for proposals for a new campus of the School of Ministry in the greater Los Angeles area, Redondo Beach Center for Spiritual Living has been chosen to host the new regional center. Dr. Moira Foxe will be the Director of this regional center, and Katherine McKinney will be the Dean. Katherine, who has an extensive background in the field of Education, will be the Assistant Dean until completing her ministerial training in 2014, during which time Dr. Moira will be the Acting Dean. This regional center will offer the same full set of regional courses offered from our three existing regional centers in Denver, Santa Rosa, and San Diego. Stay tuned for further notice about class schedules and enrolment. Dr. Moira and Katherine will be in touch with ministers in the area to teach the many courses that will be offered.

Later in 2014, we expect to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a regional center on the East Coast of the U.S. In 2015, we expect to issue an RFP for a regional center in Canada.

Names Now on Certificated Course Certificates
Thanks to Dianna Ferguson in our Education Department and our database consultant, we are now printing both the name of the student and the name of the center on certificates when you register your students with Centers for Spiritual Living. The only thing to be added by the center is the minister’s signature. We know from all of the requests we’ve gotten from the field that this is an important support to our centers. We still have much work to do in modernizing our database, and this is a significant step to support our field. If you have questions about this, you may contact Dianna Ferguson at dferguson@csl.org or 720-279-8989.

Update from our Youth Department

Greetings from the Youth Program department! It is time to start thinking of the upcoming holidays! Are you ready in your youth ministry? It may be difficult to get through November without hearing Christmas songs–but be prepared for these festive times in your center so you do not get overwhelmed!

How about including other cultural holidays in your youth ministry this year as well as Thanksgiving and Christmas? Now is the time to do a little “Google” search on Hanukkah (which begins on November 27 this year) and Kwanzaa to bring in diverse spiritual lessons and tools for your youth. What other holidays are celebrated around the world that you could include? Is there anyone in your center who celebrates these holidays who can be a resource for you?   

Here are a few ideas for you to bring the many holidays into your youth ministry:

• All ages – Prepare holiday foods and share with congregation (check for food allergies).
• All ages – Play popular holiday music from around the world.
• Pre-school and elementary – Provide holiday color pages and crafts that are culturally diverse.
• Pre-school and elementary – Check out library books to read at church.
• Middle school – Create affirmations that include various holiday virtues.
• Middle school and high school – What principles do the different holidays share?
• High school – Find ways teens can create a service project based on the different holidays (perhaps outside of Sunday).

We are Looking for Support Coordinators for the Youth Ministry Program

We are building a team of Youth Program Support Coordinators to work with the Regional Support Coordinators in providing you as much support and resources as possible for your youth ministry program. If you’re interested in being part of this team, please contact Michelle Lang at mlang@csl.org or 720-279-1632. We’d love to have you!

Love & blessings,
Rev. Gregory

Operations Update

By Steve Burton, Director

Year-End Stock Gifts from Your Members

It was a good year for the stock market and that could mean a good year for gifts of stock as your members consider their year-end giving. We want you to be ready and able to accept these gifts of stock, so I’d like to explain how you can use Home Office to quickly and conveniently accept stock gifts from your members.

If you already have an account with a brokerage office, congratulations! If you do not, we encourage you to use the brokerage account the Home Office has established.  The easiest and most frequent way gifts of stock are made is through an electronic transfer of the shares. If a congregant wants to make a gift of stock to your center, here are the simple steps to follow:

1. Your donor will need to give transfer instructions to his or her broker. The form for this is on the Home Office internal website under Fundraising. Print this out and give it to your donor to share with their broker.
2. Make certain your donor confirms the gift information on the form specifies the gift is in behalf of your center.
3. Home Office will sell the shares and send your center a check for the net proceeds of the sale (when commissions are charged, this will be deducted).
4. Your donor will receive a tax acknowledgment for his or her records that states the gift was directed to your center.
5. You will receive a copy and can follow up with your own expression of personal appreciation.

This is an exciting time of year and as donors focus on year-end giving the benefits of gifts of stock are significant. We encourage you to make your members aware of these benefits and that you can accommodate this type of gift. Here is a paragraph to use in your programs, newsletters, and bulletins.

The Benefits of Giving Stock This Year Instead of Cash

You can accomplish four things by giving long-term appreciated stock instead of cash: You will 1) keep more of your cash, 2) receive an income tax deduction, 3) avoid capital gains tax, 4) all while making one simple gift. The most important detail for protecting your tax benefits is to make certain the securities are transferred to our account by December 31, 2013. It’s a busy season, so allow plenty of time for the completion of any paperwork, time for your broker to submit the order, and time for the transfer of the securities to take place. When you are ready, you or your broker can contact us for instructions on how to transfer your gift.

Thank you for your continued support.

Blessings,
Steve

Communications Update

By Rev. Dr. Judy Morley, Director

Home Office has created many ways to keep you informed and inspired all month long. Please share these with everyone you know so we can continue to reach more people.

• Spiritual Living Resource App – Available at either the Apple App Store or Google Play, users can quickly find centers, study groups, individuals, and businesses that support their spiritual life. To list a center or business on the app, visit app.csl.org. Centers and learning centers always receive a free listing but must use our code. To request the code, contact Marketing Coordinator Diane Bishop at dbishop@csl.org. All other listings are $7.99/month.
• Principles of Spiritual Living – Each week we post two or three new blogs on how to use the principles of spiritual living to create a better life. We are happy to announce a new writer has joined the group: Rev. Dr. Terry Drew Karanen with Center for Spiritual Living Cumberland Valley, PA. Read the latest blogs here: www.patheos.com/blogs/theprinciplesofspiritualliving.
• Facebook – Centers for Spiritual Living, Science of Mind magazine and Creative Thought magazine all have Facebook pages. Please like each one and invite others looking to stay in the know and be inspired to do so also.

How does Home Office communicate with you?

The primary way that Home Office communicates to the field is through Net Community. This method takes email addresses from our database and sends information directly to your inbox.  This is one-way communication, and you can identify these emails because the sender is identified as “Home Office.” For ministers and practitioners, this is the only way we communicate important information, such as licensing renewal requirements, policy changes, and organizational updates. Although there is an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the page, if you unsubscribe from this email, you will be completely removed from all communications from Home Office.

For ministers and practitioners, there is a second communication format, and that is the Google Group. This is a chat-format, and consequently is interactive. The Google Group is completely optional, and anyone of the appropriate standing (i.e. minister or practitioner) may join or unsubscribe from his/her particular Google Group at any time.

How do I get information from the CSL.org website?

Centers for Spiritual Living stores information electronically in two places, so you will have two usernames and passwords.

The primary “go to” place to find information about the departments within Centers for Spiritual Living is the Internal Website. This is the repository for information that is pertinent to all of our constituencies, such as our policies, branding information, curriculum (depending on your login status), forms, archives of the President’s calls, licensing information, and many other helpful resources. To get here, you log in at the bottom of the csl.org homepage. There are different levels of access, depending on if one is a minister, practitioner, or laity.  If you are a minister, the user name is “minister.” For practitioners, the user name is “practitioner,” and for laity, it is “member.”  Each one of these categories has a generic password.  For example, the “member” password is Holmes. If you need help with the password for you category, please contact me at jmorley@csl.org.

The second place we store information is in the Online Net Community. The information stored here is specific to each individual. Each person has a specific, individualized user name and password for this login, and you go through Net Community to update your contact information in the database, renew practitioner or ministerial licenses, and pay fees. This information becomes our official database record for each individual and community.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Love & blessings,
Judy

Convention & Retreat News

Publishing News

Let’s stay in touch!
Follow us on Facebook:

Centers for Spiritual Living

You’ll find inspiration, updates and pictures about community events such as World Day of Service, information about our Spiritual Living convention and more!

Science of Mind magazine

Featuring daily affirmations, prayers, and highlights from each month’s issue.

Creative Thought magazine

The only magazine for and by Religious Scientists.

Science of Mind Archives and Library Foundation

The archives contain a magnificent collection of historical New Thought items including radio talks, videos, and class and lecture tapes from Dr. Ernest Holmes.

Where in the world is our Spiritual Leader?
Follow Dr. Kenn on Twitter and find out!

What do you think?

This monthly newsletter provides important information from home office without overwhelming your inbox every day. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas on improving this newsletter or other communications from Home Office, email Marketing Coordinator Diane Bishop at dbishop@csl.org.