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Today in the GRR. . .

Mission Trip for Pastors & Spouses

Join me on a trip to Costa Rica beginning March 24 - the day after Easter 2008.

This is a work trip and I am looking for GRR pastors and their spouses to make up the team.

If you are interested in going, contact me, Randy McNeely at grram4@charter.net for more information.

New Baptist Covenant

Plan to Join the Celebration! Registration and Attendance is FREE!

Speakers' List

More than 20,000 Baptists from across North America will gather at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta January 30-February 1, 2008, in an unprecedented demonstration of Baptist unity. The history-making event will culminate months of planning by leaders of more than 30 Baptist organizations who laid the groundwork for a new era of cooperation during a series of meetings at The Carter Center in 2006 and early 2007.

The Blackhawk Christmas Camp scheduled for December 15 has been cancelled. Questions? Contact Cheryl Henson.

Victoria Goff announces that the Second Blitz Build of homes on the Gulf Coast (post Katrina) will begin April 28, 2008 with the Blessing of the Build and end with the Dedication of the Homes on May 17, 2008.

Dates, Dr. Stinnett's column in December 2007 issue of Mainstream.

As more information come available, find it here.

How GRR Churches Do Web

There are certain features our churches are adding to their sites to be more inviting and better serve their users.

This week:

"Send Out an E-Newsletter"

More and more GRR churches are sending their monthly or weekly newsletter as an attachment to e-mail. How?

Put together a list of all e-mails that are available to you and have not been asked to be kept private.

Compose your newsletter as you would normally do.

Use a PDF software (see list of good free and lowcost software) to convert the newsletter file to PDF.

Send out an e-mail with the newsletter attached. (It is best to send your list using BCC (blind copy) so that the entire set of e-mail addresses are not out there for everyone.

Each time you send out the e-mail make sure that there is an explanation in it as to how to un-subscribe, should one or more of your recipients not want to receive it.

Go to a more in depth look at how to do this.

View and/or subscribe

View a tutorial on RSS in plain English.

Creative Worship Seminar
March 8, 2008
First Baptist Church Peoria

What is it? View a moment of the actual seminar.

Video Casts of Month:

Pastors Share Experiences of Consecration Sunday

Pastors Brad Donoho of Upper Alton Baptist, Jeff Johnson of Carlinville Federated, and Steve Robinson of Taylorville First Baptist join Tom Bayes of Peoria FBC and Jim Wolfe of Pontiac FBC in video testimonials of their experience with Consecration Sunday.

Thinking about Offering Electronic Giving as an Option for Your Church? Reflect on this as you read this article from Christianity Today.

Support Ministry and Mission of the GRR by giving online.

Paul Weers invites us to respond with gratitude to God for God's great blessings. As we aproach Christmas, consider Paul's invitation and actionable strategies to be a blessing to others.

Carl Cottingham has published the second issue of the Regional Ordination Program newsletter.

Stewardship Videos

John Grisham presents 12 short videos on stewardship by Robert Crandall and Associates. These are well done and appropriate for showing in worship, discipleship venues, and other ocassions.

Trying Out a New Tool

Richard Ricks, GRR Associate Minister, Area III and Ministry Technologies is learning to blog. After encouragement from Randy Gauger of FBC Champaign and Steve Mecham of FBC Decatur, Richard has set up his blog on the themes of communication, web technologies, listening, and evangelism. Try it out. It is open for comments; however, because of time restraints comments and questions may not be individually answered.

Now Available - The Pastoral Relations Committee Study Course

Find it online at http://www.abcgrr2.org/
pastoral%20relations%
20committee/start.htm

Or, request a self-starting CD by sending an e-mail request to Debbie (debbie@abc-grr.org) There is no charge for this CD for GRR churches and pastors.

Click on the dropdown arrow on the right side of the "GRR Site Index" above to view and use an exhaustive list of links to all the nearly 900 pages of this site. Or, use the "site map" link on the bottom of this column for an exploration of this site by themes.

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