HERITAGE SUNDAY
May 24, 2009
“Developing Leaders: Our Heritage”

Planning Your Celebration

The planning for Heritage Sunday will certainly include the pastor but it may also include the church historian, the Commission on Worship, the Commission on Education, and the lay leader. This year’s theme on leadership certainly involves all the dimensions of time: past, present, and future. Any sense of our heritage of developing and recognizing leaders requires us to honor present leaders and provide the opportunities for the development of leaders in the years to come.

You can explore the link below for worship resources as many churches will use the worship service as the time to observe Heritage Sunday.

You may want to use the Sunday School time to highlight leaders from Bible times to the present but being especially alert to those who have provided leadership to The United Methodist Church and those churches that have come together to form The United Methodist Church. There are brief biographies of Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren leaders on the GCAH web site.

You may want to identify leaders of your church since its founding. Who has served in the district, conference, and wider life of the church? Who has led your congregation to launch out in mission to the community and the world? Who has led programs for children, youth and adults? We are to remember that leadership is provided by both laity and clergy. The Book of Discipline highlights servant ministry and servant leadership is paragraphs 132 through 138. It reminds us that “The United Methodist tradition has recognized that laypersons as well as ordained persons are gifted and called by God to lead the Church.” (Par. 133)

Below you will find the following resources:

Worship resources:
Suggested Scripture Texts
Collects
Prayers
Hymns
Sermon Notes and Ideas

Other Resources Related to Fostering Leadership
Bibliography
Programmatic

Historical materials
Chapter 5 from Leadership in the Wesleyan Spirit by Lovett H. Weems, Jr.
Essay: An Incubator for Christian Leaders by Robert Monk
Historic Images of Leadership