The curriculum, which will be available for congregations to use in the fall of 2003, is the PC(USA)’s quick-turn-around response to the difficulties of “Covenant People,” a much-touted line that was pulled from production last fall after disappointing sales. At that time, Sandra Moak Sorem, publisher of Congregational Ministries Publishing, said only about 1 in 10 PC(USA) congregations had bought any of the “Covenant People” material, with some churches complaining that the material was too confusing and too hard to use.
The “We Believe” line — intended primarily for children, with study supplements for adults — is “something a busy Sunday school teacher can pick up and find in one place,” needing little preparation, Sorem told the General Assembly Council’s Congregational Ministries Division Committee on Friday.
To encourage congregations to order it, the curriculum’s marketing staff will soon start a promotional blitz: hitting 27 cities in nine weeks, introducing people in presbyteries and congregations to “We Believe,” answering questions about “why should they use it, why should they trust the church again to provide material, what is it about this curriculum that’s different,” said Scott Dowd, curriculum publishing’s new marketing coordinator.
The formal introduction of “We Believe” — which has been fast-tracked, going from design to production in only about a year — will be in Denver in January at the annual meeting of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators.
This is a significant time for those who support the idea of the PC(USA) producing its own curriculum. Covenant People was pulled, despite an investment of about $6 million. For this year, Curriculum Publishing is running a deficit of more than $280,000 to date — expected to hit around $500,000 by the end of the year, according to PC(USA) controller Nagy Tawfik, although Congregational Ministries Division as a whole is expected to balance its budget.
Sorem said there are encouraging signs, and some of the shortfall this year is due to particular reasons — the writeoff of some inventories of old, unsold curriculum, for example.
It’s too soon to tell whether “We Believe” will be successful, but “this is not about success,” said Gregg Neel, vice-chair of the Congregational Ministries Division Committee. “It’s about value” — the value of teaching people in Presbyterian churches about the beliefs of the Presbyterian Reformed tradition.
