Millennium Development Goals

I try not to admit this, but I “fly by the seat of my pants” more than I should. This morning I led the Adult Forum (adult education) with Terry Johnson at my church. We’re starting a three-month series on the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. I didn’t know exactly what I’d say, but I knew Terry and I would have trouble limiting all we’d planned. The 45-minute session was way too short for the wealth of the MDGs … which is why we have nine more Sundays to work on them.

I didn’t know what I’d say, but I did know what we’d hand out. Our series is trying to make the MDGs practical and inescapable. We want to constantly be thinking of them and always have ways we can act (and think of new ways to act!). So we’re using journals. They’re a little low-tech — perhaps even a little old-fashioned — but these journals are great!

CHN has taught me the magic of labels. The parish forwent creating permanent name tags by using disposable, one-use address labels. People don’t have to worry about turning in their name tag before they leave or remembering to bring it back the following Sunday. They just stick a new label on each week. Well, the same logic works for our curriculum. We didn’t want to create content or worksheets or anything that was formulaic; none of those would have worked. People think, write, and reflect in different space. If their journals were to make an impact, the structure needed to be customizable. Enter the sticky labels.

We started with the cover. The bland non-dimensional images from Episcopal Relief and Development weren’t going to work. Last Thursday I wasted two hours as I held my head and hoped for Photoshop inspiration. (I’m sure it looked pretty funny to Bettie working in the office beside me). Then came this logo. 20 minutes later, I left CHN just after the last journal cover printed.

I love the logo: broken world; shadowed countries in the “2/3 world”; hopeful highlight below the borders. Hopefully the logo works. 😀

In addition to the cover, they each got “stickers” with the eight MDGs and these reflection questions:

More to come … and I’m excited. As Terry said at one point in the session: “Adam, they’re salivating!” Our congregation is so ready for this … !!!