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Procedures for a Successful Communion With God* Seminar

Pre-seminar Preparations (check off)

___ Advertise the seminar adequately.

___ Brochures: We can print brochures for you at no cost, or we can provide you with a PDF file and you can print them yourself. Simply give us your personalized information to insert in the brochure and we will print as many as you request (within reason!). Obviously, we want the word to get out to as many people as possible. All we ask is that you distribute all brochures that we print for you. An average size church often orders 200-300 brochures, but you may request more if you have a large congregation or will be distributing brochures beyond the members your church (which is always a great idea). See a sample. You may also choose to download, personalize and print free copies of either of the following brochures yourselves: 

11x17 (Tabloid Size) Brochure Template in Microsoft Word format

To download either file, right-click and select "Save Target As..." or "Save Link As..."

8.5x11 (Letter Size) Brochure template in Microsoft Word format 

___ Other Pastors: You might want to discuss with area pastors the possibility of co-sponsoring the seminar with you, so they have a sense of ownership. This will make them more eager to support a city-wide endeavor.

___ Cassette: We are glad to send you (upon request) a free cassette on the “Four Keys to Hearing God’s Voice” which you may freely duplicate and distribute to pastors and prospective seminar participants. You can also hear this recording online at www.cwgministries.org/4keys.

___ Examples: Having a few volunteers read “journal entries” from the pulpit for a couple of weeks before the seminar is a great way to get people excited and signed up. Tell them that since it is a workshop, they will learn to journal like this and be led into several journaling experiences. You may guarantee them that they will personally experience God’s voice during the weekend. (This is God’s guarantee – not ours! “My sheep hear My voice.”)

___ Interview DVD: We have an eight-minute TV interview of Dr. Mark Virkler discussing the four keys to hearing God’s voice available on DVD. We can loan one or more copies of this DVD to you for use as a Sunday morning promo piece in your church and other area churches. You are welcome to keep these DVDs for promotional purposes, and/or pass them along to other churches and ministries to introduce them to the message. If you don’t feel you will be putting these to any further use, please have them available for Mark Virkler to take back with him when he comes to do the seminar.

___ Each seminar participant must have a Seminar Guide at the time of the seminar. You will want to include the $3.95 cost for this in your registration fee for the seminar. Please be prepared to give the money collected for the seminar guides to the speaker when he leaves.

___ Inform CWG Headquarters 7-10 days before the seminar of the estimated number of participants so adequate materials can be sent ahead. Books for a seminar book table will be sent along with the Seminar Guides. The church will not be invoiced for book table materials. Money collected from sale of all materials shall be turned over to the seminar speaker at the close of the seminar and any unsold books will be returned. A sign on the book table will instruct people to make out their checks for books to “Communion With God Ministries.”

___ You may want to arrange for nursery and/or child care services for those attending the seminar.

___ You will want to arrange for refreshments to be served during morning, afternoon and possibly evening breaks. (Friday evening does not necessarily need refreshments.) Friday evening sessions are from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm with a break around 9:00 pm. Saturday morning sessions are from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm with a break around 11:00 am. Saturday afternoon sessions are from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm with a break around 3:00 pm. All breaks are 15 minutes. If you have a Saturday evening session, it will be from 7:00 to 9:00 with no break.

___ Decide whether you will have Saturday lunch at the church or have people disperse to area restaurants.

___ Over lunch, Mark would like to speak for 15 minutes and answer questions of those interested in knowing more about taking college courses by correspondence through Christian Leadership University . A simple meal of sandwiches, chips and cookies can be made available for sale at the church. At the close of the meeting on Friday, a count could be taken of those interested. Generally this food can be ordered at a supermarket either late Friday night or early Saturday morning, and picked up at around 12 noon.

___ If the group is 50–100 people, please have two eight-foot tables for book sales and one or two volunteers to run the tables. If the group is going to be over 100, then four eight-foot tables and four volunteers will be needed. Please do not cover the books with a sheet. It is best if people can browse and look.

___ Mark prefers to stay in a home rather than a hotel.

Finances

___ Your church will be responsible to cover travel expenses for the seminar speaker as well as room and board. You may use your own travel agency or allow us to make the travel arrangements. If we do, we ask that the tickets be paid for as soon as possible. (Do not wait until after the seminar.) In order to not be away from family and office any more than necessary, we like to plan for Mark to arrive about 5:00 pm on Friday (unless he is doing an afternoon pastors' seminar), and leave as soon as possible after the Sunday morning service.

___ IN ADDITION, offerings are to be taken as an honorarium for the seminar speaker. It should be announced at the close of Friday evening that an offering will be taken Saturday afternoon as an honorarium for Mark Virkler and Communion With God Ministries, and that people should come prepared to return the blessing they are receiving from the seminar. It should also be announced that a basket is by the door on Friday night at the close for any who are unable to return on Saturday to provide their gift then. (A basket by the door is not acceptable except on Friday night.)

Have everyone make their checks payable to – either the name of your church or to “CWG Ministries.” (Your choice – but make it clear to the people.)

On Saturday afternoon, at the close of the first afternoon session, offering baskets are to be passed throughout the group after the leader (or Mark Virkler, if you prefer) makes an appeal for a good offering and offers a prayer for the offering. Since the seminar is given on a free will offering basis by CWG Ministries to your church, it is important that the person taking up the offering have skill and experience in doing so, so that the ministry receives the support it needs to operate.

If Mark speaks Saturday evening or Sunday morning, offering baskets should also be passed at the close of those services.

This honorarium is to be given to the speaker before he departs. PLEASE MAKE THE CHECK PAYABLE TO "COMMUNION WITH GOD MINISTRIES" and not to “Mark Virkler.”

If you are a Canadian church, we ask that you be prepared to make payment by sending a U.S. money order or initiating a wire transfer to our account the day after the seminar. Because of the time it takes for out-of-country checks to clear U.S. banks, these two options are much more efficient.

___ Your church should charge a registration fee to cover your expenses. We like to keep the cost as low as possible to allow more people to attend. Many churches charge $10, which includes the $3.95 seminar guide and $6.05 which can go toward air fare, advertising, etc. At the close of the weekend, the church will give to CWG Ministries the $3.95 they collected for each seminar guide. At the seminar, participants will be encouraged to purchase the $19.95 CWG Study Guide* (200-page manual) for the follow up three-month course which you will be offering to your people. No shipping is charged for books sold by CWG Ministries at the seminar.

___ If your church has PowerPoint, Mark will use that for his presentation. If you do not have PowerPoint available, he will need an overhead projector and a wall or screen, along with a small table for transparencies near the overhead, which Mark can have easy access to.

___ A podium with roving microphone near the overhead or PowerPoint.

___ Provide about 10-15 minutes of worship to begin morning, afternoon and evening sessions.

___ IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT YOU PLAN TO TEACH THE ENTIRE 12-WEEK COURSE AFTER THE SEMINAR. A teacher's guide, audio cassettes and videos may be ordered as desired. Do not let participants damage their lives or their churches, but shepherd your people into maturity.

___ Consider following up this seminar with other life-changing seminars and courses available through Communion With God Ministries. Christian Leadership University allows you to establish a campus and offer many adult-level training classes. Contact Communion With God Ministries for a CLU catalog.

©2008 Communion with God Ministries.  All rights reserved.