1. Lay ministry licensing
What Must be licensed, what we no longer will license. And why.

2. What won’t change
Lay Eucharistic Minister (chalice bearer) and Lay Eucharistic Visitor (home communion) training will still occur at the parish level under the direction of the Rector/Priest in Charge or other designee, the names of those who have been trained will be submitted to Michael Brown in the Diocesan Offices. LAY EUCHARISTIC VISITORS MUST HAVE COMPLETED SAFE CHURCH TRAINING.

3. Schedule
The treasurer, worship leader, parish administrator and audit team trainings will occur twice a year on two consecutive Saturdays.
August 11 and August 18; Or February 2 and February 9.
The trainings will occur concurrently so you can only be trained for one of these licenses at a time.
Registration for the August classes will be up next week on our website and in Postings.

4. What has changed Everything else.
All other licenses will no longer be renewed. The licensed ministries of the Diocese of WNY are now:
Eucharistic Minister
Eucharistic Visitor
Treasurer
Parish Administrator***
Worship Leader cont.,

5. What has changed, continued
Audit Team Member
Preacher ******
Pastoral Care will be trained at the parish level under the direction of the Rector or Priest in Charge. For those congregations without a settled rector or priest in charge, the training for pastoral care team members will be provided by the Canon for Connections office.

6. What’s with the ****?
In our diocese, the Parish Administrator categorization has been synonymous with Parish Secretary.
But a parish secretary who answers the phone, prepares the bulletin and does filing is not a parish administrator per se and does not need to be licensed. BUT, we have a lot of parishes that operate without an incumbent clergy person. Those parishes may benefit from someone to oversee the operation of the parish besides the wardens, who change every few years.
This doesn’t mean that parish secretaries shouldn’t take this course, it just means they don’t need to do so,

7. **** continued Preacher.
This is a specialty license that will require more time than the other licenses. To be considered for a lay preaching license someone must apply. Not all who apply will be admitted to the course. There will be a discernment process undertaken by the applicant, rector/priest in charge (or warden in lieu of rector of priest in charge), the Canon for Connections, a member of the Commission on Ministry and the Bishop. Once an applicant is accepted they will be trained by the Very Rev. Canon Earle King.

8. Who Should take these classes?
Treasurer---current treasurers are not required to take this class, nor are future treasurers required, but it is strongly suggested that anyone new to the treasurer role take the class
Parish Administrator—if possible it would be a great idea for our Group 3 and “Group 4” congregations to have someone trained as parish administrator. It may be your secretary, it may not. No parish should have more than two licensed parish admins.
Worship Leader---if you have morning prayer on a fairly regular basis the person leading it MUST be licensed. If you were licensed under the previous training format your license is good until it expires, then you need to be re-trained.

9. Classes continued
Audit team member. Audits are not difficult, but they can be tedious. Every audit team must have an outside member. We are VERY SHORT of people to serve as outside audit team members, so we are encouraging people who like such tasks to be trained and licensed.
To be considered as an “outside” audit team member you need to be trained. Those who have been doing this for years can be “grandfathered” in ---apply to be grandfathered through Maria Manocchio.

10. Why all these changes?
The former licensing program was expensive and time consuming. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, it provided solid education.
BUT the reality of the church is that we have fewer members doing more things and we wanted to make a training program/licensing program that was leaner, more accessible and was free.
The lay education program was being revised by the Rev. Deacon “Pete” Dempesy-Sims at the time of her death. Canon Cathy thanks Pete for all the work she put into this revision while ill.