Revised Clergy CEU policy announced
Continuing education and learning additional knowledge and skills are essential for those seeking to be faithful and effective pastors. In these changing and challenging times, the Board of Ordained Ministry of the Baltimore-Washington Conference has created a set of revised policies and procedures to assist clergy in their continuing education and spiritual growth.
According to the policy, every conference clergy person shall complete a minimum of eight continuing education units every four years. (One continuing education credit is equivalent to 10 contact hours of qualified instruction; one college or seminary courses, 1 semester hour equals 1.5 CEUs.)
Because the pandemic caused the General Conference to be postponed, the 2016-2020 quadrennium is not expected to be formally closed until 2024. With the complications COVID has created, the BWC’s Board of Ordained Ministry is offering grace on the reporting of CEUs, and clergy have until 2024 to complete their eight CEUs.
In addition, BOOM has created a Clergy Experience/Process in the Conference’s Arena database [ADD LINK] that automates and enhances the process of submitting CEUs.
The Arena portal will allow pastors to obtain information and resources regarding CEU requirement and view the CEUs credited to them. When a BWC event is cited for CEU’s, Arena will automatically record the credits. Clergy can also submit CEUs from other sources.
All of these features can be managed using Arena’s “My CEUs” page, which is found in the right-hand navigation area of Arena, when a person is logged into the system.
A tutorial on this new resource is on your My CEUs page on Arena.
For more information about continuing education unit requirements and reporting, contact Hilary Ann Golden, the BWC’s Ministerial Services Coordinator.