Product Description
A Sunday school ministry can be full of challenges. Whether you are a pastor, a professional Christian educator, or a lay Christian education director, Sunday School presents you with a never-ending need to find the right people to teach, equip them to be the best teachers and leaders they can be, and keep them coming back from year to year.

Delia Halverson,  the country's best hands-on expert in Christian education, knows these needs, and how to fill them. She knows that while people volunteer in Christian education for a variety of reasons, the primary one is relationship with other leaders. She knows how to structure teacher training and equiping in the midst of today's busy lives. She knows how to recognize and encourage the individual talents volunteers bring with them to the Christian education setting. Most importantly, she knows how to share this wisdom and insight with you, so that your Sunday School and Christian education program can succeed in forming faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

Let Halverson and Ready, Set, Teach! be your guide as you work within and for your Sunday School and Christian education ministries.

Product Description
How ordinary citizens dedicated to service can change the face of America's most critical issues

What if the nation were able to capitalize on the energy of Americans willing to serve and volunteer for a year or more? This inspirational book tells the stories of real people who have dedicated themselves to service and the nonprofits that engaged them. It shows how selflessness and service have transformed lives and communities, and can address similar problems throughout the country. The author profiles successes, demonstrates measurable effects, and shows how impact is made. This book describes how we can achieve change, through action at both the community and organizational level.

• Filled with illustrative examples and key lessons
• Highlights programs such as Teach for America, City Year, and Community Health Corps
• Shows how nonprofits can create successful service programs to tackle different issues

The book shows what America would look like if programs like these operated at scale across the country not just in one or two neighborhoods, but wherever they were needed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A convincing, motivating, practical call to action
Society gives a smile and gentle pat on the head to the volunteer who reads a book to a child, clears trash from a park, or delivers meals to senior citizens. The nice guy or gal lending a helping hand through national service also gets a grateful thumbs up, though some scoff at the notion of being paid to do good.

But to Shirley Sagawa, service isn't nice; it's necessary. Strategically focused volunteering goes way beyond doing a good deed, she believes, and those performing national service are well worth the modest amounts we pay them to boost the impact of volunteers many times over and provide services that volunteers can't. Together, she argues in the book, they're a powerful force that can help solve challenges in childhood development, education, health, aging, poverty, natural disasters, the environment, and other critical areas.

Consistent with the policy acumen she put to good use in helping draft the legislation that created the Corporation for National and Community Service, Sagawa argues calmly but forcefully that we can't afford to neglect service in our arsenal of problem-solving strategies. Whether it's helping low-achieving kids do better in school, reducing recidivism among parolees, helping the unemployed secure stable employment, or reducing the risk of disease and infirmity among the elderly, service should be viewed as a cost-effective tool in our social toolkit, and we can either invest in the infrastructure needed to put it to good use now -- or pay a bigger price down the road. Whether you're a deficit hawk or a believer in "big" government, it seems like an easy choice to make.

You can read my full review of the book at[...]

Great Book!!
Sagawa's book about service is both inspiring and informative.In her short but thorough book, Sagawa teaches you about different service organizations and the lessons that can be learned by their successes, all the while maintaining an excitement about the spirit of service.Whether you are someone who is curious about how the non-profit sector can help solve problems that the government and private sector ignore, or if you're looking for a way to join the non-profit movement, reading this book will help you.I would not hesitate to recommend this book to any one.

informative and inspirational
I loved this book!I am familiar with the service movement, but the author brought it into such sharp relief.I learned a great deal, but more importantly, I was inspired by stories of individuals and effective programs.Sagawa makes a compelling case that service is a critical strategy for social change.Very inspiring!

Thumbs Up - Change America
Is there a problem in your community that you want to solve? Maybe there are too many teenagers with nothing to do this summer, or the garbage is not being picked up. This book is filled with concrete, well-researched examples of ordinary people who have started out solving a problem, and ended up transforming their entire community. This is an inspiring book, perfect for anyone who wishes to study how social change has taken place in our country.

A great look back to prepare us to look forward
Full disclosure first for this review, I am the National Director of the Community HealthCorps (one of the programs featured in this book). As a practioner in national service this is a helpful discussion on the history of national service from someone who has been there for most of it over the last 20 years. Sagawa also captures the essence of those programs that see service as a solution (not the only answer) to helping our nation move in the positive direction of curing problems. We were honored to be featured in this book amongst such a group of programs that are more well known. We will continue to be the best and strongest program that we are able to be, and hope to live up to the honor of growing to scale for impact. ... Read more

Product Description
This book uses survey data from all accepted applicants to Teach for America 1993-98 to assess the longer-term effect of youth service on participants' current civic attitudes and behaviors. While TFA "graduates" score higher than the two comparison groups - "dropouts" and "non-matriculants" - on a broad range of attitudinal items measuring civic commitment, these differences appear to be less a byproduct of the TFA experience than a reflection of current involvement with the TFA organization. Moreover, the attitudinal differences are not reflected in actual civic behavior. Specifically, graduates lag behind non-matriculants in current service activity and generally trail both non-matriculants and drop-outs in self-reported participation in five other forms of civic/political activity measured in the study. Graduates also vote at lower rates than the other two groups. Finally, fewer graduates report employment in "pro-social" jobs than either non-matriculants or drop-outs. The authors close by speculating on what mechanisms may help explain variation in the long-term effects of youth service or activist experiences. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Top Producer, published by Farm Journal Media on December 1, 2002. The length of the article is 1234 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Learn while you teach: volunteers fight on hunger's front lines: U.S. farmers teach modern production and management practices to the less fortunate. In the process, they gain valuable insights.(International)(Organizations in Need of Farmer-Volunteers Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs, Partners of the Americas Farmer to Farmer Program, Agricultural Cooperative Development International and Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance, Winrock International Farmer-to-Farmer Program)
Author: Kim Bower-Spence
Publication: Top Producer (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2002
Publisher: Farm Journal Media
Page: 26

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), published by The Register Guard on October 17, 2004. The length of the article is 497 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Womenspace teaches volunteers how to help victims of batterers.(General News)(Fifty-two people learn about empathy, listening and giving hope)
Publication: The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) (Newspaper)
Date: October 17, 2004
Publisher: The Register Guard
Page: d1

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
A general-purpose cookbook originally produced to benefit a non-profit organization. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent learning tool.
This publication is an excellent series of skits which will guideparticipants to a working understanding of the basics of parliamentaryprocedure and the reasons for the rules. Highlighting the routineapplications of parliamentary procedure, it also gives great examples tocorrect some of the misinformation about some of the more infrequentlyencountered parliamentary rules.This book is a great way fororganizations to provide leadership development for its members. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Teacher Education, published by Corwin Press, Inc. on January 1, 2010. The length of the article is 6830 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: teacher education, educational policy, school reform

Citation Details
Title: Teach for America and teacher ed: heads they win, tails we lose.(Report)
Author: David Labaree
Publication: Journal of Teacher Education (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2010
Publisher: Corwin Press, Inc.
Volume: 61Issue: 1-2Page: 48(8)

Article Type: Report

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Human Ecology, published by Cornell University, Human Ecology on December 1, 2001. The length of the article is 2296 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Raising Their Voices: Through theater and community outreach, teens teach peers and parents about critical issues facing youth today.(Statistical Data Included)
Author: Joe Wilensky
Publication: Human Ecology (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2001
Publisher: Cornell University, Human Ecology
Volume: 29Issue: 4Page: 16(5)

Article Type: Statistical Data Included

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), published by Thomson Gale on June 11, 2006. The length of the article is 1458 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: In touch with teens.(Lifestyle)(At 78, volunteer Lodie Fuller earns the respect of troubled youths as she teaches them relaxation techniques)
Publication: The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) (Newspaper)
Date: June 11, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Page: G1

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more