Follow these three easy steps:

1. Personalize Your Experience

• Create your ministry profile to set preferences for the topics of most interest to you.
• Sign Up for our weekly email that features new content.

2. Explore the Site

• Browse and Search the home page features all the recently posted content; while the tabs across the top narrow content down by several major ministry areas: Preach, Teach, Worship, Reach, and Lead. Search the full site or select one of the tabs to filter by area of interest using the search dropdown. 

• Use Bins see something you like? Add it to a “bin,” where you can gather resources and ideas to view later or share with your team. Check out what other people are collecting. You'll have the option to make your bin private or public.
  
  
• Check Out This Sunday. Curated content in this special bin will help you and your team prepare for weekly worship. Sermon starters, calls to worship, children’s sermons and more, based on—but not limited to—the Revised Common Lectionary. 

3. Become a Subscriber

Access the complete Ministry Matters Premium Subscription library. Dig deeper into your studies and make weekly preparation a breeze with full-text Bible commentaries and dictionaries, sermons, worship elements, teaching materials, and eBooks. Ministry Matters is a complete ministry library at your fingertips.

REGISTER NOW!

Ministry Matters is a destination site for all church leaders, both paid and volunteer, interdenominational and nondenominational. The site’s goals are threefold: to equip, connect, and inspire people in ministry. While pastors will find much content designed specifically for them, other church workers, teachers, and leaders will find lots of helpful stuff as well.

Think of it as three websites in one—a magazine, a reference library, and a social network. The magazine portion consists of articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, and This Sunday worship and preaching content. Users are encouraged to comment on magazine content and share it with others. The subscription library includes thousands of pages of resources: Bible reference materials, sermon helps, and worship elements. Many articles and resources can be shared with hundreds of social networking sites directly from Ministry Matters or with others by using bins.

Yes, many resources on Ministry Matters remain available at no cost—including most articles, This Sunday bin items (weekly sermon and worship helps), most audio and video posts, and some Library content. All registered Ministry Matters users have unlimited use of the bin feature whether or not they are paid subscribers. Also, share ideas or comment using DISQUS. See the FAQ on reprinting content in worship bulletins and newsletters.

Unless otherwise indicated, most sermons, worship texts, and articles may be reproduced or projected for use within your congregation provided they are not used commercially or resold. A basic attribution reference to Ministry Matters  somewhere in your church bulletin or visual presentation is all we require. If you are a student use the required citations by your institution.

A full Terms of Use can be found at the bottom of every page, it is that important.

Bins are your own personal filing system to store great content you find while exploring Ministry Matters. To create a bin, you simply need to register on the site. (It’s free!) Then when you see something you want to save for later, just click “Add to Bin,” and you can find it again any time by going to “Bins" after you login. You have the option of making a bin public or private when you create them. Private bins aren’t listed in our public bin directory, but they can be shared with anyone you choose by sending them a private URL. One tip: name the bin unique enough that as you scroll down your list you won't have to click on each one to remember what is in it (the web editors have found this out the hard way).

Registered users can create an unlimited number of bins.

This Sunday is a popular bin on Ministry Matters each week. It’s a pre-loaded bin of FREE worship ideas for those who like to just grab a few options and go. You’ll find it located on the HOME page of the site, in the middle gray section OR www.MinistryMatters.com/ThisSunday

This Sunday content can be used with the Revised Common Lectionary, a three year schedule of scripture readings used by many churches worldwide.

Using the search bar type in the exact Sunday like November 4, 2012. You should have content returned for that exact Sunday.

Titles marked Premium are only available to Ministry Matters subscribers. For full details regarding subscriptions visit the Subscribe Now page.

 

Subscribers get complete access to Library content, including the entire New Interpreters® line of reference materials—the New Interpreters® Bible, 12 volumes (print value $799), the New Interpreters® Dictionary, 5 volumes (print value $400), the Works of John Wesley: Bicentennial Edition with complete notes and commentary, scores of worship and teaching resources, children’s and youth ministry resources and more!

Subscribers to Will Willimon’s Pulpit Resource get anytime access to special sermon helps on a weekly basis. To read more about Pulpit Resource subscriptions and subscribe annually, click here.

The regular price of a Premium Subscription to MinistryMatters is $14.99 a month. If you pay for a full year, it’s only $149.99. That’s a savings of around 30 bucks! Or it’s like getting two months free, whichever way you want to look at it! Currently enrolled students can get the same subscription for only $69.00 a year. Before you purchase, check with the library at your institution... they may already subscribe.

Prices for an annual subscription to Will Willimon’s Pulpit Resource are $70 for print only, $70 for online only, and $80 for both print and online access (which includes backlist as it becomes available with new editions posted). Subscribe.

We accept most major credit cards, including Mastercard, Visa, Amex, and Discover. You can also pay using a personal or church Cokesbury account. Better yet, hint around to your parents, friends, spouse, or deacon board because we have Gift Subscriptions for 6 months or for a year!

The Ministry Matters web editors wanted to use the cash to support our coffee habit, but the powers that be insisted we use it to pay royalties, develop new content, and add new features to the site! Oh well… if they insist.

Subscriptions automatically renew at the end of your current term. The monthly or annual renewal date is based on your original subscription date. If you want to cancel your subscription, you may cancel online, by email, or by phone through a Ministry Matters customer service representative. Annual subscriptions to Pulpit Resource cannot be prorated and are not eligible for a partial or full refund. For more information, view our Terms of Use.

 

In today's digital world, page numbers are not always fixed or even given. (Think of a Kindle® book and how font size changes the number of words on a page.) So, when citing from a reference book in digital format, page numbers are not necessary. When in doubt, ask your professor!

Here's what the Chicago Manual of Style has to say:

[Citing a] Book published electronically

If a book is available in more than one format, cite the version you consulted. For books consulted online, list a URL; include an access date only if one is required by your publisher or discipline. If no fixed page numbers are available, you can include a section title or a chapter or other number.

1. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (New York: Penguin Classics, 2007), Kindle edition.

2. Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner, eds., The Founders’ Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), accessed February 28, 2010, http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/.

3. Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

4. Kurland and Lerner, Founder’s Constitution, chap. 10, doc. 19.

We offer special pricing for libraries and churches wishing to subscribe their group, for rates and more information visit Subscribe Now!

If you are currently a student and your institution does not subscribe, we offer a special rate of $69 per year. View details here Subscribe Now! Please use your .edu email address to verify your student status, contact subscriptions@ministrymatters.com if you have questions. 

The Student Subscription includes all the resources of our Premium Subscription at a rate that recognizes the sacrifices you're making to prepare for ministry.

Other periodical subscriptions, for example Pulpit Resource or Abingdon Preaching Annual are not available for group discounts.

By using the code we tie your Group Subscription to only your current enrolled students, faculty, or church leaders.

Directions:

 

1. Click "Sign In" (top left-corner of the Home page)
2. Using the Username and Password you created Login
3. On the "Profile"page
4. Click the gray bar "Groups" (right side margin)
5. Enter your "group subscription code" you received in the box and click "Submit" (note the code is case sensitive!)
6. You will see a message "Institution Code Approved"
7. Now you can click on the Library tab and begin using subscription content
8. If you have trouble contact Customer Service customer_service@ministrymatters.com or 1-800-409-5346

If a student or faculty member is on campus, we've set up your Institution's IP addresses, and they access the Premium Subscription content it will load.

If an off campus student accesses Premium Subscription content without using a Proxy Server, they won't be recognized as part of the Institutional Subscription but as an individual customer and they will be required to login.

We recommend you use an Institutional Registration Number (access code) that was provided for you, if you need assistance contact customer_service@ministrymatters.com or call 1-800-409-5346.

 

Circuit Rider is a professional journal for the applied practice of Christian ministry for United Methodist clergy and other church leaders. It is published quarterly by Abingdon Press and is available free to all church leaders after registering for access at ministrymatters.com. For more information about the periodical and back issues, click https://www.ministrymatters.com/circuit_rider/

For editorial concerns, please email circuitrider@umpublishing.org.