The Sunnydale church recently responded to a request from the Ministerial Alliance of Centralia, Missouri for churches in the area to host Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University (FPU), a nine-lesson course that teaches people how to get out of debt and manage money.
Lay members Don Weber and Erv Bales began to organize the seminar. Because the church is located about six miles west of Centralia, they decided to look for a space in town to be accessible to more people. A local church agreed to let us use one of their meeting rooms.
We created bulletin inserts and sent them to area churches, the Ministerial Alliance handled some of the advertising for us, and the FPU website also advertised our seminar location. We offered scholarships to help offset the cost of the program and to attract more attendees. Eleven community members attended and completed the seminar!
On the final night we hosted a meal to celebrate. We invited attendees to complete a survey to help us better understand what other interests or needs they may have. We plan to conduct a healthy living seminar in January, and those who responded on the survey will receive an invitation.
One attendee had multiple family members who attended Sunnydale Academy decades ago! Offering the Financial Peace seminar gave us the opportunity to make that connection, as well as developing relationships with the community. May the Lord continue to bless them!
