Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

 NOTE: The following paper was prepared as an outline history of how the cooperative "Aldersgate curriculum" cooperation between various holiness denominations unraveled. It reflects both a personal (Keith Drury) and a denominational (Wesleyan Church) perspective thus it is likely biased and only part of the picture. Nevertheless it is presented for historical insight for research study by those involved in the study of inter-denominational cooperation.

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1. 1978-1979. Aldersgate negotiation with David C. Cook about picking up the "Bible-In-Life Pix" take home paper as a substitute or alternative to the Junior paper produced by the Free Methodists and used by all non-Nazarene Aldersgate members. The negotiations were completed but the final decision rejected the alternative and determined to stay with our own take home papers even if they were not financially profitable.

2. Fall, 1988. The Free Methodist Church ceases printing operation, raising the decision as to what the Free Methodists would do for curriculum -- either something cooperatively with the Wesleyans, or with the Church of the Nazarene.

3. Fall 1988. Aldersgate is disbanded. In a meeting at the Indianapolis Hilton, all primary participants voted to disband the Aldersgate Cooperative with the agreement that none of the former participants would use the name "Aldersgate" on subsequent publications.

4. Winter 1988. Wesleyans investigate cooperation with the Nazarenes in a Kansas City meeting. Attending: Earl Wilson, David Keith, Nathan Birky, Phil Riley, Bob Foster, and Everette Pleyer. Wesleyans investigated the possibility of potential cooperation with the Church of the Nazarene, coming to the meeting with interest in either adding our own cover to the Nazarene contents, or buying the plates from the Nazarenes. This meeting occurred following the collapse of Hymnal cooperation for other reasons. Wesleyans left this meeting disappointed with Nazarene insistence that to cooperate at such levels, Wesleyans would be required to pay a full one-half of the development cost regardless of unit sales. The Wesleyan position was hopeful that Wesleyans could pay the development cost (all pre-press cost including editorial) based on unit sales; if Wesleyans sold only 25% of the total they would only be required to pay 25% of the editorial cost. Following this meeting, a general assumption developed that cooperation with the current Nazarene administration was probably not going to be financially feasible over the long term for Wesleyans.

5. Winter 1988. Free Methodist cooperation investigated. Meeting in Marion Indiana, David Keith, Nathan Birky, Dan Wollam, and Dan Riemenschneider discussed possible cooperation between Free Methodists and Wesleyans. Wesleyans proposed a cooperative curriculum with the Free Methodists where Wesleyans would do all editing and Free Methodists would essentially become "users" of the Wesleyan curriculum. Free Methodists left this meeting disappointed believing "cooperation with the Wesleyans wouldn't give us enough involvement."

6. Winter 1989-90. Free Methodists decide to adopt Nazarene curriculum. In a decision which was a surprise to Wesleyans, the Free Methodists determined to adopt the "Word Action" curriculum as their official denominational curriculum. As a result, Wesleyans decide to "go it alone" and hire additional editors, determining to produce a full line of "Wesley Biblical Series" curriculum and supply it to several other denominations in competition with the Nazarene "Word Action" curriculum. Wesleyans cooperate at the outline level and in the use of the teacher resource packets with the Nazarenes.

7. Spring 1989. Nazarenes unilaterally changed the long standing "printing plus 10%" practice. For years the old Aldersgate cooperative had charged each other "print cost plus 10%" in exchanging resources. With the collapse of Aldersgate and the related agreements, the Nazarene church was now able to act unilaterally on curriculum (since they were now a supplier, and not a partner.) The Nazarene Publishing House changed to a "40% discount off retail" policy resulting in an additional $130,000 per year expense for Wesley Press.

8. Spring 1989. The Wesleyans were surprised by a unilateral move by the Nazarene Publishing House to drop all second class permits on products resulting in a $90,000 per year additional unanticipated expense for Wesleyans.

9. Spring 1989. Nathan Birky opens discussions with David C. Cook regarding a potential publishing alliance in curriculum. Earle Wilson and Nathan Birky unofficially bring Keith Drury, a CE professor at Indiana Wesleyan University, in on these discussions

10. Spring 1989 through Spring 1990. Wesleyan Publishing House continues frequent discussions with David C. Cook regarding cooperation. These are exploratory meetings on behalf of the Wesleyan Publishing House and do not include the personnel from the Local Church Education Department. Discussions at this point relate to completely replacing the "Word Action" line with a Cook-Wesleyan cooperative line as the exclusive line of curriculum for the Wesleyan Church.

11. May 1990. Keith Drury elected General Secretary of LCE. He is open to cooperating with David C. Cook if the Nazarene "Word Action" line is kept as one of two options.

12. June 1990. The Wesleyan Board of General Superintendents vote to offer a second line of curriculum in cooperation with David C. Cook.

13. June 1990. A contract is signed with David C. Cook to buy rights to the basic Cook curriculum for Wesleyans to edit and print a Wesleyan version of the David C. Cook curriculum.

14. July 1990. David C. Cook opens discussions with Wesleyans on a "buy back agreement" as an alternative to employing their own holiness editors to produce a Wesleyan edition for open marketing.

15. Wesleyan-Nazarene publications task force. Nazarenes express serious agitation at the Wesleyan decision to adopt Cook as a second line of curriculum.

16. Fall, 1990. Cooperation explorations on a Cook-Wesleyan line are expanded. In a meeting at the Free Methodist Headquarters, the Wesleyans, Free Methodists, Church of God-Anderson, and Friends explore possible cooperative efforts in developing a Wesleyan line of curriculum as a group in alliance with David C. Cook. Wesleyans announce their willingness to give up on all previous contracts with David C. Cook if a holiness cooperative effort can be negotiated.

17. January 1991. Wesleyans decide to abandon their "Wesley Biblical Series" in favor of the Nazarene "Word Action" children and youth curriculum, laying off all youth and children's editors, and thus reduce participation in committee work due to the elimination of the children's and youth editorial divisions.

18. Winter 1990-1991. The second meeting of the cooperation-with-Cook committee. David C. Cook offered a contract for a consortium of holiness denominations to edit and produce a Wesleyan version of Cook. In this meeting, Wesleyans continued to offer their willingness to give up their earlier "exclusive contract rights" with Cook, if a cooperative effort could be forged. The Church of God announced that they needed to wait a few years. The Free Methodists were undecided, and the Friends were uncertain.

19. June 1991. Wesley Press signs a "Buy Back Contract" selling reprint rights to Cook for the Wesleyan children, youth, and adult curriculum publications. Essentially this agreement provides Cook with subsidiary rights to selected children, youth, and adult publications done by the Wesleyans.

20. Spring 1991. A "Neo-Aldersgate meeting" at Free Methodist Headquarters in Indianapolis. This meeting included all of the primaries at the meeting above, plus the Nazarenes. It was essentially the "old Aldersgate group" including each of the denomination's publishers and chief Christian Education officers. After rehashing the Wesleyan decision and the potential competition from the Cook Wesley line of curriculum, the group agreed it should continue to meet and share together -- "keep talking" so as not to allow other cooperative efforts to further unravel.

21. Spring 1992. The second meeting of the "Neo-Aldersgate" group. An amiable meeting with a high level of sharing of resources, ideas, and products for potential cooperation by the Church of God, Free Methodists, Nazarenes, and Wesleyans. All stated an openness for other cooperative efforts. This second meeting agreed to schedule a third meeting on April 6, 1992 to continue open sharing and talking in order to keep cooperative lines open, even if curriculum cooperation seem blocked for the moment.

22. March 1992. Free Methodists and Wesleyans explore potential Cook cooperation. Following a contact from the Free Methodists Church, Keith Drury met with John VanValin and Dan Riemenschneider because Free Methodists expressed interest in being somehow involved in the editorial effort on the Cook Wesleyan/Wesley line of curriculum. Wesleyans offered to use Free Methodist "contract editors" for half of the Cook age levels to do the "theological edits" Wesleyans are now doing. It was understood that Wesleyans would pay for this contract editing job to both Wesleyans and Free Methodists. Free Methodists indicated they were "exploring all the options" and considered this to be one of their alternatives along with the new Wesleyan version of Scripture Press (Bristol Bible curriculum).

July 15 1994, Keith Drury

So what do you think?

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