Inclusion

1. The Ministry Resource Center (MRC) selects materials from all Christian publishers, recognizing that all Christian publishers produce some good materials on subject matters not found elsewhere.
2. The MRC is designed to help busy faculty, students, and church leaders, who do not have the time to look through all the catalogues and visit bookstores and publishers, to find what they need quickly and without the thought that if they only had the time and looked farther they might find what they need that has been published by a company we ignore.

Selection

1. We attempt to collect the best ministry materials available, i.e., consistent with the Bible and historic Christian, and especially Reformed, theology.
2. Other ministry resource centers are theologically inclusive in their collection development policy, as in our general collection, which means users must spend time considering whether the material that seems to meet their other needs (e.g., age range, subject, program [e.g., Sunday school, catechism, small group ministry]) will be consistent with the Bible and be theologically sound.

Annotation

1. We are in the process of annotating all our resources; well over 1,000 have been completed. This unique aspect of the MRC is very valuable for all users but especially so for those beyond Western Michigan and throughout the world.
2. The annotations include the following:
   1. An indication of the subject matter of the resource
   2. Any special features: e.g., a leader’s guide with an accompanying video
   3. The audience envisioned: what ministries could use this resource
   4. Any caveats: e.g., theological statements contrary to historic Christian and especially Reformed theology. We don’t want to "throw out the baby with the bathwater," so some resources that are otherwise exceptional, will be retained in spite of a flaw, but that flaw will be noted to alert patrons in their decision-making, another time saver.

Global Orientation

1. We collect resources with a global perspective to facilitate multicultural ministries and ministries in other countries.
2. Since the MRC’s entire database is online, church leaders all over the world can log on and quickly find (especially with the help of the annotations) what Calvin recommends in every area of ministry, e.g., adult education, family devotions, disability ministries, parenting, small group ministries, worship leadership to name just a few.
3. An increasing number of resources are downloadable.
4. While most of the resources are in English, we collect in other languages as well.

Human Resources

1. We’re trying to be a full-service resource center. On this campus we have the privilege of being within about 1,000 yards of an expert in almost anything.
2. Solo pastors and other church leaders all over the world, who’ve checked their available resources and still have questions, can contact the MRC, and we’ll connect them with an authority in the area of their questions. The “Ask an Expert” section on the MRC web site facilitates their contacting us.

Search Engine

• The MRC’s search engine, which was developed by the Hekman Library staff and is part of the library’s system, is exceptionally user friendly. Those staff members were cited by the American Library Association for their outstanding work.

Existence

• There aren’t many ministry resource centers, and many if not most libraries that do have some materials for ministry simply catalogue and shelve them with their general collection.