Strang Communications owners Stephen Strang, chief executive officer, and Joy Strang, chief financial officer, have decided to put their CharismaLife curriculum up for sale in two phases in order to focus more on the company's books and magazines. Meanwhile, the company is releasing this summer a second year of The Next Generation: Junior KIDS Church called Living Like Jesus, which has been in development for more than a year following last year's successful launch of The Next Generation: Junior KIDS Church Wonderfully Made.

The company is continuing to sell Sunday school material to churches through the summer quarter, although at Phase One, it already has sold the CharismaLife Sunday school curriculum to One Accord Resources Inc., a group that CharismaLife had intended to join in a new curriculum-publishing venture. One Accord Resources will begin selling the fall quarter of Sunday school material.

In 2004, the CharismaLife curriculum division grew 27% and was very successful with The Next Generation: KIDS Church. More than 38,000 churches have used CharismaLife curriculum products through the years.

“Our decision to sell was not an easy one,” said Stephen Strang. “In our company's history, we have never sold any part of our company. But we decided we are trying to focus on too many things. In order to give a greater priority to our book area, which is exploding, and also to focus on our core magazine business, we felt that this was the right strategy to maximize our company's growth in the future.”

Since 1990, CharismaLife has created a variety of children and youth ministry resources for churches, including Sunday school, CrossTraining and, most recently, The Next Generation: KIDS Church and The Next Generation: Jr. KIDS Church. Information about the Sunday school curriculum is available at www.charismalife.com

A complete story will appear in the June 6 issue of Christian Retailing.