There is much buzz and excitement as we head into 2018. Great momentum is building, and there is a bunch of things to share. First, let me suggest you put April 28 on your calendar for the first Navigate. You will not want to miss this top-notch, conference-wide event. Mike Schreiner and Ken Willard, authors of “Stride,” along with some other awesome workshop leaders, will be bringing us a jam-packed day of equipping disciple-makers. All attendees will encounter a worship experience demonstrating how to weave discipleship throughout the entire worship experience. They will also learn how to create a discipleship pathway for their size of church. This event will be held in the brand-new Lewisburg High School. We are expecting a large crowd for this can’t-miss event, and there is limited seating. So grab a team from your church and register today.
Here are some other really exciting things going on here in the Office of Growing Effective Churches. Keep your eyes peeled for some of these equipping opportunities:
- Basic Coach Training. Don’t miss out on gaining this essential tool of learning the coach-approach to ministry. Whether or not you ever use coaching in a formal coaching relationship, knowing how to use the coach-approach to ministry is a must-have tool for today’s leader. Think “coach approach” to supervision, pre-marital coaching, and coaching your ministry/leadership team. Both laity and clergy are encouraged to attend. Sign up for this indispensable training to be held February 20 at Christ Community, Selinsgrove.
- A variety of pre-Conference workshops will be offered at Trinity, Hummelstown, Wednesday, May 30, from 1-5 p.m. Workshops on hospitality, worship planning, small church vitality, Fresh Expressions, vital mergers, re-starts, visioning, youth, finance, and more will be offered. Registration for these workshops will be available when you register for Annual Conference. Watch for more details to come.
- M3 – Moving from Maintenance to Missional is a local continuous learning community for your church leadership. The training is available on demand, led by your own people at your local church. All the tools (agenda, handouts, video, etc.) are provided. This is a great way to set aside the ever-important time, space, and opportunity to learn together and share insights. M3 will walk your leadership through how to evaluate the effectiveness of your ministry, in ten different areas of ministry including: mission, vision, worship, hospitality, discipleship, strategic ministry planning, leadership development, community connection, staff evaluation, and structure. If you are interested in learning more, contact the Office of Growing Effective Churches.
- We have been working with a Visioning Team to provide direction for a renewed focus and priority on “creating new places for new people.” There have been four key strategies identified for the Susquehanna Annual Conference to create new places for new faces: vital mergers, re-starts, multi-site, and fresh expressions of faith. You will hear more about this in the upcoming months and how to become a part of this movement. Stay tuned.
- Many of the equipping workshops conducted in the past six months have been captured on video. They are being edited and will be eventually provided online, on-demand for local church equipping. Some of these workshops include Simplified, Accountable Structure, Gear Up: Nine Essentials for the Optimized Church, and Necessary Nine: Nine things Effective Pastors do Differently (and two traits of effective churches).
As you can see, there is a load of equipping opportunities provided by the Office of Growing Effective Churches where we are called to “equip congregations for vitality and create new places for new people.” We are so pumped for what God has in store for all of us in 2018. How will you and your church plug into one or more of these equipping opportunities to be an even more vital congregation and/or do a new thing to reach new people in new places in 2018? The harvest is bountiful, but the workers are few. Let’s be about the Kingdom in 2018, reaching new people for Christ.
