By Kim Shockley, Coordinator of Lay Excellence
After my experience with our Annual Conference in May, I came away with a renewed sense of hope, especially for the lay people of the Susquehanna Conference. I spoke with many of you about our Lay Servant Ministry processes and felt great enthusiasm from you about discovering how God wants to use you now! While I continue to be the Coordinator of Lay Excellence, this is what gets me out of bed each morning - connecting lay people to mission and ministry!
We are offering a third Coach Approach Training on August 26, 2023 at First UMC Muncy, 602 S Market St, Muncy, PA 17756-1628, for $15 which includes lunch. The instructors for these 6-hour training events are ICF Certified Coaches in our Conference who are currently active members of our Susquehanna Coaching Network – Ron Doverspike and Kim Shockley. The purpose of Coach Approach Training is to learn the skills of coaching and how to put it into practice. Anyone who leads a group or team will benefit from this training because the end result of a coach approach is greater accomplishment of goals and engagement of people in those goals.
The posture of a coach approach is curiosity, listening well, and asking powerful questions that lead to committed action steps. Come join us as we learn the basics and several different ways that a coach approach can be used within your local congregation’s ministry. .6 CEU will be offered. The flyer and registration can be found here: https://na.eventscloud.com/ereg/newreg.php?eventid=754045
The third opportunity in our Refresh series happens on September 30, 2023 at Christ Community UMC, 3939 Park Rd, Selinsgrove, PA 1787). Ken Willard, from the West Virginia Conference Development Office, will be with us to Refresh Our Plan! Our time with Ken will be to discuss how to create and/or refresh your ministry plan. He will offer training around how to have a strategic ministry focus. This event is open to everyone, and we especially encourage ministry teams to attend this training together! .6 CEU will be offered. The deadline to register for the third experience of Refresh is Saturday, September 23, 2023: https://susumc.org/refresh/
Don’t forget to check the Lay Ministry page on the SUSUMC website - https://susumc.org/lay-ministry/. Throughout the summer our District Lay Servant Ministry Committees will be developing their roster of courses for Fall 2023. Remember, Lay Servants and Lay Speakers must take 1 CEU (10 hours of instruction) every three years to stay certified. Certified Lay Ministers need 1 CEU every other year to stay in compliance.
Our District Committees are working well to encourage and keep our laity engaged in mission and ministry! The One Matters Awards presented at Annual Conference showed us how fruitful this work is as we developed new and improved ways of seeing our communities and building relationships!
God is with us all!
