What Judy Offers – Leadership and Evangelism
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This Article is from the Fall 2005 edition of good idea!, also available here in a fully formatted PDF file. |
For churches to thrive in a post-Christian culture, at least two things are needed.
They need clear leadership to help them switch from maintenance mode to understand and focus their calling to mission.
Good pastoral leadership can make the difference. Secondly, many congregations are still nervous about evangelism, but need to recapture a healthy understanding of evangelism if they are to shape their communal life to minister to the needs of the spiritually hungry.
Judy offers three presentations to address these twin issues of leadership and evangelism.
They can be combined in different ways to suit the requirements of the hosting group. Each presentation is self-contained, and can form a half-day workshop. Or the three can be run consecutively to create a one-day workshop. In either format, the goal is to encourage and strengthen clergy and other leaders in their leadership role, and to offer an understanding of leadership and evangelism which is stretching but which has integrity.
The workshop’s narrative style examines such issues as: the transformative nature of the Gospel, the key tasks of effective leadership, the unique challenges and possibilities for ministry in today’s culture, and strategies for building or rebuilding compelling and passionate communities of faith.
What Connie Offers – Next Steps in Parish Development
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This Article is from the Fall 2005 edition of good idea!, also available here in a fully formatted PDF file. |
Connie was born and grew up in Southern Ontario. One parent was Roman Catholic and the other Christian Reformed, and the family settled into the United Church of Canada as a bridge. It was in the United Church that Connie experienced a spiritual awakening as a teenager. This diversity of background allows Connie to work comfortably and knowledgeably in a broad spectrum of denominations and theological milieus.
A graduate of Emmanuel College within the Toronto School of Theology, Connie also holds a doctorate from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, with a specialty in Church Growth.
Connie was ordained by the Toronto Conference of the United Church in 1980 and has served United Churches in rural Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, London (Ontario), and Toronto.
She has been involved in starting three churches: one suburban United, one multi-cultural Pentecostal, one English speaking congregation within a Methodist Chinese Church. Connie has successfully led church “reboots,” one rural and two suburban, taking congregations which had stalled at a membership of about fifty to 150, 180, and 220. She is also a trainer of coaches for Natural Church Development.
Since 1999, she has been team minister at Alderwood United Church in Etobicoke, Ontario. Aware that the successes of a previous decade may have little relevance in the communities we face today, Connie is in the early stages of working with this congregation to shift from a building-centred ministry to missional thinking, a process that will probably take a decade.
Connie continues to pursue a wide variety of Church Development-related interests. She is a trainer and experienced coach for Natural Church Development, a conference presenter for Alpha Canada, an experienced coach of church planters (particularly during the planning stage and critical first years), a church consultant, conference speaker, and a lecturer in Church Planting at Wycliffe College.
She lives with her husband Doug, the pastor of an ethnically diverse Methodist Church in Bramalea, and two teenagers, in Brampton, Ontario where they are restoring and renovating their century home.
What Connie Offers
Many churches would say they are “doing OK” but confess that they are not growing in either depth or numbers, and do not know how to move forward. Connie brings a broad and sympathetic knowledge of “how churches really work” and a large repertoire of alternatives to the status quo in the form of her Next Steps presentations:
Next Steps for Congregations
For the leadership teams of parishes that have plateaued or are aware of the need to explore other avenues of ministry. Connie is an experienced diagnostician and practitioner who will facilitate discovery of helpful strategies for the individual parish or congregation.
Next Steps for Denominational Leaders
For denominational leaders who would like to broaden the repertoire and improve the morale of their clergy, Connie offers interactive workshops, seminars, and plenary sessions on trends in Canadian Christianity, Natural Church Development, Spiritual Gifts Discovery, and other topics as requested.
Next Steps for New Parishes
Connie will meet with individual church planters or area clusters of church planters for mission strategy and problem solving.
What George Offers – Growing Youth Ministries
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This Article is from the Fall 2005 edition of good idea!, also available here in a fully formatted PDF file. |
Youth ministry is seeing a renewed emphasis in Canada after having fallen off for several generations. The vast majority of young people are no longer involved in parish life after early adolescent years, and where they are present they often say that they feel like aliens in the church. This disconnect needs to be overcome, but many people say they don’t know how.
George’s training and involvement in youth ministry in various contexts over many years has put him in a place where he also works with youth leaders to equip them for reconnection ministries. He leads explorations in engaging postmodern youth cultures, exploring adolescent development and spiritual formation, relationship-building and equipping adolescents for ministry.
Realising that congregations come in a variety of liturgical traditions, cultural/ demographic contexts, and different places with respect to youth ministry, he is flexible in his content and style.
George believes that every parish is called to some form of youth ministry. His goals are: (1) to help congregations explore their unique vocation in regard to youth, and (2) to see young people become fully functional disciples of Jesus engaged in ministry both inside and outside their home congregations.
He offers a one-day seminar entitled Growing YAMs (Younger Adolescent Ministries), aimed at helping congregations learn to minister effectively to youth in middle and junior high school.
George also offers a range of seminars for both paid and volunteer youth workers on such topics as: Starting an Effective Youth Ministry; Adolescent Spiritual Formation; Running Short-term Missions with Youth; and How to Plan and Run a Youth Conference.
Other youth-related topics can be negotiated with George to suit the particular needs of your ministry.