Workshops

Toxic Charity
Bob Lupton

Not every act of compassion is compassionate. When both the heart and mind are not engaged together in acts of service, charity can become hurtful to those it is intended to help. This lively and practical session will explore the difference between crisis and chronic poverty and offer appropriate strategies of compassion that address both.

Collaboration for Transformation
– Mobilizing your church and partnering together with other churches and community leaders to focus on some of the greatest needs in your community
Chip Sweney

Do you desire to have your church give focus to the needs beyond the four walls of your church? Do you desire to be part of "bigger" impact than your church can have alone? In our time together we will look at some key questions that will help us become a church that is engaged in the challenges of our community and an influence in our community. We will share our journey at Perimeter Church of adding the Hand to the Head and Heart and how we are partnering with churches across denomination and across ethnicity as well as leaders in the public and private sectors for "bigger" impact."

Churches That Make a Difference: A Vision for Transformational Community Ministry
Heidi Unruh

Why do some churches grow in numbers but not in impact? What kind of church engages redemptively with the community, while others are viewed as merely taking up space? This workshop lays out a vision for holistic ministry that flows from the Great Commandment to love God and love our neighbor with all we've got. More than programs, this kind of transformational ministry is a way of following Christ. It energizes the church with a vision of extending Jesus' presence in a broken world, through a mosaic of compassion, justice and spiritual renewal. It leads churches to invest with abandon in rebuilding struggling lives and neighborhoods. It promotes life-changing discipleship that mobilizes members for practical acts of "faith expressing itself through love" (Gal. 5:6). Alongside this vision, the workshop will present a model of options for responding to the core missional question: "How can our congregation embody God's character, share the good news of Christ and carry out the work of the gospel in our particular context?" (This workshop is followed up with practical guidance for implementation in "Putting Feet to Vision.")

Magnetic Missions - The Blueprint to growing a missions ministry
Craig Maxwell

Come and learn strategies to grow a thriving missions ministry that focuses on growing numerically, qualitatively, and spiritually. We will spend time sharing ideas on marketing strategies, including branding, that will suck volunteers into your program

Short-Term Missions That Help Long-Term
David Phipps

Short-Term Missions (STM) are a powerful force in the development of communities around the world, including in the USA. This force seems to head in one of two directions. It can bring long-term development of the people served or it can provide short-term "fixes" for what is seen as problems. The first direction is the hardest. It requires years, not days. It demands STM to embrace a learning-servant attitude, not a knowing-controlling attitude. It expects the community to do their own problem identification, prioritizing, solving, and evaluation, not just follow the STM lead. Rather than see the handicaps of the community, it stresses the assets of the community, praises the community's accomplishments, and builds the community capacity for even grander achievements. Come explore the path that takes STM in the better direction.

Bring the World to Your Church
Stan Self

Discover the process that set McEachern United Methodist Church and a host of other churches on a path of being strategic and significant in their outreach efforts locally, nationally, and internationally. This workshop will teach the basic plan Jesus gave his church for reaching the world. Additionally, you will receive tools that will guide you in the process of engaging your entire congregation in reaching your community, nation, and world with the good news.

Accelerating the Spread of the Gospel through Leadership Training
Wes and Joy Griffin

Equipping indigenous leaders is the single greatest leverage point for accelerating the spread of the Gospel available today. Indigenous leaders know their language and culture. They are passionately and sacrificially committed. And, they say, “Equip us and we will reach our nations.” This session explores practical strategies for equipping indigenous leaders through the International Leadership Institute, an organization that annually holds over 300 conferences for 10,000 leaders around the world.

Funding Strategies for Missions
Wes and Joy Griffin

Funding your mission outreach program is critical to success. Join Dr. Wes Griffin and the ILI Team to learn practical strategies for mobilizing your congregation to increase their giving to missions.

ILI’s Team has preached in over 100 missions conferences in the last ten years, annually seeing more than one million dollars pledged to fund the missions ministries of local churches.

Reach New Persons: Become More Missional
Winston Worrell

Reaching new persons with the Gospel of Christ can be an exciting and fulfilling responsibility of every Christian and every local congregation. This must, however, be understood and practiced within the context of the missional church. How do we help Christian leaders and local churches become more missional for Christ? Are you looking for creative ways to reach your community? How do we help congregations look outward beyond the walls of the church? This workshop helps Christian leaders and local congregations focus on these questions by looking at a wholistic approach to reaching new persons and becoming more missional for Christ. After looking at the biblical and theological grounding, we shall focus on some practical ways traditional churches are reaching out and becoming more missional around the world.

When God Calls Your Name: Discerning God’s Vision for your Life
Wes and Joy Griffin

God has a plan for each of us. This plan is revealed through discovering God’s vision for your life. Wes Griffin will use his personal experience to help you discern God’s call on your life. He will also provide practical instructions to help you move forward into the future that God has for you.

Assets and Generative Themes: Vital Resources for International Mission Teams
Dr. David Jenkins

How do we discover what local residents care about so they assume leadership and build on local resources?

Congregations sometimes invest in global missions without first having built relationships with local leaders and residents in their partner communities. We are clear about the expertise, resources, and interests of our team members, but may not be aware of the resources (assets) and passions of those communities. This workshop introduces participants to straetgic methods of identifying the generative themes, resources, and leadership capacities of community residents while addressing the underlying theology of these practices.

Basics of Ministry with Single Parent Families
Heidi Unruh

The majority of new mothers under age 30 are not married. One in three families with children is headed by a single parent. Nearly half of divorced couples have a dependent child. Many married individuals live in isolation as "functional single parents." Given these trends, if the church is not engaged with single-parent families, it will become increasingly irrelevant to a major segment of our population. Yet single parent families often feel isolated, uncomfortable or even wounded at church. Single parents need the spiritual, emotional and practical support of the church – and the church needs the gifts that God has planted in these precious families. This workshop introduces a framework and tools for helping churches grow in commitment and capacity to welcome, integrate, and walk with single-parent families for mutual transformation.

Putting Feet to Vision: First Steps, Next Steps
Heidi Unruh

Growing numbers of churches are taking ownership of the biblical call to "do justice and love mercy" in their communities, to share the gospel in word and deed the way Jesus did. Yet many churches struggle to translate this vision into action. This workshop will lay out practical guidance for bridging the gap between intention and implementation. God has already provided your church with "everything needed for life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3). Developing community ministry involves connecting existing assets with "hot" opportunities for outreach, while laying the foundation for ongoing growth in depth and breadth of ministry. Leaders are first encouraged to prepare – to cultivate readiness for ministry, both organizationally and personally. Leaders can then act, drawing on five core strategies to mobilize the congregation for informed, prayerful community engagement. Workshop participants will be provided tools for self-assessment and strategic planning. (This workshop builds on "Churches That Make a Difference," but does not require it.)

Developing mission leadership in local church
Dr. Warren Lathem

We will examine proven ways to lead local churches into a mutually gratifying involvement in international missions and discover the joy of long term mission partnerships.

Converting Your Op budget:
Nate Gibson

How do you morph your local church operating budget of yesteryear into the missional budget required to be an effective "on mission" church in today's ministry landscape?

Beyond the Food Pantry: Creating Christian Community
Rev. Nancy C. Yarnell

We can do better! A food pantry in many cases is not an adequate response for families who don’t have money for groceries. A food pantry typically is not designed to meet spiritual, emotional or social needs. Being Christ to the World calls us to provide spiritual nourishment for the soul as well as food for the body – while promoting independence, dignity and community. By offering low-income food co-operatives to poverty-line families, a church provides enough food to make a significant difference (homeless prevention) and the opportunity for the low-income food co-op members to worship together and to learn important life-skills. No more “either…or.” Create a beloved community instead of a hand-out, and watch Christ come alive!

BLESS – Reviving Your Church While Transforming Your Community
Brett Dehart

Can you imagine the community being genuinely thankful for your church? Can a declining church find new life by simply blessing its community? Yes, it is all possible. Come and hear the struggles and triumphs of a smaller church that in less than three years went from little outward mission to being named its town’s “Business of the Year” for its community involvement. This workshop will offer plenty of ways you can make a difference while at the same time increasing the vatility of your congregation.

Managing the Change from Maintenance to Mission
Brett Dehart

Change is hard. In churches, it's nearly impossible. Many visionary, spiritual, missional leaders have responded to the call of God and charged the hill only to be shot down by enemy and even friendly fire. This seminar will examine the dynamics of change. It takes more than just understanding God's new way forward. Many of God's greatest dreams have been killed in church committee meetings (or parking lots after the meeting). The key is managing a process of transition from "the way we've always done it" to a new way for a new day.

Developing the VISION for Urban Missions
Lurone "Coach" Jennings

This workshop will help ministry leaders practice pray for vision development, have passion for the plight of the people and plan a practical strategy to execute the vision through ministry to influence transformation in lives and communities. Workshop participants will also experience how to write the vision down. From Heart to Head to Paper to Action.

Boost Your Mission Ministry with Interns
Lynnette Fields

Interns can be a great asset to your ministry. There are several categories of interns: those needing academic credit, those exploring ministry, and interns participating in formal programs through your conference or through the UMC General Board of Global Ministries. We will explore ways that interns can create new energy for your missions rather than drain all your supervisory time. Your interns today may be our church leaders of tomorrow. Learn about the different types of internships that might be possible for your mission ministry as well as innovative ways to utilize their unique gifts.

Cross-Cultural Partnerships and Money
Mary Lederleitner

Partnerships are the primary way most churches and agencies are engaging in global mission, and frequently funding plays a significant role. This interactive workshop is designed to help partners grow in cultural intelligence so they will be better equipped to navigate complexities common in this method of mission engagement.

Resolving Conflict in Cross-Cultural Partnerships
Mary Lederleitner

We often enter cross-cultural partnerships with great aspirations. However, sometimes despite our best intentions conflict arises. This interactive workshop is designed to help you think through critical issues necessary to fruitfully navigate and resolve conflict with your cross-cultural ministry partners.

Dignity Serves
Dan Crain

This is a best practice Mission teaching conference, so think of it in how you would empower local churches to live out concepts of Dignity Serves or how to engage and work with people in poverty.

Outline:

• Learning what it means to be a good neighbor in under-served neighbors.
• As simple as doing life together.
• Loving neighbor as yourself.
• But what does this mean?
• Learning to think and see differently.
• Moving from doing "to" to being "with".
  • Listening well. (Hopes and concerns exercise from Dignity Serves)
  • Empathy: embracing the pain of what people have experienced.
  • Easing into this thing.
  • You are not the savior. (Maybe you need saving more than your neighbors?)
  • Power of presence: Listening to the promptings of the spirit.
• What do your neighbors want to do?
• What are your neighbors good at?
• What are common connecting points?
• What does this mean for the church to love her neighbors well?