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CHURCH DEVELOPMENT Florida Sets Pace In Church Development By Charles W. Courtoy
Executive Director of Church Development
The General Board of Discipleship
shared the New Congregational Development Survey: 1996-2005 at the Council of Bishops
meeting in Phoenix in early May. Bishop Whitaker gave me a copy of that report, which
reveals that the Florida Conference launched 34 new congregations between 1995 and 1999,
leading all conferences in the number of congregations launched in that period. The North
Carolina Conference was second with 24, followed by North Alabama Conference with 17.
A total of 355 congregations were launched across the denomination in the five-year period.
Every bit as impressive as the number of new church starts are the results of the Conference Data Comparisons of Annual Conferences for 1998-1999 compiled by the Research Office of the General Board of Global Ministries. With a reported average weekly attendance of 160,053 the Florida Conference far exceeds all other annual conferences. North Georgia is second with 129,409, followed by West Ohio with 127,452.
The Florida Conference leads the way because Bishop Hughes believed in church development and was instrumental in elevating its importance by appointing the first full-time executive director of Church Development in 1995. Bishop Henderson continued the turnaround of the Florida Conference by creating the Office of Evangelization in 1998, with Roger Swanson as the first full-time executive director.
By the time this edition of the Review reaches you I will have turned over the mantel of executive director to my good friend and colleague, the Rev. Montfort C. Duncan Jr.
Mont has served on the Conference Committee of New Church Development and Church Redevelopment as the cabinet liaison since the committee was established by the Annual Conference in 1995. Mont has a commitment to new church development as a primary means of making disciples. He has a strong belief that lost people matter to God. I am delighted to commend him to you as the new Executive Director of Church Development of the Florida Conference.
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