By Michael Wacht
  
LAKELAND — What was once one of the Florida Conference’s most popular training events is being scaled down and taken on the road in order to reach more people, according to the Rev. Carol Sue Hutchinson, director of the Florida Conference Council on Ministries’ Discipleship Ministry team. The Discipleship Weekend training event, which was held annually at the Life Enrichment Center in Leesburg, is changing format and location this year.

For the past few years, attendance at Discipleship Weekend has been declining. Hutchinson has taken opportunities at local churches and conference-wide gatherings to ask pastors and laity why they did or did not attend the event. She said the answer she “consistently got” was that people believed the training was of good quality, but they did not want to travel and spend the night at the training location.

“Training events, because you want more people, have to be closer to the people,” she said.

This year, Discipleship Weekend will instead be “Equipped to Serve” and held at eight locations throughout the Florida Conference on two Saturdays. The event will be in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Myers, Melbourne, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville and Lake City. Three location events will be held Sept. 20 and five Oct. 4.

“One exciting thing is this is the first time we’re going to Miami with anything like this,” Hutchinson said.

The event is being pared back to one day, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Each location will feature a motivational and/or inspirational keynote speaker and 10 classes from which each participant will choose three. Each location will also offer child care and a Cokesbury bookstore.

Class topics will include “how to” instruction on children’s, youth and adult ministries; evangelism; worship; and missions. Each location will also have a class on Safe Sanctuary, a program designed to make churches safe places for children.

“We’re trying to hit the places all of us are hearing churches ask for,” Hutchinson said, adding she hopes to find people who can teach classes on managing change in churches.

The biggest challenge right now is finding leadership for the classes, Hutchinson said. “By doing this on two different dates, we could use some leadership twice.”