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Coaches Begin Training
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Transformation office holds first coaches training
Churches in need of transformation will need a patient coach who will grieve with them before the healing can come. That was the sentiment from the Office of Congregational Transformation’s (OCT) first coaches training July 10-12 at the Life Enrichment Center here.
Led by the Rev. Kendall Taylor, OCT strives to breathe new life into maintaining and dying churches using a revitalization process called Natural Church Development (NCD). NCD helps churches reach their potential and gauge their health using a 91-question survey that reveals churches’ strengths and weaknesses. Coaches will help churches navigate through that process. Taylor plans to begin sending coaches into churches within the next two months.
“The more pain a church has had, the longer it’s [the process] going to take,” said David Wetzler, owner and publisher of ChurchSmart Resources, publisher of the NCD materials, and leader of the coaches workshop. “They must be willing to take a step and admit they are a declining church…”as for me, and I could feel the Holy Spirit moving…
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Training shows new way to hold meetings
A small group of clergy and laity gathered at the Gainesville District’s office June 28 to learn a new way to hold meetings that could revolutionize how they’re done.
The Rev. Carol Sue Hutchinson, director of the Conference Council on Ministries’ Discipleship and Church and Society Ministry teams, led the day-long workshop, provided through the conference’s newly-formed Learning Academy.
Hutchinson suggested church meetings be held using a small-group approach to bring about transformation within the church.
“We live in a high-tech world with low touch,” she said. “People have so many barriers up. They’ll say they don’t have enough time for this or time to read the Bible, but this will leaven the meeting…We need to be sensitive to the fact that God touches our lives every day.”
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Arts program fills gap in Miami Beach
The Miami Beach people see in glitzy videos or on the silver screen is quite different from the day-to-day reality most of its residents live. Amid the population of excess are working-class families struggling to keep their heads above water and youth aimlessly wandering the streets.
The city of Miami Beach realized this and approached several religious groups for their support in developing programming for youth, but only one answered the call—St. John’s United Methodist Church here.
The Rev. Carol Hoffman-Guzman, director of Arts at St. John’s, designed a program that incorporated the city of Miami, local social service agencies and the church. The result is Above Ground, and it has become a haven for teenagers and a place they can call their own.
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Churches reach seekers with commercials
Wait a second before you change that channel. You don’t want to miss 30-second television commercials several churches in the Florida Conference will be airing this September to reach out to their communities.
The churches are able to fund the commercials through the Igniting Ministry matching grants program. Igniting Ministry is the denomination’s four-year national media campaign approved at the 2000 General Conference. It is supplemented by regional and local church efforts.
So far two groups in the Florida Conference have received grants through this current grant process. Both say the commercials are accomplishing their goal—bringing people into the life of the church.."
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Family rebounds after river floods home
The Myakka River near Sarasota was creeping up on Jim VanFleet, and he didn’t even know it. He and his family were out of town when the call came to return home and salvage what they could from their home before the river engulfed it.
VanFleet, a member of Old Myakka United Methodist Church, packed up his family and arrived home the next day. They frantically moved what they could, but before they finished another alarming call arrived—the levee had broken and they had to evacuate. Thirty minutes later the house was flooded and nearly everything was gone.
But the VanFleets and other residents are getting help from United Methodists and other groups, with the Old Myakka church as a kind of flooding crisis management center that’s helping put lives back together..
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