11 23 11 Discipleship

How do church leaders guide their congregations into the changes that will open ministry in new ways? How do we raise up a new generation of disciples for future ministry that God has not yet shown us? What are some practical things we can do today that will lead to a better ministry tomorrow?

The latest training for the Acts 16:5 Initiative was held last weekend (Nov 18-19) at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Anchorage. The content and style of the presentation were very compelling and have opened discussions that we pray will bear fruit. We offer many thanks to the Rev. Stan Ott of the Vital Church Institute for traveling to Alaska and making this event possible.

Although not all the presbytery’s congregations have signed-on to The Acts 16:5 Initiative, enough are involved to bring the Missional Church perspective to the whole presbytery. We are now at a point of thinking about how to begin sharing the learning in appropriate ways beyond those congregations that originally signed-on.

This possibility is important because our whole society is in a time of such monumental change, that the church absolutely must move into an adaptive, responsive mode if it is to share the salvation and love of Jesus Christ effectively to an anxious world. If we are not adaptive and responsive, then the Good News will not be presented in ways that can be heard, and the people will suffer now and into the future.

With this in mind, this latest Acts 16:5 Training focused on a couple of key themes. Among these were the following:

1. Leading into change, and
2. Raising up disciples and a disciple faith community to bear God’s Good News into the world.
   
   

Part of this training included some practical guides for drawing people into intentional learning and growth as individuals and as a faith-community. Disciples need to be well grounded in three ways:

1. Doxological – a relationship with God that includes praise and worship,
2. Koinonial – a relationship with God through God’s people that stokes our spiritual fires, and
3. Missional – a relationship with God that sends us out to make a difference in the world that God loves.
   
   

One experimental new approach to this class was connecting Dave Moody from Fairbanks via the internet. Dave said it went fairly well, though there are some things we can do to improve the experience for distance learners. Also, some of the churches that would normally have participated in the training were unable to come to the Nov 18-19 training, and so plans are under way to hold a second training sometime soon. Because this training is paid for both by congregations and by the presbytery, those congregations that have not participated in the past are still welcome to be a part of this event. Pastors or elders wanting more information should contact the presbytery office.