We were brought to our feet and to the alter by Dr. Cecelia Harris prophetic message about how easy it is to forget that our work is not our work, but it belongs to God. We were inspired as a denomination to remember that our first calling is always the most central--that it is God who tells us to share his word with others, that we don't need to wait for "they" to give us permission to do what God has already called us to do. There isn't any chance that I can begin to recreate the worship experience that inspired 600 people here in Evanston, Il. So, I have signed up purchase all of the plenary sessions messages here and will work with Conference Office to get them on our website in a downloadable form when I return to Montana.
Path1 is our UM initiative to provide training to lay people and clergy in our conferences to start new churches. Today, I was invited to hear about pilot projects of 5 annual conferences to use Path1 new training resources for lay people to be leaders in new church starts. Some laity will be new church planters and some will be members of new church start teams working along side a new church clergy or an "Anchor church" partner clergy. www.path1.org
Equipping and assessing the spiritual gifts and maturity of lay people who have a desire to share their faith with others is the focus of the Lay Missionary Planting network training offered by PAth1 to annual conferences who have made a commitment to reaching out to new people. And, in many regions where there are not enough trained clergy or clergy of the majority ethnic identity, the lay planted churches are the only option for starting and growing faith communities of United Methodists. There is a viewing of a DVD on the path1 website at: http://www.path1.org/custom/index.php/home/listitems/117615/20080229120259EE487A/topic/date
More later!
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