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Holy Shift Spirit Rising (PDF).
The world is rapidly changing. And so is the church.
As our congregations diversify, struggle and restructure, leaders and members are experiencing many expressions of change.
From technology to language, leadership to eldership, faith to hope – which expressions do we pay attention to?
Which of our skills and abilities can we use to help our congregations evolve with these changes?
What do we need to equip our church for change?
Holy Shift: Rising Spirit is a three-day event designed for United Church ministry personnel and congregation members to connect, learn and share our unique ways of shifting with the rising Spirit.
Hear from three prominent leaders in our church who are working with the shift:
Discuss how to be effective “shift practitioners” with leaders from our very own conference:
Explore in workshops the impact and possibilities of expressions like:
With music leadership from Donna Dinsmore!
Cost to participate is $50 per person and includes lunch on Saturday and Sunday and dinner on Saturday.
Questions? Contact tduncan@bc.united-church.ca.
Schedule of events:
Friday, April 22
Saturday, April 23
Sunday, April 24
Review by Rev. Jeff Seaton
For all those who feel unsettled by the question of whether the stuff of ministry can be counted in a meaningful way, I recommend Gil Rendle’s latest book Doing the Math of Mission: Fruits, Faithfulness and Metrics, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014; this review is based on the iBooks version). The book is based on the context of the United Methodist Church (UMC) in the US, which currently uses so-called ‘dashboard’ measures to count such things as weekly worship attendance, baptisms, professions of faith, etc. While it comes from the UMC context, I think this book is readily applicable in a UCC context, as many of our challenges are similar. Continue reading →
Review by Rev. Jeff Seaton.
“The Business of the Church: The Uncomfortable Truth that Faithful Ministry Requires Effective Management” (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, May 18, 2010).
In The Business of the Church, John Wimberly takes on what he terms “the uncomfortable truth that faithful ministry requires effective management.” With twenty-five years pastoring a congregation in Washington, DC, Wimberly seems to speak from long experience about the consequences of ineffective management, and describes in very practical terms a way out of the mess, and into a more effective future for congregations. Continue reading →
This is a PowerPoint Worship Template with layouts that may be helpful in projecting your hymns and prayers in a church with poor lighting conditions.
Okay this is for Mac users (mainly because, and it causes me pain to say, it is much easier in Windows).
Every minister needs to read this new book by Malcolm Gladwell before they preach on the classic Biblical Tale of ‘David and Goliath.’ Gladwell points out that this is not a story about the underdog winning, but rather he had the advantage.
If you don’t have time to read the whole book then Gladwell’s Ted talk covers the ‘David and Goliath’ part. http://tinyurl.com/pey74cp
Invitation to the Old Testament: A Short-Term Disciple Bible Study by Abingdon Press
Presenters include Peter Enns Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Hermeneutics at Westminster Theological Seminary and James Tabor Professor of Christian Origins and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina.
I recently used this study with a group of 8 congregants as a way of introducing in-depth Bible study in a shortened format from the tradition 34 week Disciple course. The video is well executed and offers both theological and historical context for the study group.
Ralph
A new resource for worship is now available free at HymnSight.ca . This is a huge catalogue of photos suitable for use in worship. The thousands of slides were photographed by Ralph Milton for use at First United Church in Kelowna. All are copyright cleared for non-profit church use. They are now being made available to all denominations and around the world. In its first month of operation, more than 4,000 people from ten different countries visited the site. Continue reading →
“Religion Gone Astray” by Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon and Imam Jamal Rahman is the follow up book of “Getting to the Heart of Interfaith”.
This book welcomes all to the the deeper dimensions of Interfaith dialogue, exploring that which divides us personally, spritually and institutionally. A very timely and easy to read book. The two books together would make a very interesting book study.
Lorraine Powell
