Presbyterian Church Growth Conference

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in the 2^nd annual conference shared by the Presbyterian Church Growth Network (PCGN) at Knox Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati called “Finding Courage Leading Growth.” I’ve had the privilege of being part of the PCGN since its start.  The Presbyterian Church USA has been declining in numbers for more years than most of us have been alive. At the General Assembly in 2024 no information about what to do about this decline was shared. At least it was not shared with people who didn’t attend that General Assembly. A number of people around the country noticed this, and we found each other. We started having regular Zoom calls and created a Facebook page.  We then gathered at Park Ridge Presbyterian Church in Chicago to take the next step in our development and the PCGN was born. Last year we had our first conference in Englewood, New Jersey.

 Our main focus at the PCGN is to help congregations grow in mission, vitality, and people. We know the headwinds that we face. Some past groups who have advocated for growth have left the Presbyterian Church (PC(USA). We know that we have to build trust with other Presbyterians.

I have been on the Board of the PCGN since we’ve started. I know that I can speak for the rest of the Board to say that all of us are deeply committed to the PC(USA). We believe that Presbyterian congregations can flourish. We want this to happen.

The PCGN is committed to being a network of resources. We will not claim one model to help congregations grow in mission, vitality, and people. But we do want to share stories of congregations who are growing and resources to help congregations with particular issues.

The conference last week would not have happened without the leadership of Lisa Allgood and Josh Erickson. The hospitality of the people at Knox Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati was fantastic.

Jerry Cannon got the conference started with an excellent sermon on vitality. He mentioned often that spiritual growth brings numerical growth. He shared the acronym MEAE which he shared stands for Missional Ecclesial Adaptive & Experiential.

Shortly afterwards I attended a workshop on coaching by Brian Miller, who is President of Coach Approach Ministries. He talked about coaching as a collaborative conversation that helps someone think more clearly discover possibilities, and take ownership of their next steps

Josh Erickson, the extraordinary leader of the Board of the PCGN shared a talk on “Finding the Courage to Take the Next Faithful Step. IN his talk he shared the types of courage that leaders need to help their congregations continue to develop.

I spent most of Wednesday listening to Matt Mattson who is founder of “Between,” an inclusive global faith community. He shared a talk about the sacred connections between people. This space means everything. Since the conference I read his book “Sacred Connections.” I love the compassion he has for people and the desire he has for people to experience these Sacred Connections. His talk and workshop was the highlight of the conference for me.

I love hanging out with the people who attended the PCGN conference and especially hanging out with the board. These are my peeps. I don’t have to explain myself to them or share why it is important to be “all in” on growing our congregations in mission, vitality and numbers of people. 

Next year we’re gathering October 4-6 at Glendale Presbyterian Church in Glendale, California.

Until then I know that the PCGN will do our best to share resources and ideas that can help leaders in Presbyterian and other mainline congregations.

 

 

 

Leadership Institute at Church of the Resurrection

 

    Last week I had the opportunity to attend Leadership Institute at Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. I’ve had the opportunity to attend this conference every year for at least twenty years and have written about it in the past. This year I was able to take Kayla Flanagan, the Children & Youth Ministries Director at Chain of Lakes, and Destiny Anderson to Leadership Institute with me.

    I love this conference. I wish the PC(USA) had a church who would do this type of conference. I’m hoping that the conference that the Presbyterian Church Growth Network shares could become a similar type of experience for Presbyterians as Leadership Institute is for Methodists.

    The music at Leadership Institute is fabulous. At the beginning of worship their Praise Band leads music. It is powerful to have 1,300 people singing with all of their heart. That never gets old. Sometimes they make mistakes in terms of having microphones on and in the movement of slides. The fact that they make mistakes is probably reassuring to most of the people at the conference—and certainly is reassuring to me. Even Church of the Resurrection who is “sold out” to quality makes mistakes.

    This year Leadership Institute had a bit more intrigue as Adam Hamilton, the founding pastor of the church, spoke. The intrigue was not that he spoke; instead most of us were curious to hear his thoughts on running for Senate in Kansas while still serving as pastor at Church of the Resurrection. His role with the church has changed significantly since he announced he is running for Senate and would certainly change if he won his race.

   On Wednesday evening he shared a talk that had many stories about his running for office. One story that has stayed with me is talking about visiting the Great Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas. Cawker City, Kansas is a very small town, population of 457 as of the 2020 census. Adam shared how he had to encourage his traveling entourage to go out of their way to see the great ball of twine. And they did! He asked all of us to think about what the Great Ball of Twine is in each of our congregations. What is happening in our congregations or could happen that would compel people to drive out of their way to visit?

    The Great Ball of Twine at Chain of Lakes is our outreach to people who identify as spiritual refugees. At the church we think of a spiritual refugee as someone who has had ran into problems with congregations. Church has not worked for them. At Chain of Lakes we go out of our way to welcome people who have had hard experiences in other congregations. We welcome them, we extend hospitality in an extravagant way, we accept people where they are on their journey. It has worked! Of course, we have many people at Chain of Lakes who are not spiritual refugees. But it’s my experience that a person who is a spiritual refugee will drive a long ways and out of their way to experience what Chain of Lakes is offering.

    The workshops were excellent. In fact I would enjoy Leadership Institute even more if an additional day of workshops were offered. The speakers were good on Thursday, but the workshops on Wednesday were more helpful in ministry. I attended workshops on AI, on strategic planning, on supervision of staff, and one on their Kindness campaigns. I have many ideas that I’ll be bringing back.

    The final talk that our group heard shared by Magrey De Vega was one of the best talks I’ve ever heard at Leadership Institute. He talked about the teachers that each of us have. Three teachers he shared are our Inner Child, our Inner Elder, and our Shadow self. He set up two chairs and modeled what a conversation with each of these teachers would look like. For example, in having a conversation with our Inner Child what would we tell our self at five years old? What experiences would they have that we might share with them? And then what could we learn from our five year old self? What would that child say about some of the challenges that each of us are facing. Magrey acknowledged that for some people the emotional trauma of this conversation is too high. And indeed, some people had to leave the room while he was talking. The conversation with their five-year-old self is too hard. The same powerful conversations can happen with our Inner Elder and with our Shadow.

    Our team had to leave after Magrey’s talk, so we were not able to hear Adam Hamilton’s final talk. I look forward to watching it on replay. In fact people can purchase a replay of all of the workshops and the talks at resurrection.swoogo.com/sharechurchLI26/begin

One highlight of going to Kansas City is taking a tour of the neighborhood that I lived in when I was in 4th grade. My parents worked for Cross Lines and our family lived in Inner-City Kansas City, Kansas. This area is only twenty-five minutes or so from the church. I showed the group Stanley Elementary, the place where my family lived, the "housing projects" that are a hundred yards from where we lived, and the Methodist church in Armourdale (picture on the right) where my dad ran a day camp. The tour is like having a conversation with my 4th grade self!

    A special thanks to Church of the Resurrection for sharing Leadership Institute. I look forward to taking an even larger group from Chain of Lakes next year.