Steve Lawson
This past weekend, I was privileged to preach at Grace AC Church in Walterboro, S.C., since Pastor Doug was away on a well-deserved vacation with his family. Karen and I met there on Saturday and celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary and Father’s Day with the church family. As we gathered together for Sunday school and worship, it was great to know that no matter where we go, we have a family to join for worship.
Our senior staff recently evaluated the 2017-2020 Strategic Plan, as the year-and-a-half mark of the three-year plan approaches. It was a valuable exercise as we determined how each of our departments were meeting their goals or even if some of them needed to be revamped. For the most part, each of our areas were either on target or above for meeting or accomplishing their goals.
Looking at the critical areas of Leadership Development, Church Health, Home Missions and International Missions, our desire to be supportive and helpful to churches as we work together as a denomination continues to be the main objective. However, our denominational structure and independence can create a challenge in forming pathways for ACGC to help churches become healthy, reproductive and developing leaders for pastoral and missional work.
It has been a month since leadership conference and I wonder how things are going for our participants. We made it no secret that we wanted the conference to be practical and for everyone to leave with a plan for leadership development in their church. I know that most everyone had the opportunity to begin developing a strategy for leadership building and training could look like. I am interested in how things are going; if you would, please send me an e-mail about what you are doing (slawson@acgc.us).
ACGC and Berkshire Christian Announce Partnership to Address Leadership Crisis
Advent Christian General Conference (ACGC) and Berkshire Christian have announced the formation of a strategic partnership to address the most pressing problem in the recent history of our movement. The Berkshire board of trustees approved a partnership agreement at their May board meeting that allows the two institutions to collaborate to avert the impending leadership crisis in the denomination.
The current leadership situation is somewhat dire. Currently seven out of 10 Advent Christian pastors are at or near retirement age. Within the next five to 10 years we will need more than 150 new pastors. The Berkshire Christian board of trustees has determined that the primary focus of Berkshire Christian is to train pastors. Therefore, this new partnership offers a perfect alignment of vison, mission and values between ACGC and Berkshire Christian. The collaboration also allows for the most efficient use of capital, functional and human resources without costly redundancies.
President Dr. Glenn Rice and Associate Professor Rev. Dr. Gordon Isaac
The Berkshire Christian board of trustees met last week at Edwards Retreat House in Framingham, Mass. for the spring board meetings. They were great meetings with reports and updates from President Glenn Rice, Debra Welkley on Distance Education and other committees sharing our progress. On Friday afternoon, the board went over to the offices in Oxford, Mass. to view the progress made on streamlining and organizing after relocating the office. Matt Larkin joined the meeting as a leadership development consultant from ACGC. We continue to be excited about the opportunities for developing emerging leaders through our joint efforts to work in the denomination as pastors, church planters and international missionaries.
