Executive Council Wrap-Up
The Executive Council Meetings went well last week and we appreciate the prayers for God ’s leadership through these meetings. Zoom meetings with close to 20 participants are never easy, but we are learning to work together to make it happen. During these meetings, we began preparing for the rescheduled Triennial Convention, which will be April 21-23 at the Garner Advent Christian Church in Garner, N.C.
Reassessing Home Missions
Planning for 2021 is hard because no one knows what the future will look like, especially during these difficult days. Even now we are having to re-evaluate our strategies and focus for the short-term to use our assets in the most critical areas. As we work with churches who are focusing on ministries in the “new normal,” we realize that talking about church planting during these times is difficult. Thus, we have stepped back from our focus in this area. Darren Bantz will no longer serve as Coordinator of Home Missions, but has agreed to work as a volunteer with Executive Director Steve Lawson to build relationships for future church planting and home missions ministries. The need to plant new churches in underserved and unreached areas of North America is still the most effective way to fulfill the Great Commission work of the denomination and it is vital to the health of those churches involved in the planting process.
MTI Continues to Develop
The expansion of Ministry Training Institutes (MTI) continues to increase and we plan to have MTI sites in all five regions by early 2021. Currently, we are on course to have as many as 35 students involved in the program in as many as six cohorts throughout North America and five students in an international program. This is exciting but also critical, as we hear of more Advent Christian pastors planning to retire in the next few years. As one superintendent said in our meetings, he “can’t go to his rolodex and find pastors names to give to churches looking for a pastoral candidate.” Please pray for the students in the MTI Program and for new students who feel the call to serve as pastors, missionaries and church planters.