Hi Friends,
I love the values of NextGen Churches. We value:
1) Healthy Churches
2) Relationally and Strategically Connected Churches
3) Strategic, Cooperative Church-planting
4) Effective Leadership Development
We have an event coming up that might promote all four of those values over a two-day span. It is our annual Pastor and Staff Retreat. Some of the ways this retreat promotes our shared values are obvious: churches will only connect if their pastors are connected. Likewise, we will only start churches together if we hang out together sometimes. So Values 2 and 3 are pretty obvious. However, Values 1 and 4 are really the highlights of the Pastor and Staff Retreat.
Healthy churches are led and served by healthy pastors. One of the keys to healthy pastors is rest and replenishment. If you are a pastor, you are constantly putting stuff out there for others-more sermons, more counseling, more spiritual and emotional energy. Where do you replenish that? That's what the Pastor and Staff Retreat is for.
Effective leadership development is another part of the Pastor and Staff Retreat. This year's speaker is Steve Stenstrom. He is a former NFL quarterback who has been developing leaders for many years. I'm excited about what he will bring to the leadership table at the Retreat.
We are highlighting another piece of the leadership development puzzle this year too. The Pastors Retreat has traditionally emphasized just pastors. A few pastors bring their associate or youth pastor, but mostly pastors come alone. We believe the retreat will be more effective for your church team if you bring your team. So we are highlighting the "Staff" part of the retreat. We are scheduling time in the agenda for your team to get together. And since the Retreat is at our conference center at Silver Spur, the price is lower than you can get anywhere for a staff retreat.
One more change this year: Women on your team are invited. The Pastors Retreat has always been a men-only gathering. That has made sense, because all of our senior pastors in NextGen Churches are and have been men. However, most of our churches have women on the team, whether volunteer or paid. We want you to bring them this year. We'll have a separate housing wing for the women, and we want your whole team to be able to take advantage of the event.
I believe the opportunities ahead of us are great. Bring your team. Let's live the values!
Register today at: http://silverspur.com/Pastor2011.htm
Grace,
Brad Franklin
Transitional Director, Next Generation Churches
