On both Monday and Tuesday we experienced great hospitality from both Willow Creek and Granger Community Church. It has really been a great trip. We are headed back to Kansas City this morning – some more debriefing, brainstorming and networking on the bus is coming up. Our bus pulled up to Granger yesterday morning after […]
Category: leadership
Early this morning, I am headed off on a road trip with 28 other staff from Resurrection. You guessed it, time for the fall 2007 senior staff retreat! Twice a year there is a retreat for ministry director level staff (a particular level in our organization chart – link to PDF). It is usually a […]
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Leadership Institute 2007
Next week the festivities of Leadership Institute 2007 start here at Resurrection. This will be my second year to be here during the event and my first year to lead a workshop. I will be leading a workshop titled “Anchored in Faith: Liturgy and Healing.” In this workshop, we will explore the different types of […]
Yesterday was a good day at the School of Congregational Development. Kirby John Caldwell spoke at the first plenary session about the vision that Windsor Village UMC has for the future. I found him to be an engaging speaker and very enthusiastic about the local church. The next session was for the particular ministry track […]
Resurrection is hosting the School of Congregational Development (SCD) 2007 which begins today. I am taking part in the New Church 101: How to Start a Church Ministry Track. This is the second part of the training for potential new church start pastors of which I am a part. This training began with a week […]
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The Young and the Godly – Introduction
On Monday of this week, a co-worker drew my attention to this series from NPR, The Young and the Godly. From the website: In a year-long series, NPR brings you the stories of young religious leaders as they begin their first year of ministry in an era of increasingly diverse religious beliefs. We’ll look at […]
Sometimes I think there is a dichotomy that is set up between planning strategically for the future of a congregation and for allowing the free flow of organic growth or entrepreneurship. I believe that this is a false dichotomy. On Monday, I wrote a post about Avoiding Mad Church Disease that linked to an article […]
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I Am Not Indispensable
at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection and I hope that you are not indispensable at your place of employment. My wife, Nicole, brought this idea up to me and I think that she is right on. The true leadership of a congregation should be in the gathered people and not in any single […]
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My Issues are Leadership Issues
Along with the importance of portable traditions, another thing that I learned at the marriage retreat facilitated by the Soderquist Center was that many of the issues, problems and experiences that I have as a pastor are not clergy issues, they are leadership issues. Sometimes I find myself naming my role as a pastor as […]
As part of the strategic plan to revitalize existing Kansas Churches a report was given about two areas where the Annual Conference is working to make progress. Church Transformation Survey A Church Transformation Survey was sent out to congregations of the Annual Conference. The hope is that this continued process will give us the ability […]
The Certified Lay Minister Program of the Kansas Area in Partnership with the Center for Church Leadership and Kansas Wesleyan University passed. The training will include 12 college hours taken over three to four years. I think that this program will be a good one of revitalization of congregations in providing for the leadership for […]
I try to keep up on news within the United Methodist Church through RSS feeds from UMC.org, particularly the feed for United Methodist News (RSS link). I have recently been encouraged about hope for the future of the denomination in effective ministry as a part of God’s Kingdom through several articles. Plan would pave way […]
Rev. Andrew Conard 