I have been designing a retreat for a local church on listening to God’s call for their church. I will share the outline in two blogs.
Session One
9:00 Scripture & Prayer:
Scripture : Exodus 19:5-6 & Matthew 28:18-20
Sentence prayers regarding God’s call for our Congregation.
9:10 Introductions and Outline of day
Personal Introduction
Share assumptions re church, God’s call, and Leadership
Church is the Body of Christ
God participated in your call to leadership
God is most fully present at the points of challenge & difficulty.
Our challenge is to learn how to listen to what God is saying.
Three tasks in introduction:
Introduce self in two sentences.
Name one to two gifts you see in another Elder present. (Maybe assigned)
Name an “underused gift” you see in this congregation.
9:55-10:10 Brief Break
10:10 Listening to God
Introduction on assumption regarding God’s revelation & Scripture & Liturgy
10:15: Step one: Most leaders are fairly aware of some of the major challenges facing a church but often they don’t name them clearly. These can be organizational issues, problems with upset members, failure to attract new members, financial problems, lack of commitment, etc. but they are total church issues. I want you to identify 2-3 major issues facing your church on a card. Just use a word or two to identify.
Leader makes list on Board & by consensus reduce down to 5 issues.
10:40 Step two: You are the leadership of this part of the Body of Christ. God has invited your church to participate in God’s journey and invited you to provide leadership in that endeavor. So the question is: what is God trying to say to this church as it faces these issues? That is, “What is the faith question behind the issue named? This is not a problem solving discussion. Rather, you are trying to identify the faith questions that are evident in this church community facing these specific issues. Review the five issues named and consider the faith question that is present. In some cases there may be more than one but try to identify the central one.
Work first as individuals and then as a group.
Review the possibilities and try to agree on a central faith question raised by each issue.
Explain next steps and conclude first session with prayers of thanks for God’s care for this congregation.
