Posts Tagged Wesleyan
General Conference!
Both Cristin and I have survived the quad-annual event called the General Conference of the Wesleyan Church. It was exciting to go through and I must admit that it was a lot of fun!
We left Sioux Falls on Saturday, June 7th via Allegiant Air. The flight was a direct flight from Sioux Falls to Orlando and it was a great flight! The only thing that was slightly annoying was that they do these raffles mid-flight – but other then that – everything was great!
We arrived in Orlando then drove the 50 minutes to the Condo where we were staying. It wasn’t the best condo we’ve ever stayed in – but once I wiped up all the ants on the floor and the toilet – it was okay.
On Sunday we went to the church service and saw all the people. I’m not sure how many where there, but I can tell you that there where far more gray-hairs then there were mohawks! In fact, I think my little faux hawk might have been the only one I saw. I saw a few men and women my own age, including some great friends like David Drury and John Blake, but for the most part it was mostly aging Baby Boomers and retirement-minded Silents who were at this conference. That’s something that totally needs to change!
After Sunday Church service, Cristin and I decided to bail and we went spent some time talking with my parents – it was a great time and we totally enjoyed it! We then went back for the Oklahoma Wesleyan University Meetup and Cristin and I both got our free T-shirts as well as we each got $2,000.00 scholarships to give to someone who wants to go to Oklahoma Wesleyan University next year! If you know of someone who can use this – let me know!
Monday came around and Cristin went shopping with my Mom and Dad and I went back to General Conference with Grandma and Grandpa Calhoun. I really enjoyed spending time with the Calhouns and I am so thankful for the spiritual heritage that they have passed down to me! What a blessing that is!
Monday at General Conference was all business. I loved every minute of it and I hung on every word that was said! It was exciting to see all these people gathered together to work towards making the denomination that I love even better! So great to see this!
I would say that the highlight of Monday was the election of Jo Ann Lyons as the new General Superintendent! That’s right – a woman was elected to help lead our denomination! If you don’t know who Jo Ann Lyons is, just take a look at the work that she’s done with World Hope International! She is a dynamic and fiery woman who God has blessed and who has the leadership abilities to guide our denomination into the future! Very excited about this!
That was General Conference for me. On Tuesday, rather then going to the conference, instead Cristin and I took off to Disney’s Animal Kingdom and had a great day! If you’re just dying to know what happened on Tuesday, check our Keith Drury‘s blog about the event!
Finally we’re heading back to Sioux Falls! The pilot told us when we got on that the weather in Sioux Falls was 62 degrees. That’s a little tough hearing after being in 95 degree weather for the last couple of days, but it’ll be good to be home!
So – that was General Conference. I’ll be at the next one – wherever that may be and I hope that some of the younger group will be there with me! Until next time!
FYI – if you want a better Synopsis of General Conference – you can check out Stevan Sheets website! He did a pretty good job summing it up!
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Intentionally Missional Seminar
Posted by John in Church 2.0 on April 8, 2008
I had the opportunity today to attend the Wesleyan Headquarters’ Intentionally Missional Seminar today at the Brookings Wesleyan Church in Brookings, South Dakota. All I could say that if you have the opportunity to go to the seminar – by all means go. Besides the opportunity to interact with other pastors, Jim Dunn and Phil Stevenson do a great job not just talking about being missional – but in addressing various concepts that are vital for the success of the church in today’s culture.
I walked away from the seminar with three main ideas that I thought I’d share with my lone reader.
Intentional
The first idea that I picked up on is that the church must be intentional in what it’s doing. Fairly simple concept to grasp, but the ramifications of what being intentional represents is something that bears discussion – maybe we’ll do that in a later post.
Authentic
The concept of being authentic is definitely not a new one – but rather it’s something that MUST be on the forefront of the minds of the church and it’s leader. It’s a far too slippery slope when our leaders and our churches choose to hide behind a facade of who they really are. Those who are not in the church can see right through that facade and that without a doubt turns them off! Again – bears discussion at a later time.
Stagnation
The final concept that I walked away from was the idea of stagnation. Odd that I picked up on this concept, but that’s what I heard. Stagnation is more than just a lack of growth – it’s the idea that things are not going to change and that things are not going to ever move forward. Again – more about this later.
There will probably be a few people who go to the seminar who are going to walk away completely unchanged. I feel bad for those people because they don’t get it and they more than likely never will. BUT – for those who can take the concepts that they learned I sincerely believe that something extraordinary will happen in their churches.
So, bottom line is that this was a seminar that presented material not for the sake of necessarily introducing new ideas, but rather it appears to have been designed to send out a message. A message that says that it’s time to get out of the pulpit and back into the streets where everyday people with everyday problems need to encounter our Living God.
Oh – one last thing – it seems that the speakers have stopped calling it the Wesleyan Denomination and are now calling it the Wesleyan Movement – I hope it’s true and not just a clever name change!
