Lay leaders receive evangelism training for congregational outreach & connections in their community
John Wesley famously pronounced, “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the Kingdom of God upon the earth.” The charter members of The Foundation for Evangelism’s board were of a similar mind, and continued to support and inspire lay-led evangelism initiatives over the past 76 years.
In 2024, The Foundation for Evangelism supported two grants specifically to empower faithful laity to preach the gospel and lead others in their congregations to do the same.
Certification for Laity Leading Fresh Expressions
The Adventurer’s Leadership Academy at United Theological Seminary received grant funding beginning in 2021 to support lay participants receiving a certificate in leadership for Fresh Expressions ministries. Between 2021 and 2024, 68 graduates (mix of lay and clergy) were certified. “The certification has helped prepare me for this ministry and shaped me mostly in that it has shown me multiple examples of what Fresh Expressions can look like…. which has been helpful to remember it’s listening to your community and finding out what do they need. It has also helped shape me just in meeting new friends who are interested in finding new ways to share God with the world,” shared Leslie Bowers at Northbrook United Methodist Church in Roswell, Ga.
Leslie Bowers“The [A.L.A] certification has reminded me that . . . sitting in pews is not the only way to meet God, and maybe not even the best way to meet God, certainly not for people who are unchurched in our world. [We’re] reminded that the ways that we share God is through loving people and meeting them where they are, having conversations, building relationship with them and letting them see God through us.”
Director of Worship Arts
Northbrook United Methodist Church, Roswell, Ga.
2024 Graduate of Adventurer’s Leadership Academy
Measuring for Transformation
Through a grant partnership with Reynolds Ministry Fund, and the Western North Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church, the Foundation for Evangelism hosted laity training sessions three times during the year. Sixty lay leaders representing 44 congregations participated in the in-person workshop held coinciding with the Western North Carolina Annual Conference Meeting. Two earlier trainings were held virtually, and all were based on the book and online course, Participating in Abundant Life by Rev. Dr. Mark Teasdale, a Foundation-supported E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Based on John 10:10 and Jesus’ parable of the Good Shepherd, the training invites laity to examine both their individual and congregation’s practices to address the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of their neighbors. The participants also received tools to provide a more wholistic set of metrics to measure transformation, rather than just activity.
“For decades, denominations have struggled to develop metrics and assessments that measured ministry effectiveness. While there definitely were individual and community transformations included in these numbers, more often than not these metrics measured activity and just busy-ness”
Rev. Dr. Heather Lear
Vice President for Grants
Rev. Dr. Heather Lear, the Foundation’s vice president for grants, co-led these trainings with Dr. Teasdale. Her time as a pastor in a local church, as a denominational director of evangelism, and adjunct professor and co-leader of online evangelism courses to clergy and laity, has given her valuable insight into guiding congregations to develop evangelistic strategies that cultivate transformation.
In consultation with Dr. Teasdale, Dr. Lear has also guided the Foundation in re-framing its own metrics for reporting grant impact around transformation and abundant life. This approach encourages grant recipients to evaluate impact through a more wholistic lens and to tell stories of transformation in a new way.
