Churches Embark on Evangelism Training
As the group gathered online, Terri Farmer (facilitator and The Foundation for Evangelism’s grants coordinator) greeted attendees from the 11 churches as lively music played in the background. The Fall Faith-Sharing Congregations Training (formerly Thriving Congregations Local Church Cohorts) began on September 10, giving these churches an 8-week intensive training in faith-sharing and evangelism in the Wesleyan tradition. Mrs. Farmer shared this regarding the curriculum being taught in the training series:
“The 11 churches joining us this Fall for our restructured training series will be engaged in an immersive holistic experience, learning from several facilitators with many years of experience in effective evangelism. Rev. Drs Hal Knight, Jorge Acevedo, and Jack Jackson lead the charge, providing attendees with the framework to live out the journey of sanctification through faith-sharing and responding to their neighbors in love. Excitement abounds for what’s to come!”
The first session of the Fall training helped introduce everyone and provided the expectations for the 8-week series. Led by a training team with over 30 years shared experience in evangelistic ministry and training, these sessions will guide congregations through a Wesleyan understanding of evangelism and faith sharing. Participants are encouraged to reflect on and share their own faith story, while intentionally listening to the needs of their community to explore how their story, God’s story, and their presence can intersect and bring about transformation through the Holy Spirit. The training culminates in a hands-on workshop for developing a proposal for a grant to help congregations implement an initiative that reaches out to their community.
After introductions and some general announcements, Rev. Dr. Jack Jackson opened the session with some words of encouragement.
“I’m just so excited about this time! You’re going to be joining in at the culmination of work that has been going on for months to prepare this seminar in a way that we really hope will help each of your churches do the hard work of discerning, forming, and then living out ministries that not only do the good work of the Gospel, but also share the Gospel Story that gives us the motivation for what we do. We really believe that this practice of linking tangible service and telling the Good News matters so much. The world we live in is desperate to hear and see the Gospel in action.”
After learning more about what to expect in the upcoming training sessions, the attendees were moved into a small-group setting with the rest of their church team to have an introductory small-group discussion. Teams were asked to answer three questions and complete a fill-in-the-blank style statement to establish and agree on what their congregation currently does well, what they struggle with, and what they hope to grow in while attending the upcoming training sessions.
Renea Griggs, a member of the congregational team from Bethel United Methodist Church in Clarksville, Tennessee shared that they were looking forward to increasing their confidence in connecting the relationships they build with the opportunities for their neighbors to know and to follow Christ. Many other teams echoed the same desire to grow in similar ways throughout the training series.
As the very first session of the series concluded, teams were invited to reflect, respond, and prepare for the upcoming sessions. The group wished each other well, logged off the Zoom call, and went about God’s work in their communities.
