The Resilient Church Academy with N.T. Wright is happening this August! Here are some reasons why this is exactly what you need in this next season of ministry!
#1- During this season ministry is increasingly happening online- and you need help!
Building and maintaining Christian community takes connection—and that’s harder than ever during quarantine. What if you could craft a digital presence that augments your efforts?
This academy track will teach you how to foster community and mission by blending digital tools and face-to-face interactions into consistent and meaning-filled experiences.
#2- You need ideas. You need help tapping into creativity and innovation in your church.
Why are creativity and innovation necessary for the church of the future? We are shifting from the information age into the age of creativity. With new problems come new solutions, and the church is called to respond to these needs appropriately.
This academy track will focus on learning what it means for Christians to embrace their creative calling in order to respond to the rapidly changing world.
#3- The world has changed and you need help reading the signs & knowing what to do
Contextual Intelligence (CIQ) is the ability to accurately diagnose a context and make the correct decisions regarding what to do. The Tribe of Issachar possessed this distinct kind of intelligence. In a time of great transition and change, they were able to accurately diagnose the context (“read the signs”), and effectively apply their knowledge (“know what to do”). In periods of rapid and discontinuous change, accelerating our CIQ will be more critical than ever.
This academy track will help church leaders prepare for a new world.
#4- The current season has completely disrupted your Church’s life, and now you need help knowing how to lead through the necessary changes.
You’re facing more change, more quickly than you’ve ever imagined. Learning how to facilitate values-based change is a critical component of missional leadership. Leading well at present requires understandings both of basic change theory and complex adaptation along with practical knowledge of how to employ both in parallel.
This academy track will help you engage this interplay thoroughly.
#5- The idea of Dinner Church has really grabbed your imagination, but you need help re-imagining your (larger) congregation as a movement of (smaller) dinner churches.
Not only is dinner church a workable strategy in various seasons of limited gathering size, it’s also an excellent path for mission, multiplication, and discipleship.
This academy track will explore how any congregation can become a connected network of dinner churches on a temporary, semi-permanent, or permanent basis.
#6- We’ve all experienced trauma over the past few months and the people in your congregation are no exception.
The pandemic has brought about immense loss, pain, isolation, and disappointment. 40 million people filed for unemployment and over 120,000 American deaths resulted from the virus, which is more than 40 times the amount of deaths than the September 11 attacks and more deaths than the Korea, Vietnam and Iraq wars combined.
It has also led to a spike in domestic abuse, a rise in addictions, and intense national reactions to racial injustice, among others. How is the Church – and what is your church – to respond to such pain, loss, and trauma?
This academy track will equip pastors, leaders, and caregivers to be a part of the healing process for so many – for people in our congregation, our community, and around the world.
#7- This season has meant pausing large worship gatherings and moving to house churches.
COVID-19 has taken away many traditional church gatherings. You need a way to continue to come together, no matter what size limitations you face.
This track of the Resilient Church Academy will teach you how any congregation can become a connected network of house churches on a temporary, semi-permanent, or permanent basis.
#8-You know you need to connect with your people on social media, but need help learning the basics of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more
The Pandemic has moved your church online and you’re not ready for it! You need practical training to get your social media accounts up and running.
This Resilient Church Academy track will give you the tools you need to help your church feel connected, provide opportunities for discipleship and open doors to serve people in your community that might never come to a traditional church service.
#9- You need help learning how to live into a “new normal”
Across the United States and beyond, the God who “makes all things new” is up to something. Amid a Christian landscape that looks and feels like a desert of decline, new oases of the Spirit are springing forth. Inherited congregations, with long histories, deeply rooted in their traditions, are experimenting with cultivating new expressions of their church. When these congregations commit to introducing new people to Jesus, forms of revitalization are taking place through a process of “re-missioning.”
This academy track will explore the theological underpinnings for missional renewal, as well as share practical tools, practices, and processes to help local congregations become a new kind of local church.
#10- You know this season is full of opportunity for those communities that are willing to step into it, but you are not sure where God might be leading YOURS.
Too many churches, wanting to be a blessing in their community, develop schemes and plans without listening deeply to the community or to the Holy Spirit. And then they wonder why their big idea for mission isn’t connecting with the people they hoped to engage.
Now, more than ever before, we need to learn how to listen with the curiosity, love, and compassion that Jesus embodied in his ministry. What if you gathered a team to intentionally listen in your community during these last weeks of summer? What might God put on the heart of your church and your people through a process of real listening? And might that increase the mission energy of your church as you move into the fall?
This Academy track will help you do just that!
#11- You know your church needs to talk about race and issues of racial justice, but you’re not sure where to start.
The protests following the killing of George Floyd and others have made race the central conversation in America. While you long for your church to reflect God’s vision for a loving, unified and diverse family, you’re unsure where to begin.
In this five-week academy track, you’ll participate in an honest conversation about race and learn how your congregation can face the divides in our country with love and unity.
#12- Church is happening online, and when we CAN get together, we CAN’T sing!
What is essential in our worship whether in person and on-line? How do we bring Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs when we are told corporate singing in an enclosed space could be lethal? How can we do worship with the constraints of context / culture/ tradition? … protocols & restrictions?
These Academy track sessions will help leaders develop and cultivate appropriate adaptation in our worship models, designs and focus in a pandemic / post-pandemic world.
#13- N.T. Wright. Do we need to say more?
How can a church overcome deep divisions? How can you face persecution and become more resilient? How do Christian leaders ‘lead’ in the face of opposition from within their own congregations?
These difficult questions were present for the church in Corinth, and they’re still with us today!
Our Resilient Church Academy Master Class will feature 10 lectures from Prof. N.T. Wright over three days on 2nd Corinthians. There will be time for Q&A with Prof. Wright!
