Every year, we have a mini-conference at North Point for all the Strategic Partners called n*rich. It is a time of encouragement, training and idea sharing for all of our churches spread throughout the country. I had a really great time catching up with everyone. I always try to have a few “takeaways” when I attend things like this, so here’s mine…
1. The last session was done my Carlos Whittaker. He runs the blog Ragamuffin Soul. He casted some vision for how we as ministers can utilize the technologies of web 2.0 in ministry. In fact, it’s the very reason I’m posting right now. My goals are to keep up with 3 things…
- regular posts on my blog
- regular posts on my twitter account
- participate in facebook more often
He talked with us about how we can “cheat time” by using these tools because when we actually meet face to face with people we can have deeper conversations since we have been keeping up with each other through these tools. We don’t have to waste time with “what have you been up to.” He also showed us how they can be used to connect with and appreciate our volunteers, teach people what we are learning and share our lives with people. It was very compelling, and I’m going to give it a try.
2. Andy Stanley did our very first session on assumptions. He said that our churches operate on a series of assumptions- some that we are aware of and some that we aren’t. The example he gave for groups was that we assume “closed groups are more effective than open groups.” It challenged me to spend some time thinking about my assumptions of Group Life and evaluate if they are correct or not.
3. In one of our round table discussions, Bryson Davis and Scott Mawdsley (married groups directors from North Point) joined us to share how they shepherd their leaders. They mentioned that they use a free tool called Jott to make notes of their leader meetings. I’m really excited about implementing this so that I can better document and keep track of what’s going on in our groups.
I’m really glad we went, and I think Group Life will be better at Athens Church because of it.
dude-how about a little love in the blog roll. I changed mine a while back to tylerreagin.com/blog. Good seeing you the other day and I realized how much I miss talking with you. Let’s get together asap.