New Coaching Group emerging for Church-based Cityreaching Leaders
September 6-8, 2006 -- Charlottesville, VA
This past Wednesday through Friday, thirty leaders met with their focus on advancing the cause of city transformation with the local church. Aproximately half were trainers and coaches with years of experience in both community and church transformation work. The other half were folks employed by their churches to work on city transformation in cities across the nation. Participants came from Seattle, Phoenix, Fresno, Boulder, Tucson, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Knoxville, Miami, Boulder, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Rockford, and Waco.
The event was called "Equipping Churches for Community Transformation." It was hosted jointly by Andy Rittenhouse of Knoxville's First Baptist Church and Amy Sherman of the Charlottesville based Sagamore Institute. The purpose of the meeting was to "...explore if there is something that should be done collaboratively to better and more strategically equip churches for passionate, effective and holistic community transformation!"
Community transformation was defined by Gary Edmonds in a pre-conference white paper as “a deeply rooted change in people’s spiritual, social, economic, physical, behavioral, and political conditions growing out of an encounter with the Triune God and resulting in their growing enjoyment of wholeness of life under the will and ordinances of God.” During this time together, these leaders reviewed a number of opportunities for advancing community transformation. After review, they took a forward look at what could accelerate this movement. The number one idea that arose was a team of coaches who would make themselves available to church leaders seeking to advance community transformation.
This is still in a very formative stage. A task force has been formed to firm up how this coaching team will be formed and what services will be offered to local church leaders. The task force is composed of Andy Rittenhouse, Amy Sherman, Gary Edmonds, Skip Long, Jay Van Groningan, Phil Olson, Heidi Unruh, Eric Swanson, and myself. We will be reporting back to the participants from this forum by mid-October.
This meeting could have significant implications for the upcoming 2007 City Impact Roundtable in El Paso. I see training and coaching as key to the future success of community transformation movements in our nation.
This past Wednesday through Friday, thirty leaders met with their focus on advancing the cause of city transformation with the local church. Aproximately half were trainers and coaches with years of experience in both community and church transformation work. The other half were folks employed by their churches to work on city transformation in cities across the nation. Participants came from Seattle, Phoenix, Fresno, Boulder, Tucson, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Knoxville, Miami, Boulder, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Rockford, and Waco.
The event was called "Equipping Churches for Community Transformation." It was hosted jointly by Andy Rittenhouse of Knoxville's First Baptist Church and Amy Sherman of the Charlottesville based Sagamore Institute. The purpose of the meeting was to "...explore if there is something that should be done collaboratively to better and more strategically equip churches for passionate, effective and holistic community transformation!"
Community transformation was defined by Gary Edmonds in a pre-conference white paper as “a deeply rooted change in people’s spiritual, social, economic, physical, behavioral, and political conditions growing out of an encounter with the Triune God and resulting in their growing enjoyment of wholeness of life under the will and ordinances of God.” During this time together, these leaders reviewed a number of opportunities for advancing community transformation. After review, they took a forward look at what could accelerate this movement. The number one idea that arose was a team of coaches who would make themselves available to church leaders seeking to advance community transformation.
This is still in a very formative stage. A task force has been formed to firm up how this coaching team will be formed and what services will be offered to local church leaders. The task force is composed of Andy Rittenhouse, Amy Sherman, Gary Edmonds, Skip Long, Jay Van Groningan, Phil Olson, Heidi Unruh, Eric Swanson, and myself. We will be reporting back to the participants from this forum by mid-October.
This meeting could have significant implications for the upcoming 2007 City Impact Roundtable in El Paso. I see training and coaching as key to the future success of community transformation movements in our nation.
posted by Glenn Barth at 10:12 AM
