Our recent Gathering 2010 was a great day of fun, worship, learning and being together as a community of believers in Jesus. One of the best parts was the stimulating interaction around tables after lunch about how to be a missionary in your own neighbourhood, the “gospel according to you”. Here’s the link to the pdf document, or see below for the full text of the responses shared in the discussions. Feel free to comment or expand on things!
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Tags: Culture, Gathering, missional, outreach

Here’s a great 40-minute video on “Missional Leadership” presented by Ed Stetzer, church planter/professor/guru of the Southern Baptist movement in the US. Ed’s got a lot of good things to say about how we lead and function as missionaries in our culture. He’s also got an interesting blog going, check it out for lots of current discussions on church and culture.

Missional Leadership from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

Tags: leadership, missional, Stetzer, video

On November 25, a special gathering of key BGCA leaders took place in Red Deer. Twenty- eight BGCA leaders representing eighteen of our twenty-seven churches, along with BGC Canada, Canadian Baptist Seminary, and Lone Prairie Camp, attended the summit. Several more wanted to come but could not make it. The goal was not to impose pre-conceived plans top-down and ask churches to change what they’re doing. Rather, the goal was to provide a forum for us as leaders to express the challenges we face and how we can collaborate to move ahead together. We collectively comprise the BGCA. Our main question was “Where to next?”.

To start, we noted the lack of any substantial net growth in baptisms, attendance, and church planting since 2002 in both the BGCA and BGCC. We face a widespread lack of passionate spirituality, mission, and disciple-making with a corresponding widespread resistance to change, which are both challenges and opportunities as a district. From one perspective the need for “repentance” was suggested. We spent time in prayer and discussion. We noted that each church faces unique contexts and challenges, that God is at work, that the pastor is the leader of the local church, and that overall we share some common challenges.
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Tags: disciplemaking, leadership, missional, youth

That’s a good question – any thoughts? Take a look at this video montage of ministry events in our BGCA churches over the last year or so and let us know what you think.

Tags: missional