What Should Vitality Look Like?

Perhaps recognizing vitality in your ministry context is easy.  Perhaps not.  Every church has an aspect of spiritual and organizational health, and developing those areas in order to maximize and maintain vitality – the fresh wind of the Holy Spirit’s movement – in your congregation can lead toward a more vibrant church community.  What church would say no to that?

Vitality Touchpoints, offered through the GLC Vitality priority, include seminars, retreats, facilitators and coaches which lend themselves towards strengthening what God is doing in your context.  Recently, Pastor Mark Nelson (Austintown, OH) requested a Touchpoint seminar to intentionally develop leaders.

Mark writes:  With thanks to Dave Brown (GLC Vitality Facilitator) and the Vitality leadership, we as a church were able to offer some leadership development that helped us discover how we look at strategic planning in the church. We used the Leadership Stool to help individuals on our board discover their leadership style. What was very helpful to our team was to take this information and begin to see how we as individuals look at casting vision and problem solving. We realized that most of us on the board are chemistry driven, meaning that relationships were our primary focus. What was additionally useful was how this helped us visualize what this looks like in the church as a whole. We see our relationships with each other as a big strength. Because this is a strength it helps us understand how we function as a church and to capitalize on it. At the same time we need to be careful that sometimes focusing on relationship can trump other ways of looking at problems in the church.

This is one pastor’s experience with a Touchpoint seminar and how a church is continuing to lean into being a healthier and more missional church.  Perhaps an area recognized as one of the 10 Healthy Missional markers could strengthen your ministry’s vitality?  Whether it is in developing leaders, organizational structures, or creating goals for the future, the GLC Vitality team can offer some options.  

The Fall Pastors’ Retreat will include a pre-retreat Vitality Day beginning the evening of October 27 (Sunday through lunch on Monday).  ECC Director of Vitality, Pastor Shaun Marshall, will be sharing insights with churches that are looking to maximize and maintain vitality.  There will be breakout sessions with GLC Director of Congregational Vitality, Pastor Shelley Kurth, Vitality Awareness seminars with other Vitality Coaches from across the denomination, and Reverend Shaun Marshall as well.  Come to the Vitality Day events if you have been through the Vitality Pathway and are looking for ways to refresh your awareness of vitality, if you are looking at beginning the pathway, or if you are simply wanting to find some nuggets of wisdom towards leading your church towards a stronger healthy missional community through customized Vitality Touchpoint experiences.

Register for Vitality Days by contacting Jody Eidnes at 734-451-4670, [email protected].

Contact Pastor Shelley Kurth ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a call to discuss Vitality Touchpoints and the Vitality Pathway.