General Assembly News - Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Learning communities help open mindsBy Tanya J. TylerFive learning communities were the backbone of a revampedlearning experience at the 2013 General Assembly. A corelecture on Sunday was followed by panel discussions onMonday and workshops Tuesday with a Wednesday wrap upsession for networking and reflection.The Missional Transformation trackhad sessions on buildings and how touse them to reach out to thecommunity. Rev. Arthur Hill ofMidway Hills in Dallas, Texas, andRev. Laurie Feille from Minneapolis,Minn., shared their stories of givingup church buildings, worshipping in aspace with two other congregationsand being creative with their spaces.Roda Grubb of First in McAllen,Texas, has a “Tribe of Dan” ministry,which enhances the worshipexperience visually by season, song,sermon and scripture. “It gives thecongregation a more visual way ofengaging,” she said. She chose thearts/media track. “We went to learnhow to widen our worship scope, andI learned our church is on the righttrack,” she said.Angela Pfile of Evergreen in Athens,Ga., also attended the arts track.“Just being around people going,‘Oh, you can do all these differentsorts of things’ made me realize I cando anything I want,” she said.“I did lectio divina,” she said. “It wasmy first experience. It was wonderful.I learned how to be silent and let Godreally speak to me. I really felt andheard God. This has taught mesilence is golden and I must be stilland know that God is real,” saidShadyne Williams from Memphis,Tenn.Williams looks forward to findingopportunities to share. “I’m going totake this back to my church and useit in women’s ministry and newmembers’ ministry and with ourelders,” she said.Stewardship track participant GlenAlsobrook Jr., moderator of the boardof First in Decatur, Ga., said he wasgoing to encourage his congregationto craft a narrative budget when hereturns home.“We’re talking about story,” he said.“We’re talking about the mission wewant to do. I learned not to getbogged down in the details of howmany paper clips you buy and howmuch pizza our youth group eats.This is about the big picture.”In this same module, Rev. Dr. DonGillett of East Second Street inLexington, Ky., spoke about Sabbathkeeping.“We talked about how to goabout creating this culture of sabbathin a congregation. The leaders haveto be involved. We need rest andrecreation and personal time withGod.”Prayer Meeting in the Spirituality TrackBy Rev. Dr. Timothy JamesWe are very grateful for the response to the invitation to prayer.Rev. Dr. Dale Braxton, associate regional minister for Alabama/Northwest Florida, and Rev. Dr. Alex Fletcher, pastor of UnityChristian Church, Fort Meyers, Fla. were gracious leaders in thisprecious and powerful service of prayer, testimony and praise.More than 100 were in attendance. There were confessions and“Sometimes we put the chairs in theround,” Hill said. “We put them in atriangle when we were talking aboutjustice – seeing the other. Space canbe defined by the message ratherthan the message by the space.”During the wrap-up on Wednesday,participants discussed importantquestions such as, “What might mycongregation need to let go of inorder to be more missionally engagedwith our community?”“We have to let go of being reluctantto share our building with outsidegroups,” said Jay Johnson ofLitchfield, Ill. “One of our parishionerssaid, ‘we let our insurance policy setour agenda.’ It really stifles our senseof outreach and mission.”The Sacred Conversation learningcommunity used several models todiscuss questions about the roles ofLGBTQI persons in the church; unity,war and peacemaking; andimmigration. Conversational modelsare available in the toolbox posted onthe General Assembly webpage:www.discples.org/gatestimonies that came out of a holy spirit of openness and gratitudeto the goodness and presence of the Lord. There was aspirit of faithfulness, hope, love and fellowship. Rev. BrendaCardwell, of the Capital Area, led us in “I Know What Prayer CanDo.” We had a good time in the Lord and we exercised our themeto the maximum. God is to be praised.CHRISTIAN CHURCH DISCIPLES OF CHRIST | JULY 13-17, 2013 9