epub annual report draft-yuu

• Minister of Education, Janet Henley
The 2015 Christian Education year was an experiencing God year!
It was about His work in us, around us and through us.
We began the Fall 2014 session with an all-church study on
Experiencing God Together, by Henry T. Blackaby and Melvin D.
Blackaby. Sessions were held on Sunday morning and
Wednesday evening with a total enrollment of 105. This study
pointed us toward our corporate life together and how the
quality of our individual relationship and walk with God
impacts the church's spiritual health and mission effectiveness.
Although our relationship with God is personal, it is not
private. In addition, the emphasis on the necessity of corporate
prayer did not go unnoticed.
We entered the Spring 2015 study session going back to
Henry Blackaby's original work on experiencing God entitled,
Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God. In
addition, our Wednesday night prayer meetings prior to the
class became Experiencing God prayer meetings as the focus
of the lessons became the focus of our praise and praying.
Our children, teens and college students studied versions of
the book specific to their age. One of the primary messages
of Experiencing God is that God is wanting to do through us
what only He can do; our responsibility is to remain in His
hands. God is the one with the agenda and the plan. He is
always working around us and as we watch, He shows us, and
when we see, that is His invitation for us to join Him in what
He is doing. (See Pastor's report as he tells the Experiencing
God story of the purchase of our new church van.) However,
keep reading, as this report contains other experiencing God
stories.
CPBC's Leadership Training Institute (LTI) Inaugural Class
Graduation was held on May 30, 2015! Last year my annual
report marked us as having finished 10 of 12 modules in LTI, a
2-year biblical leadership training program. In this report, I
am praising God for our completion of it and the well planned
ceremony that honored it. Rev. Dr. Kirk T. Houston, Sr.,
pastor of Gethsemane Community Fellowship Baptist Church,
Norfolk, VA, was chosen as our keynote speaker. In addition
to Dr. Houston other special guests included two LTI corporate
team leaders. Thirty-one participants marched forward in
humility wearing graduation gowns as they received their
certificates of leadership, turned their tassels and took their
seats satisfied that they had achieved a significant feat
toward their leadership development for the Lord's glory.