Leadership Column: Session Update

The leadership column is returning after an August break!! Your Session and Senior Leadership Team (Pastors John and George and Jim McClure) spent a weekend together at the Pearlstone Conference Center in Reisterstown in mid-August to consider what changes need to be made in order to make Central more effective at making disciples across the next five years.

While discipleship or spiritual growth has always been at the core of our mission, there are several reasons for Session to take an aerial view of this issue at the present time. First, many people in our midst, coming to know Christ in our midst for the first time or reconnecting with the church, have much less familiarity with the Christian faith and the Bible than might have been true in the past. Second, we have wrestled with the question of whether we are a church with small groups or a church of small groups and whether a structured small group ministry is the principal vehicle for spiritual growth in our congregation. Third, as we have been blessed with growth in people and ministry, we want to make sure everyone in our midst is encouraged to grow in their relationship with Christ. We easily agreed as we met together that discipleship is the central calling of every Christ follower and that the Session is committed to providing an environment where each person is encouraged to attain spiritual growth and accountability through life-transforming relationships and spiritual practices.

We agreed to research and choose a spiritual growth assessment tool(s) that could be used repeatedly over time by individuals in the context of small groups or accountability relationships in order to help develop spiritual growth plans. Each Session member will use this tool to develop their own spiritual growth plan and share the results with several other elders before encouraging its use across the congregation. We charged John Sackett, our Interim Director of Small Group Ministries, to include celebrating, encouraging and resourcing the many diverse and organic groups within our congregation that have not been part of our formal small group structure. Fostering an environment conducive to transforming relationships and spiritual practices for all our members and friends will not be achieved through a one-size-fits-all small group model. We emphasized the need to ramp up leadership development and deployment in the area of spiritual coaching and will hold a leadership meeting on October 30th to share priorities and seek input in this area of discipleship.