Equipping 101

Equipping 101,our annual meeting for all leaders, is Sunday March 16 following worship in Mission Hall. Lunch will be provided. If you are a deacon, elder, small group, leader, or ministry leader- this meeting is for you! If you simply want to learn about some new exciting changes at WPC - this meeting is for you!

Through the years, churches like ours have gotten stuck in a committee-based system that came from good intentions, but in many ways hinders ministry. Writer Thomas Bandy says the modern main-line church structure is designed to make sure that people are informed about the church, enrolled as members, nominated for office, supervised and kept. While he feels in the New Testament the church was designed to make sure folks were changed by God, gifted, called, equipped and sent.

There is a tension, however, because we do need to keep programs running, bills paid, lights on, and maintain a structure for our common life. The Book of Order addresses this dilemma when it says that, Mission determines the form of structure and administration. All structures should enable the church to give effective witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the contemporary world. (G-9.0402a) And all structures shall be open to the possibility of change (G-9.0402c) In studying and working on this structure it was interesting to discover that the Book of Order actually opens many doors to new ways of doing ministry.

The new structure is not an attempt to make the old system work better. This is an attempt to transform the way we order our lives so that our leadership structure reflects who we are, how we best operate and actually helps us to equip followers of Jesus to answer God's call on their lives. And we just might become more Biblical and more Presbyterian in the process! I'm hoping that all our WPC leaders will attend this meeting. Please feel free to call or email me if you have any concerns or questions. I'll be posting parts of the new plan here on my blog before Equipping 101 and you can read about it in the 2008 Vision Brochure. Hope to see you then! Please RSVP to the church if you plan to attend
Steve