Seeking Congregational Renewal: Presbytery Transformation Grant

It is with great pleasure that I announce that your presbytery leadership has finalized our grant application to General Assembly for a Presbytery Transformation Grant. Pending approval by General Assembly, this grant will help fund retreats, educational seminars, online training, personal coaching and demographic studies to be utilized by congregations to catalyze their efforts toward congregational renewal. These activities will be designed to benefit both ruling elders and teaching elders, as our conviction is that shared leadership for ministry is essential to congregational transformation!

            Our presbytery’s transformation grant application focuses on several themes:

1.      Promoting Congregational Evangelism – skill development for individuals, ideas for congregations, sharing the Gospel in Word through faith sharing

2.      Leading through Change – skill development for pastors and Sessions on steps required to lead a congregation in changing contexts, with adaptive rather than technical processes

3.      Cultivating Multi-Cultural Ministry – steps that encourage movement in the direction of becoming more multi-cultural as congregations, and what steps that stifle such movement

4.      Initiating Congregational Renewal – learning to evaluate one’s changing neighborhood, demographics and ministry challenges and concrete steps to take toward discussion, planning, and action

5.      Moving toward Missional Ministry – learning the theology and specific practices that help congregations move toward building community and compassion with and for their neighbors: mission + relational = missional

6.      Ministering to Millennials – learning the new cultural ethos of younger generations and how churches can respond in helpful ways relationally, missionally and, of course, technologically

The grant request to General Assembly is for $50,000 and is a matching fund grant. Our portion of the matching funds will be taken from our mission priority reserve account. We will use these funds to underwrite the aforementioned retreats, seminars, online training, coaching and demographic studies. If approved by General Assembly, transformation grant activities will begin in August in conjunction with the combined presbytery meeting, so…Stay Tuned!

Seeking to Row in the Same Direction,

Brad Munroe