Network of Ministry Innovators

I leave tonight for New Orleans. I will be there through Thursday morning taking part in the Network of Ministry Innovators Gathering. The meeting is an invitation only meeting at the expense of The Episcopal Church bringing together 30 people lay and ordained working in diverse settings within the denomination. To what end? It was described to me as follows:

The Network of Ministry Innovators is a gathering of leaders in our church who are offering creative ministry responses to our changing world. The focus of this gathering is on Evangelism, Congregational Vitality, Church Planting and Church Redevelopment. The objective is to create and develop a network that listens to what is happening both in our world, as well as in the church and responds faithfully to the Spirit’s leading. This networked group of practitioners will share their discoveries and “best practices” with the larger church in the hopes of creating resources and support systems that will nurture a fresh spirit of leadership and vitality. All of this is motivated by a desire to share the good news of God in Jesus Christ with the world at large, to see lives transformed and to birth fresh expressions of ministry.

So I will go and listen as we all seek to hear where the Holy Spirit is leading our Church, in the larger denominational sense of that word, and then speak up as I feel led. It is an ambitious schedule of meetings that starts tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. with the last event beginning at 9 p.m. and a similar (sometimes later) schedule for the other days. It will be a time full of meetings, but also of prayer and worship, as we will worship together with The Episcopal Church's Black Ministries Conference meeting at the same time at the same hotel.

I don't know what God has for The Episcopal Church in this meeting, but I am honored to be invited and look forward to getting back together with the few others I already know and meeting the rest of the group tapped by the denomination as innovators in there varying settings. This blog will continue on autopilot with daily posts scheduled to upload each morning at 5 a.m.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor