May Small Membership Churches enewsletter - Reverend Micki McCorkle of The Great Plains Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church for Tuesday, 12 May 2015

May Small Membership Churches enewsletter - Reverend Micki McCorkle of The Great Plains Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church for Tuesday, 12 May 2015

VBS Interns 2015 will be on a ROAD TRIP of God adventures in faith & fun!

Summer is soon upon us and eight Small Membership Church Ministries VBS interns will be out and about, helping to lead VBS in 23 small congregations. The curriculum this year is a homegrown, marvelous curriculum: Road Trip: God Adventures in Faith & Fun! It looks at Paul’s journeys and some of the ministry partners he had alongside the 3 mission partnerships of the Great Plains Conference with Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Haiti. Please pray for this ministry and the interns now and throughout the summer!

Good news for all:
The basic curriculum will be available to all churches in the Great Plains for a nominal fee so you can do it in your own churches in 2016!
Small Wonders 2015

The planning for Small Wonders 2015 is going well! We are excited to be having our 2nd annual learning event for those in congregations with fewer than 75 or so in worship. Join us October 2-3 in Holdrege, Nebraska. (Holdrege is 30 miles southwest of Kearney, Nebraska, and 112 miles north of Hays, Kansas.) As we focus on the theme of worship we will have quality worship, workshops on various aspects of worship including: how to do good video projection for low cost, designing the worship space on a shoestring, what to look for in a projector and laptop, preaching for the 21st century in the small church and much more!
If you have a topic you would like to see covered in a workshop, please email Micki McCorkle.
Download a flier. There will be more information and online registration in the coming months.
Resources from the web
“When a church wants a pastor who can ‘bring in young families…’”
https://achurchforstarvingartists.wordpress.com/2015/02/19/when-churches-want-a-pastor-who-can-bring-in-young-families/
This article from 2013 about the elements of a healthy small church is a good one.
http://newsmallchurch.com/the-elements-of-a-healthy-small-church-and-the-hidden-agenda-that-can-kill-it/
Especially the reasons to have a strategic plan or to have a discipleship system which need to look something like this:
Worship – to tell Jesus how much we love him
Discipleship – to help us become more like Jesus
Fellowship – to love each other more
Ministry – to meet people’s needs
Evangelism – to bring people to Jesus
Resources from others
Pony Express Stewardship program (years 1 and 2) is available for free from Wahoo United Methodist Church. For more information, contact Sue in the Wahoo church office at office@wahoomethodist.org or 402-443-4219.

Rev. Micki McCorkle
Small Membership Church Coordinator
9440 E Boston Suite 110
Wichita Kansas 67207 United States
800-745-2350 or 316-684-0266
Cell: 316-210-3996
Fax 316-684-0044
mmccorkle@greatplainsumc.org
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