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In Brief: Covenanters Making News
CHICAGO, IL (September 5, 2008) - John Couleur, a longtime member of Winnetka Covenant Church, is seeking to help other Evangelical Covenant churches in the area by enlisting a coalition of volunteers from other congregations.
The volunteers must be willing to donate some of their time throughout the coming year doing various tasks that benefit churches as well as individuals.
“If we have 10 churches involved, and each church can send four to six volunteers on a given Saturday, we would have a team of 40-60 people each time,” Couleur estimates. “With that number, we can accomplish so much more to further God’s kingdom.”
Volunteers would work with struggling churches to help carry out activities that might include repairs to facilities, repairs to individual homes, tutoring, advising individuals in job searches, and helping people work through personal issues. Interested volunteers might also help churches set up recovery programs.
“In essence, we will become a support team that will help build up the struggling church in a variety of ways,” Coulter writes in note to church leaders. For more information, email Couleur.
Size of Churches: ‘Small Is the New Big’
IRVINE, CA – Following a year of planting churches in Bangkok, Thailand, NewSong Covenant Church pastor David Gibbons has changed his views of what constitutes the best size for a church.
“I visited other churches and discovered that the Evangelical Covenant denomination there (Thailand) had 4,000 people in roughly 400 churches,” Gibbons says in a lengthy interview with Leadership Journal. “It hit me. Back home, NewSong had about 4,000 people in four congregations. I saw four churches with 4,000 people versus 400 churches with the same number of people, and the question I felt God posing to me is, Who’s stronger?
Gibbons’ answer to that question has led his congregation to begin planting what he calls organic-sized churches. “Not house churches, but mid-sized,” he says. Mid-sized congregations, which he calls “verges,” have attendance of 30-300.
Gibbons questions the mindset that bigger is better. “Small is the new big,” he adds. “Big isn’t bad, but it’s overrated.”
To read the entire Leader Journal article, see Gibbons Interview.
Lauren Winner Featured Speaker at Learning Conference
SEATTLE, WA - Author Lauren Winner will be the featured speaker during Quest Covenant Church’s annual Learning Conference October 10-11.
Winner, author of Girl Meets God and Real Sex, will speak at 7 p.m. Friday on “Lessons from the Church Mothers.” She also will speak at 11 a.m. Saturday on “Male & Female He Made Them: Gender & the Triune God.”
The cost of the conference is $15 for general participants and $10 for students. Registrations, which can be completed online, should be made as soon as possible as space is limited.
Winner also is scheduled to speak during a chapel service at North Park University on October 1.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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