Learning Cohort Opportunities

How can I encourage and disciple my church to engage in joining God in His mission? What does evangelism look like in a post-covid, post-modern, divided, and polarized world – both in and outside the church? Can we actually get to know our neighbourhood and our neighbours? People haven’t come back to church – why? Where do we even begin to engage, understand, respond and be the salt and light in the world Jesus calls us to be?

There is so much uncertainty in our world today, yet so much opportunity. Churches and ministry teams are thinking hard about how-now do we engage both the people in our churches, and the Nones*, Dones*, and Ummmms*, in our very changed world. If you are uncertain or discouraged, or feeling like the giants in the land are too big to tackle and you know not what to do, then let us encourage you to take a look at these great Learning Cohort Opportunities to Re-orient around the Mission of God from Forge Canada, The Missional Network and The Centre for Missional Leadership. Both Cam from Forge Canada and Tim from the Centre for Missional Leadership were presenters at our CBWC initiative last year: Re-orient: The Church after Covid.

The Neighbourhood Project

“There is no more business-as-usual for our churches. The Spirit of God is calling us to join Jesus in our neighbourhoods.”

The Neighbourhood Project is the place for you as a leader to be equipped in
forming a community of faith that is discerning God’s presence and joining
Jesus in the neighbourhood.

Three of our CBWC churches participated in The Neighbourhood Project last year along with churches from several traditions.

Click to access Neighbourhood-Project-Flyer-Spring22.pdf

The Leadership Project

The Leadership Project will help you step into a different way of leading through learning new practices that connect you with what the Spirit is already doing among your people.

Click to access Leadership-Project-Flyer-May22.pdf

Centre for Missional Leadership

This opportunity is most fruitful when taken together with a team from your church.

https://www.standrews.edu/cml/certificate-in-missional-leadership/

Two CBWC churches were part of the first cohort. Here is the feedback of one of 8 participating leaders at Strathcona Baptist:

“My imagination got deeper and wider for possibilities for our own church. The diversity of EXCELLENT speakers was a huge gift to the time! How encouraging to hear from such a diverse group of people on these different topics. I was quite blown away each time at the quality and thoughtfulness of the speakers. The homework assignments and prompts to talk to my neighbours were impactful. It was so good to hear perspectives on our church from people outside the church!”

Engaging Mission with Coaching and Cohort Opportunities

Wow! Fall is looming up before us already and most of us are making plans for how we can be salt and light, the Church, in our neighbourhoods in this next season, whatever it may hold for us in the ongoing changing landscape of life disrupted by a pandemic and other world events!

It also means deadlines for engaging in some of the amazing opportunities and pathways available to you and which you can read more details about HERE including the contacts for registration.

This past year (September through March) two of our CBWC churches participated in the Year One Course From the Centre for Leadership Development – “Forming and Reforming Communities of Christ in a Secular Age. One of those churches was where I attend. Five of our leadership team took part in reimagining engaging in mission right in our own area. This has benefited us greatly in understanding together how we can move deeper in shared practices within our church community and engage more relevantly and meaningfully by discovering where God is already at work bringing his presence, his shalom, into our neighbourhoods. The good work we did in that course and the consultation with Tim for our whole Leadership Team (board, elders, staff) is now being fleshed out with a larger group of our folk as we endeavor to discern together how God is forming and reshaping us to engage in his mission. Registration is open now for a mid-September start!

More than a decade ago when I was an Associate Pastor at another church, I brought some our leaders to an event brought to Victoria from The Forge Missional Network and facilitated by our own Cam Roxburgh (who I did not know back then). This opportunity was sponsored by our City-Wide Ministerial, and leaders from a wide range of churches and denominations in Victoria attended this workshop/course Friday and Saturday. It changed and began to reshape my understanding of evangelism, discipleship and mission, and gave words to what had been a growing passion in myself and the leaders who attended with me. Fast forward to today and we have The Discovery Project pathway to begin the conversation with your church and leaders. “Many leaders have gone through some missional training and are asking how they might help their people to “discover” some of the exciting opportunities presented to us as followers of Jesus in these difficult days.  The Discovery Project is one response to this question.”  Registration for this pathway is flexible as is church specific but don’t delay as space fills up!

For our churches who are already exploring what it means to be the Church in our day as missional engaged people, The Neighbourhood Project is here to help! This pathway brings together cohorts of groups to explore, equip and implement what the Spirit is leading them to. This pathway is filling up so fast, its now added a second and likely a third cohort and there is still some room so don’t delay!

Again, you can access more information and contacts for registration HERE

Don’t miss out on these great opportunities as we all desire to participate in the advancing of God’s kingdom here on earth!