Pastors Week Workshops

Workshops are offered Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons during Pastors Week. When you register, please indicate which two workshops you are most likely to attend. All workshops are offered both Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons unless otherwise noted

Re-reading the Bible with Jesus in the center

Jennifer Davis Sensenig
Reading the Bible is neither easy nor widely practiced in our congregations.  Yet, the dynamic episodes of church history and the flourishing of Christian mission are always rooted in serious engagement with God’s word to us in scripture.  This workshop will offer a model for group Bible study, inviting adaptations for your particular setting.  

Reading the Bible with youth

Rachel Miller Jacobs
In this workshop, we will look at ways of reading the Bible that engage and transform junior and senior highers and their leaders. We'll look at intercultural Bible study possibilities, reading the Bible in preparation for worship planning and preaching, contemplative Bible reading, and Bible memory. Please bring stories of what's worked (and what hasn't) as well as the questions that are most pressing to you as you partner with youth in being formed by the Bible.

Hosting the stranger

Jim Loepp Thiessen
Jim Loepp Thiessen started the Gathering Church with the intention of engaging the neighbourhood they were called to serve. He will share what he has learned about serving others, why they do what they do, and what’s been most effective at building relationships with their neighbours.

Worship is the invitation to radical hospitality

Leonard Dow and Anne Hess
Jesus our Lord and Savior kept the appropriate tension between the greatest commandment(s) loving God (worship) and loving one another (mission/service).  In our experience at OCMC as in Luke’s gospel we understand that transformation of mind, body and soul in addition to transforming communities must include passionate worship and active mission.  Yet over the centuries the church response to this holistic yet challenging charge by our Lord is simply “no”, we will not.  Rather we have creatively separated our worship from mission/service into categories such as the sacred and the secular. 

Therefore far too often our response has been we will love God (worship) according to our own peculiarities (ethnically, socially, etc) yet paradoxically we are open to love one another and others (mission) according to the diverse context and needs, gifts, etc of those we are ministering too.  It is very rare however that we are intentional about bringing together both our theology of worship and our theology of mission thereby creating a holistic understanding for what some have named as Radical Hospitality.  Join us as we share our learning’s – the good the bad - over the years at OCMC!

“Ancient Future” Communion

Eleanor and Alan Kreider
The workshop will explore themes from the Kreiders' new book Worship and Mission (due to be published in October 2009).

• communion is a meal with multi-voiced worship
• communion, a holy meal for a holy people, builds community and welcomes the newcomer
• communion is a part of God's mission for peace and reconciliation

Becoming an anti-racist church

Cyneatha Millsaps, Bonnie and Chuck Neufeld
Becoming an Anti-racist Church means the gathered community must first understand that everyone has to give something up ‹ especially in areas such as tradition, preaching style, music preference, missions, power, etc. The gathered community of believers must be committed to hearing all sides of an issue before moving forward. Often issues are better served by sacrifice and humility than by requiring consensus.

Missional leadership: Ministry re-imagined, culture re-engaged A roundtable conversation

David B. Miller
Pastors who have embraced the missional church vision will discuss how that embrace has caused them to rethink their role and calling and what they have learned as they have sought to re-engage a our culture as witnesses to the kingdom of God.  The discussion will include - a frank discussion of missteps and positive developments, finding a missional mentor, challenges and changes to pastoral identity and tasks, navigating changes in an established congregation, and resources for ongoing nurture and development.  The conversation will be moderated by David Miller, Associate Professor of Missional Leadership Development.

Internet resources for pastoral ministry: Sharing favorites

Eileen Saner
The AMBS Library offers remote access to valuable full text journal articles and ebooks.  Come to the library computer lab to learn how to use these resources and also to share your own favorite web sites for ministry.

Becoming one financially

Beryl Jantzi
What responsibility does the church have in resourcing couples once the marriage ceremony is over?  This workshop will introduce you to marriage enrichment tools which can be used in small group settings to help engage couples on two key themes: Communication and Money. A study conducted by the Creighton University Center for Marriage and Family concluded that time, sex and money pose the three biggest obstacles to marital satisfaction.  Let’s talk about how the church can encourage couples to set time aside to talk about ways we view and use money. We’ll leave the other topic for another presentation.