Pastor's Conference

October 27 - 30, 2008

           
     Is your congregation ready to learn how to be faithful in the midst of ambiguity, conflict, and uncertainty and to support one another on the journey?
     Are you eager to help your church through the fundamental reorientation of identity that happens when congregations move from maintenance to mission?
     How do we minister in a society where many find God irrelevant while others misrepresent God in support of war and injustice, and many more pay lip service to God while living lives that are self-centered and self-serving?
     What does it mean to actually ‘practice our faith’ in such an environment? What practices are vital Protestant congregations reclaiming as they generate new life?
     What can we learn about the so-called ‘emergent church movement’, a growing network of congregations started by people under 40 for people under 40? Why does the emerging generation tend to be the least represented in our traditional congregations?
     Some of us want to do great things for God. Should we be expecting great things of God? In what ways does God actually intervene in our lives and in our life together?
     How do we overcome the ‘myth of the self-made person?’ How do we discern the manner and extent to which the communities we belong to shape us, form us, malform us, or transform us? (Beginning with the family)
     What would today’s church look like if it were no longer overmanaged and under-led? How can clergy and laity be partners so that ‘ministry’ becomes the work of the whole people of God?
     Where can we find the passion to overcome our inertia?
     These are scary and challenging times in which we live. 
     How might God be seeking to transform us that we might
fulfill God’s purposes during our brief journey on this planet?
     How do we bear witness in the ‘belly of the beast’?
     Our conversation will revolve around these questions.
                        Edward A. White

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  Conference Leader: Ed White

Ed White has been an Alban consultant since 1989. He brings insight and experience from a distinguished career that
began in an inner-city congregation in Manhattan, led him through participation in the Civil Rights movement, and then into
positions of leadership in the Presbyterian Church (USA) in the Washington, DC area. Throughout his ministry Ed has remained
committed to the challenges of equipping God’s people for healthy and faithful congregational life and ministry in the world.
An avuncular and encouraging presence, Ed White has spent his own long career as a consultant, giving him deep knowledge
of congregations and their leaders that benefits all who work with him.

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