Church Development

Not only do Christians need personal development for their spiritual lives; churches as a whole also need to be empowered for growth. Empowering Churches has five critical seminars to help churches in your corporate development. Click on any of the following titles for a description of the seminar or workshop.

C1. Setting the Church Free

C2. A Process for Christian Discipleship

C3. Community Transformation

C4. Church Strategic Planning

C5. Church Consultation

 

Email empoweringchurches.my@gmail.com to arrange a date for a seminar.


C1. SETTING THE CHURCH FREE

Has your church experienced seasons of apparent advancement but only to hit a wall that sent you reeling back? This has not only happened once or twice; a pattern seems to be emerging from these repeated cycles. If this describes your church it is a clear sign that something is not right with its spiritual heritage. To breakthrough and advance, your church needs to be set free from its spiritual bondage.

In this seminar you will be shown how individual sins affect the corporate church, and how corporate sins can keep the church in bondage. However, understanding is only the beginning. There are practical steps to take, like researching into the history of the church; including its beginnings and significant events that have positively and negatively impacted the church.

To do this effectively, you will be introduced to a method of doing research that will give you spiritual insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the church; blessings which you can rejoice over and sins which you are to repent of.

This 6-hr seminar is primarily targeted for church leaders. The sessions will include a time of corporate prayer to set the church free.

(Reference materials include Neil Anderson & Charles Mylander’s Setting the Church Free & John Dawson’s Healing America’s Wounds)

 

C2. A PROCESS FOR CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP

The Church is about the Great Commission, and the Great Commission is about making disciples (Mt 28:19-20). Most churches have that as their goal, but many churches do not know how to get there; because they do not have a process.

Building a car requires a process. Treating a simple wound requires a process. Making disciples most definitely requires a process. It may not be as technical as manufacturing a car but it is certainly just as challenging (if not more so; because it cannot be automated). Churches must have more than a goal to make disciples; it must have a process to make disciples.

This seminar is for church leaders who are convinced that the church’s main goal is to make disciples and want to learn how to develop a process to do that. You may either adopt the process that is presented or you may develop your own with the principles provided in the seminar.

Developing a Process for Christian Discipleship is not the end of the “process”; the second part of implementing the Process is probably the tougher part. But the good news is that your church will at least have a process to work with.

(Reference materials include Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church & Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger’s Simple Church)

 

C3. COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God is more than saving souls; it is about changing lives. It is more than just changing individual lives; it is about transforming the world. This seminar aims to tell you what community transformation is all about and why the Church needs to be involved in it. As this is an introduction to a very big subject, we will only touch, a little, on the how to whet your appetite to get involved in community transformation.

The topics covered includes, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Community Transformation and The Role of the Church. We will study what the Bible has to teach us, and glean from the findings of researchers and practitioners. We will watch a couple of videos to inspire us. As this subject will be new to many, there will be time for questions and answers. Last but not least, we will make time to pray for God’s agenda for your city (His city).

During the seminar, I will share with my our own introduction and journey in community transformation that began in Penang.

(Reference materials include George Otis’ Informed Intercession, Peter Wagner’s Breaking Strongholds in Your City, Robert Linthicum’s City of God, City of Satan)

 

C4. CHURCH STRATEGIC PLANNING

There is a lot of truth to the adage, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.” This is not only true at the micro level; it is even more critical at the macro-level. To say that churches don’t plan at all would be untrue. If they didn’t they wouldn’t have their Sunday services and the many programmes running year in-year out. However, what most churches fail to do is to carry out strategic planning—the “big-picture” planning. It is only when we have the big picture in mind that ministries can be carried out in concert with the overall direction and philosophy of the church.

This 6-hr seminar will give you a basic introduction to the What? Why? & How? of Church Strategic Planning. It will include training in the more familiar areas like vision casting, less familiar areas like developing a philosophy of ministry, and even less heard of areas like determining the church’s (organisational) core values.

Many have criticised such exercises in strategic planning. They assert that the church is a spiritual entity; not a secular one. The concern is appreciated, but not to be taken too seriously. The church is spiritual, no doubt, but it is also an organisation. It is a spiritual organisation, and care should be taken to integrate the organisational and the spiritual aspects of the church. Jesus did that—and so should we. The calling of the 12 apostles who would be trained to succeed Him was strategic planning in practice. Spending a whole night in prayer before he appointed them was spirituality in practice. Pastors and church leaders need to learn to do that.

(Reference materials include Aubrey Malphurs’s Advanced Strategic Planning, Michael J Quicke’s 360-Degree Leadership & Gary MacIntosh’s One Size Doesn’t Fit All)

 

C5. CHURCH CONSULTATION

There are many reasons why pastors and church leaders need to, at least, get informal advise, and even engage in formal consultation, from a seasoned pastor or church consultant. There is certainly a need if the church is in decline or has plateaued, or wants a breakthrough to the next level.

Depending on the area where consultation is needed, the process will certainly involve prayer and discussion with church leaders. Very likely it will include interviews with key people, surveys to evaluate the health of church ministries and the church, studies to determine road blocks, problems & conflicts, and recommendations of action plans.

While this is not a seminar, there will be times when teaching will be necessary to present a model for a healthy church, so that the church and its leaders will have a benchmark to measure against. A critical criterion for a successful church consultation is that the church, and especially the pastor and leaders are willing to change.

For more, click here to get to the page on Empower.

(Reference materials include Gary McInosh’s One Size Doesn’t Fit All, Thom Rainer’s Breakout Churches and Aubrey Mulphers” Advanced Strategic Planning)

 

Email empoweringchurches.my@gmail.com to arrange a date for a seminar.