Jesus called His disciples to a lifetime of service to others. He spent three years teaching them that the greatest among them would be the one who served others the most selflessly. We are the heirs of those lessons. It falls to us to become the servants of all. In this day, that can be especially difficult. The needs around us are great. The demands on us are great. Nevertheless, the call to serve remains.
MPACT 2020 in Butte this year is designed to equip us to be better servants in our churches and our communities. You can see from the schedule and breakout sessions posted at MTSBC.org that we have endeavored to equip you and your church to be the servants the Lord has called us to be and that others need us to be.
We even have two nationally recognized speakers joining us to talk about how to be better servants. David Uth, the pastor of FBC Orlando, is returning. He will share with us during three plenary sessions and a breakout session how to minister effectively in fractured communities. In addition, Claude King, one of the authors of the powerful discipleship tool Experiencing God, will be leading breakout sessions on church renewal and will close out our meeting on Friday with a call to walk with Jesus.
You can see from the breakout sessions, that there is plenty for you and your church leaders in these sessions, too. We’ll be offering counseling, evangelism, and VBS training. We have even tried to tailor some of the sessions about church growth for specific size churches. Kenneth Priest will be sharing with us best practices for growth for churches running less than 75 people and churches running between 75 and 150 people. We’re also bringing in children’s ministry specialist Barry Saunders to help equip children’s ministry leaders in our smaller membership churches to offer dynamic, transformational ministry to children with limited workers and resources. Barry has also agreed to do one-on-one consultations for churches while he is with us. If you would like to spend some time alone with him talking about your unique children’s ministry challenges, call Jeannie Hayes in the MTSBC office and we’ll help put you together with Barry while he’s here. The slots for this are limited, though, so we’ll be working on a first come, first served basis.
In addition, we’re offering multiple breakout sessions that can help equip you to mobilize your church for ministry. Go Montana is in full swing. We’ll be sharing all kinds of practical ideas for outreach and ministry that you can bring back to your church. You can also find out more about our MTSBC sponsored mission trip to Peru planned for August and our new ministry partnership with our sister churches in Alberta, Canada. And, there’s so much more. You will leave MPACT equipped and empowered to serve.
Then, throughout the two days, we’ll be blessed to join together in worship with the worship team from FBC Orlando. If you were with us two years ago, you know how powerful this is going to be. Not only that, they have also agreed to lead a breakout session to help equip our churches’ worship leaders to lead dynamic worship services in smaller membership churches. You don’t have to have thousands of people and million-dollar budgets to have powerful worship through music. These accomplished worship leaders will share some great pointers.
Clearly, MPACT 2020 is going to be worth your time and the time of any of your leaders who come with you. We’ve also scheduled plenty of break time so you can fellowship with each other without hurrying. Remember, the MTSBC pays for lodging for two nights for all of our pastors. Go online right away and register yourself and your church leadership and then plan to join us at the Clarion Inn Copper King Hotel in Butte on March 5 and 6 for some great time together. We look forward to seeing you there.
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