Reflections from Staff Retreat

Last week, the Renewal staff and elders had a chance to get away and spend some time planning, praying, and celebrating.  Here are a few reflections from our elders…
 

• You simply cannot over-value personal intimacy with God.  The best thing we can do for our young church is be leaders who walk with and hear from God.  If we do not do that, nothing else matters.
   
• The mission of God must be central.  It is so easy to get away from the main reason for planting a church and begin talking about how we “do church”.  As a staff, and as a church, it is vital that we remind ourselves daily of the mission.
   
• The mission of God must be made specific.  Rather than talking about a generic mission, we need to find ways to adopt a specific community as our circle of accountability and focus all of our efforts in that circle.  For us, this circle is the city of Mauldin, and we plan to make great strides in loving this city well.
   
• The mission of God begins with small groups of believers partnering together to talk about holiness and engage in the mission of God.  Small groups are not just a Sunday School replacement strategy, but are an essential tool for connecting people to the mission of God through Renewal.  Connecting people to groups is one of the most important tasks for our staff.
   
• Seeing people “saved” is one thing.  Seeing “disciples made” is another thing altogether.  In many ways, a goal of "getting people saved" would be much easier.  Disciple-making is hard, unglamorous, time-consuming work.  But it is the one mission we were given.
   
• For whatever reason, God has sent us a crew of great college students.  We feel this is one of the ways in which we see God working and need to join him.  Our SummerLink program is one of the ways God has given us to see college students join us through the summer to serve in the mission of God. 
   
• One of the means of disciple-making is our Sunday gathering.  It is not the only way, but it is a way.  To that end, we planned our teaching schedule for 2010-2011.  Over the coming year we plan to do a 10-week study through Luke on the marks of a disciple and study the book of Ephesians.  I know...this is "horrible church planting strategy".  No catchy title, the series are too long, and the Bible is way too prominent.  But, welcome to Renewal.
   
• We are also dreaming about a college apprenticeship model for next school year that would allow us to take 20 or so college students and train them to be future church leaders, planters, and pastors. 
   
• We need to do a better job teaching in other ways, through other tools and opportunities.  The utilization of the web to enhance our efforts to make disciples is something we need to take advantage of over the coming year.
   
• You can’t wait to talk about the next church plant.  As a two month old church we believe that God is calling us to plant again.  Right now we are praying about an ethnic church in Greenville and seeking to recruit an elder to lead this endeavor.
   
• We are praying about assisting church planting efforts in the Scandinavian countries.  Known as  a “missionary graveyard” we are planning two trips in 2011 to see how God might have us join His efforts in these wealthy, postmodern, elite countries.
   
• Church planting is a diverse adventure.  We talked about everything from international missions to how we currently do set-up and tear-down on Sundays.  Some tasks are more glamorous than others, but all are vital to building a healthy church.  Therefore, servants are essential.  Everyone, partnering together in some type of ministry, is necessary to allow us to accomplish what God has called us to do. 

We are truly blessed with an amazing staff.   God has brought a team of committed and talented people to serve Him through Renewal Church. We really had a great time learning from God’s word and learning from each other.  As we continue to serve you and each other please be mindful to pray for us as we pray for you.  I believe God is going to do some mighty things here at Renewal.