Newsletters.
This
past May we celebrated our 19th Anniversary
with our Conference in Dallas Texas . The
theme for the conference was Dynamic
Transformation - Deliberate Growth. The
conference studied what are some of the key
elements to be effective in ministry today. We
as an organization as well as some of the
churches that attended have been putting these
principles into place and are seeing great
changes, new vision, and new passion in our
ministries and personal lives. I really
encourage you to get to a conference and be
part of what God is doing today!
At
the conference we had the great honor of
bringing in two new affiliate churches into
membership with TEN - Sanctuary of Love in
Dallas Texas and Abundant Grace Church in
Hickory North Carolina . Visit their sites and
the ministries of all our affiliates online
and when you travel. Current
Affiliates .
For
a long time we've looked and are still looking
for great, dynamic, passionate people who want
to be part of the board of directors of TEN.
We were fortunate to find two such people this
year and added David Thomas, pastor of
Abundant Grace Church ( Hickory NC ) and
Janice Lacount (minister at Sanctuary of Love
( Dallas , TX ) to our board of directors.
Each of them has brought a great deal of
knowledge and desire to see the mission of TEN
be advanced.
On
a personal note, I had the great honor of
being able to go and attend several other
events around the country and partake in what
else is going on. In June I attended the
Survivor's of Ex-Gay conference in Los Angeles
that was taking place at the same time as the
Exodus International conference. This
conference was very powerful to see so many
people who had been affected either by ex-gay
ministries or abusive churches and how after
5, 10, 15, 20+ years they had not ever
reconciled all those hurt feelings. The
conference was quite emotional and quite a
breakthrough for many.
In
July I was asked to lead worship for the
Evangelicals Concerned conference in Los
Angeles . Historically, I nor TEN has had much
interaction with EC, which was not
intentional, but just seemed to work out that
way. I saw it as a great honor to be asked to
lead worship, and found it to be a great
blessing to me. The same people who fellowship
at the EC Conferences often also come to TEN
conferences. Likewise it was great to meet
many new people for the first time.
In
August, I had the privilege of leading worship
and doing a couple of workshops at the Eagles
Nest School of Worship and the Arts in Austin
Texas. I've had the great honor of being asked
to participate in this conference for the past
3 years and the each time I go it's like
coming home each time. The friends that I've
developed over the years at this conference
are true family. The presence and move of the
Holy Spirit is thick at these conferences.
In
September I traveled the Bishops and Elders
conference which was in Sarasota Florida
. This was the second year that we have
held this conference and TEN is one of the
many groups represented on the panel
of organizations. This conference sends
representatives from affirming organizations
and denominations around the states with about
30 organizations being represented.
Their vision is much like that of TEN.
TEN's mission and vision is to see the
Evangelical Community come together knowing
that we can do more together than we can
separately. The Bishops and Elders Conference
is bringing all the GLBT Christian Affirming
faith communities together so that we can
do more than we could separately. Be
looking for more news on this. Next year the
plan is to meet in New Orleans .
One
of the goals of the Board of Directors of
TEN was to address the issue and need of
new works/church planting. Obviously the laws
of each state and local community are
different, so keeping track of that would not
be easy. What we've decided to do and
have done is to create a resources section on
our web site which will assist someone who is
called to start a new church work. The
resources on here will guide you through the
processes of what needs to be completed in
order to establish this new work. I encourage
you to visit this page: Starting
a New Church. I'd like to thank Jack
McConnell from St. Jude Community Church who
helped us in the development of this new
resource.
Several
other goals have been met this year, in that
we have developed or re-developed the TEN
brochure and Scholarship brochure. I want to
thank Carl Smith from San Francisco for his
assistance in helping us achieve these goals.
We
also changed our newsletter format this year,
and have started using Constant Contact as a
means of communicating with you all. This not
only gives us a consistent look, but also, has
helped us manage our database to where
hopefully you aren't receiving 2 or 5 copies
of the newsletter now. (grin). You can
safely now add or remove yourself from our
database by going to the web site and looking
at the bottom of most pages.
In
closing I want to share with you some of the
projects that we have on the plate that you
will be hearing more about or that we are
currently working on. This year we've
started monthly conference calls with the
affiliates in order to be a continued resource
of communication, fellowship and encouragement
to one another. During these calls we catch up
on news from the affiliates and discuss
different ministerial topics that challenge us
and get us to think.
We
are currently working on redevelopment efforts
of our web site of which you will be hearing
more about in the coming newsletters.
We're
launching a new conference web site this year
which we believe will be a great resource for
all those who are looking at coming to this
dynamic 20th anniversary celebration. The
launch of this should be taking place very
soon! Plan now to attend TEN Conference 2008 -
May 22-25, 2008 in Phoenix Arizona .
We
are currently working on the development of
our Public Relations/Marketing efforts and
hope to have more of that ready to go by the
conference next year.
Obviously,
it takes many hands, hours and monies to do
this work and for all those who support TEN we
are truly grateful. If you are not a supporter
of TEN, we encourage you to do so. Your gifts
are tax deductible and go toward the work of
this ministry. Your financial support
enables us to do more outreach, produce more
materials, keep our conference costs down
which enables more people to attend. Likewise,
we consistently need people who are willing to
give of their time, talents and gifts. TEN is
completely run by volunteers. There is
no paid staff, so every dollar you give goes
directly into ministry. Please, would
you consider donating to the ministry today? Donate
On
behalf of the entire Board of Director's, we
wish you and your family a very Merry
Christmas and Happy Holiday Season, and we
look forward to sharing many great things with
you again in 08!
God
Bless you,
Todd
Ferrell, President
The
Evangelical Network
Click
here to continue reading this article.
Doug
... "I am legally blind and
partially deaf as a result of complication of
advanced HIV disease.
We've
been looking at what it is to be Highly
Effective in Ministry this year. While
becoming highly effective in ministry is not
likely to be easy, it IS
achievable. If God has called your church or
ministry into existence then you may be
assured His intention is for it to flourish
not flounder. His word tells us He will
never abandon us and that He will always
provide us what we need, when we need it, as
we seek to do His will. It doesn't mean that
victory comes easily, nor is the path to
victory clear. It also doesn't mean that we
sit back and do nothing waiting for miraculous
things to happen. God has endowed us
with brains, language, energy and many
resources (each other) so that we can apply
ourselves to the challenges of ministry and -
with His guidance and blessing - see His will
and His people prevail.
"Now
this is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Give
careful thought to your