The Connected conference, an annual event for church officers from Reformed, evangelical churches, took place on 3 March at Dewsbury Evangelical Church.
The conference theme, ‘Building for the Future’, attracted delegates from churches across the north of England and the 125 places were oversubscribed.
Ray Evans started with ‘Growing Ourselves’. Allowing the Holy Spirit to teach, often through brothers and sisters in Christ, making ourselves vulnerable to knowing more of our weaknesses and failings, so that by God’s grace we might deal with them. A leader has to move the church forwards but remain sensitive to people – never being a bully, but leading by example and encouragement.
Stirring one another
The second talk – ‘Growing Others’ – looked at stirring up one another to good works (Hebrews 10). Often a preached message will have much less influence than a brother or sister in Christ challenging us personally to join with him/her in a work for Christ. Where self-obsession is normal, as Christians our selfless love for others will mark us out from the world. Ray pointed out that churches which are seeing numerical growth not only have quality teaching, but also show a quality welcome and provide quality hospitality.
‘Growing Leaders’ taught that churches must be intentional and deliberate in this. Failure does not result in giving up. In Acts, when Paul felt he had been unsuccessful with Mark he did not give up, but almost immediately took Timothy under his wing for ministry training.
