Great time hang'n with fellow pastors

Today I got to be with about 40 other pastors in our fellowship of churches. We heard a brief story from two guys about how they got into the ministry; talked about church planting; prayed together and had lunch together.
Some great things are happening in our churches across Ohio - being intentional about planting churches is one of them.

North Central Ohio (NCO) Pastor's Gathering

Today I had the pleasure of reconnecting with a bunch of other pastors, many of whom I've known for over a decade. Every other month we gathering for relationship, ministry updates, training, prayer and lunch. I sat with Rick Nuzum and Mark Artrip from our mother church, Grace Church in Powell.

North Central Ohio Pastors Fellowship

This morning I had the opportunity to spend some quality time with a bunch of fellow pastors. We meet once every two months in one of the church buildings. Today was up in Marion, OH. We heard updates on what's going on in a few of the guys lives. It was neat to hear from some of the other church planters that started around the same time Encounter did. There's also a handful of new plants still in the early formation stages. It's exciting to see so many people being on-mission doing Kingdom work. I also got to reconnect with Jeff, Tim, Dustin and Ed, some of my past fellow pastors from Grace Church.

Time with other pastors

I've written in the past about going to the North Central Ohio (NCO) pastor's fellowship. It's approx. 25 other churches in the greater Columbus area that get together every other month. I love going b/c I've known some of these guys for over ten years and this is the only time I get to see them.

This morning I drove down with my friend and barber, Mark Artrip. He's the HS youth pastor at my mother church, Grace Church in Powell. He and I are both extroverts and think a lot alike. It's fun to listen to his crazy ideas when we talk ministry stuff.

This morning we heard from four of our area pastors that have recently been in the Central African Republic and the Cameroon, Africa teaching in a seminary connected to our fellowship of churches. The guy pictured below is Clancy Cruise. For a year he coached me in the ways of church planting. I really enjoy being around him. He got back from the CAR just a few weeks ago. He said it challenged the way he thinks about many things.

After hearing from all the guys we prayed at our tables. The last thing we heard about was an update on the Day of Generosity. The date is November 1st just two Sundays away. We were reminded how our resources will be used to help our brothers and sisters in Christ share His love in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. They have the people to do it but not always the finances.

With the great wealth God has given us to steward, we can bless these partners in the faith. Encounter Church has chosen to gift 100% of our morning tithes and offerings on November 1st to show our love and support.

Encounter Church welcomed into the FGBC

Last week I had the opportunity to speak to pastors, wives and delegates from Grace Brethren churches all over the US and Canada about our little church plant. It was the opening day of our national conference called Equip '09 held at our grandmother church, Grace Polaris. We had applied for membership into the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches a few months back and this was my time to publicly tell the larger group who we were. The picture below shows me speaking and the three other church plant leaders who also were welcomed into the fellowship. To see a short write up about us and the other church plants CLICK HERE.

Melissa was asked to participate in a women's panel discussion on Wednesday of the conference and I happened to stumble across this picture of her and my mother who attended the session. Melissa is wearing the green sweater with matching green shoes and my mom is on the right standing next to the red lockers:-)

ACCEPTED

My time this morning with the NCO pastors was great. One of the first orders of business was the vote on three of us new

church plants being recognized as NCO churches. All three us us were unanimously voted in! It was a good time together celebrating what God has done and is continuing to do in Ohio through our churches.

Applying for NCO District Memebership

This morning I head up to Mt. Gilead for a North Central Ohio District pastors meeting. Our 25 or so churches do this every other month as a way to connect at a friendship level, hear reports on how ministry is going and to conduct official district business.
Today I've applied for Encounter Church to become an official member of the district. At present we are a daughter work of Grace Church in Powell and fall under them as a member church. If accepted into the district we will then apply to the national level within our fellowship of churches and will be recognized at EQUIP '09, the national conference for the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches.
I'll let you know how things go later on today.

North Central Ohio (NCO) Pastor's Fellowship

About every two months or so there is a gathering of pastors from approx. 25 churches that get together and have a light breakfast, a time of social connecting and then report on what's going on in their various ministries. Yesterday's focus was on the five different church plants in the region. The five of us were given ten minutes each to share where we were at in the process of launching our new church. After each of us shared a group of men gathered around us, laying hands on us as they prayed. If you've ever experienced it you know it's humbling and an honor to have done.
In the picture of me below I'm explaining to the group about a promotion/info. piece on each of the five plants. We hope to have every church in the district provide them for their congregations. The point is not to steal people from our existing churches but to have attenders tell their friends, who may not have a church home, that there is a new one in their area. CLICK HERE to view the info. piece.
Below my picture is Andy Wirt with ClearView in New Albany. To his right is is Shawn Kaeser talking about Darby Grace in Plain City. To his right is Eric Miller (the younger one:-) and Larry Totzke (the older one-hehe) with Capital City Grace in downtown Columbus. The bottom pic. is Doug Shotsky with Sterling Grace in Mt. Sterling. The group of us get together once a month to encourage each other, trade ideas and pray.

An Incredible Story

Every other month I attend the North Central Ohio (NCO) pastor’s fellowship meeting. Today it was held at Grace Polaris, which is Grace Church’s mother church. That makes her my grand-mother churchJ. It’s an opportunity to reconnect with other pastor’s in our fellowship and hear updates of what God is doing from individual churches in our district and around the world. Today we heard a story from an African pastor named Francois Ngoumape about how he was kidnapped last November by rebels and how his life was miraculously spared. Tears fell from his eyes as he spoke of God’s protective hand actually inhibiting his captors from killing him with a machete and a machine gun. It was stunning to hear. Here is a picture of him telling his story.

When the meeting ended we all had a delicious lunch provided by our hosts. After that I attended the NCO District Missions meeting where I was asked to give an update on how things are going with Encounter Church. The last time I was at one of these meetings was five months ago and the minutes had down that I had said there were 7-8 families committed. Today I had the pleasure of reporting there are now 17 committed families and that we are having 19 people baptized on November 9 at the Powell YMCA. I also informed them that our Sunday morning launch team meetings will continue until mid-December and that we'll be onsite at Eli Pinney Elementary starting in January. Finally I told them that February and March '09 will be our eight weeks of practice/preview services leading up to April 2009 which will be our Grand Opening month.