ELDER TRAINING

This evening (10 Feb) I went to River of Life Community Church to address their elders. Pastor Fred Joseph and I agreed beforehand that it would be a trial evening to see if the elders would then want to invite me back for more extensive training. Our pre-arrangement was that after I finished my presentation, I would leave and Fred would caucus with them to see what they thought about me. No pressure there!

All of his 15 elders showed up for the meeting, plus 9 potential elders who were especially invited to join us. There was also one guest pastor in attendance from Sedgefield, South Africa, for a total of 25 men.

My purpose was not only to give them an overview of the elder training material, but also to “tease” them with what they would learn if they continued the training. We began clicking immediately. My interactive style encouraged them to participate and ask questions. They started asking significant questions that showed a high degree of interest. After about an hour, my presentation turned totally into a Question & Answer time. They were especially interested in mentoring. There was much lively conversation on that topic. After 90 minutes, I ended and started to leave as pre-arranged, but Fred invited me to stay. Actually, he insisted that I stay. He said, “It is obvious that something special has happened here this evening. From everyone’s reaction, I’m sure we want you to do more training with us, so please sit down while we discuss the best format and timing.”

So we agreed that I will come back every Monday evening for the foreseeable future and conduct additional training on topics of interest to them.

After the meeting, I spent time with Pastor Henry McCombi, the visiting pastor for South Africa. He invited me to come down to South Africa and participate in their annual leadership conference they conduct each year in September at the Integrated Agape Fellowship. He assured me that his congregation is true to their name and is thoroughly integrated in agape fellowship.