Renewal Assembly IV: Empowered Leaders, Renewed Congregations

Have you found that service on the vestry has enriched your spiritual life? 

Bishop Paul posed this question to his guests on the video prepared for the next renewal assembly scheduled for Saturday, February 11, from 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM, at seven sites across the diocese.  The assembly, a retreat for current and future vestry members, is entitled “Empowered Leaders, Renewed Congregations.”

Joining Bishop Paul on the video are Raymond Arcario, who served as senior warden of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem; and, The Very Rev. Anthony Pompa, Dean and Rector of Nativity.

The daylong retreat will draw from Neal Michell’s Beyond Business As Usual: Vestry Leader Development.  “This book,” writes Michell, “is for those churches that are no longer content with business as usual.  It is for those clergy and vestry members who want to be partners in ministry and mission as they explore new and create ways to do and expand mission and ministry.”  Copies of the book will be made available to each vestry attending for a subsidized price of $10.00.

Drawing from Beyond Business As Usual, the retreat will engage vestry members in Bible Study and a number of “teaching” experiences, such as “Four Principles Every Leader Should Take to Heart.”  The purpose is to examine appropriate, effective mental models of the vestry as a “learning community” that plays a significant role in the spiritual growth and renewal of the congregation.

Charles Cesaretti, Interim Missioner for Congregational Renewal hopes "that the retreat will enable every participant to respond in the affirmative to Bishop Paul’s query – Have you found that service on the vestry has enriched your spiritual life?”

Registration is open at www.diobeth.org until February 3.