Leaders Summit

This is the weekend of "summits." Today, I attended the Leaders Summit at Allison Park Church with about 150 other leaders from around the Pittsburgh area.

A lot of quality teaching compacted into 4 hours topped off with a delicious, catered lunch.

First session co-led by Eric Ferguson, missionary in Nicaragua and Christine Gatabazi who pastors Global Mission Church in Kigali, Rwanda

Impacting facts:

• $100/month will pay for a pastor of a new church in Nicaragua.
• At the Bible College in Kigali, Rwanda, there is one full-time teache for over 150 students.
• $50 buys a student's books for a year at the college
• The global PEACE Plan is doing great things in Rwanda
• Joybean Coffee Co. was created to produce income for many projects to help the Nicaraguan people…and it tastes great!

Second session: Jeff Leake shared 10 steps to being an effective spiritual breakthrough retreat prayer partner. Best unspoken principle: remember to be relational when helping someone. Working through life issues should be a normal and compassionate process; done best when we remember that we all need support to live the best life God intends

Finished up with Ron Johnson, who through colorful and transparent anectdotes, demonstrated what it is like to step out and follow God. The goal isn't perfection, but obedience. God is aware of our human-ness and is pleased when we step out to follow Him to the best of our ability, with honest effort.

I left grateful for the opportunity and the excellence with which the event was conducted and looking forward to our next gathering. Thanks to the many organizers, including Nick Poole Andy Lehmann and Debbie Lynch.

Today during the Non-Profit Summit in Pittsburgh, I and Site Director, Lucinda Wade (Coraopolis) had the opportunity to hear keynote speaker, Robert Putnam, professor at Harvard University.

He shared about social capital and its positive impact on our organizations as well as in areas such as school test scores, infant mortality rates, career success, teen pregnancy rates, and premature death rates. For example, joining even ONE social group decreases your risk of premature death by 50%, which is as much as quitting smoking!

How does ethnic diversity affect social capital? Increase in ethnic diversity correlates to LESS trust in community, neighbors, government, each other. Diversity can threaten the benefits of social capital…EXCEPT in places where something else takes precedence, or “trumps” race. What is this “something else?”

Two examples were presented: the US Army and evangelical mega-church, Lakewood Church (TX). Both are ethnically diverse AND display a disproportionate number and strength of social relationships across race. Within both, discrimination was infrequent/disallowed and new identities that cut across race were created. These are keys to overcoming the difficulty diversity represents.

In light of NOH’s context of operation being local, evangelical churches:

Those in Christ have a new identity; old is gone, new has come
(1 Cor 5:17). This, not ethnicity, unifies us. “There is neither
Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

The Church experiences multiple layers of commonality: one’s relationship with God; relationships with others who believe the same; the congregation’s shared mission of spreading the gospel. This is an exponential dynamic for social capital within the church, rather than just shared mission.

“Spiritual capital,” created from the belief in the eternal value of the shared mission, is foundational to the social capital. God, the most diverse, the creator of the universe, has established the importance of social capital because His concern from the beginning of time has been relationship.

If all other relationships flow out that with God, the results must be positive, life-giving, trust-filled, etc.

May we, through the local church, promote lasting change in our communities by providing help to anyone, in settings of trust and relationship that flows only from the love of God.