Monday, December 27, 2010

Opportunities for Pastors

Upcoming Network Gatherings

Mark your calendar for one or more of these upcoming Network Gatherings, designed to facilitate peer-to-peer sharing and learning in dealing with issues and challenges common among ministry peers. Pastors and spouses attending set the agenda. Prior participants have cited that ideas gained and relationships formed have transformed their ministries.

Detailed information and registration will be available on the Converge Worldwide Web site: www.convergeworldwide.org. For answers to questions, call or email Don Windmiller, director of Network Gatherings, 847.879.3241, or don.windmiller@convergeww.org.

Children’s Pastors and Directors
January 11-12, 2011, Orlando, Fla.
(prior to the International Network of Children’s Ministry Conference)

Pastors of African Descent & Spouses
January 12-14, 2011, Matthews, N.C.

Administrative Assistants
January 23-26, 2011, Orlando, Fla.

Solo Pastors & Spouses
February 13-16, 2011, Orlando, Fla.

Large Church Pastors & Spouses
(churches with attendance of 350+)
February 7-10, 2011, Orlando, Fla.

Multisite/Multiplication Center
February 10-11, 2011, Orlando, Fla.

Breaking the 200/400 Barrier Pastors & Spouses
February 13-16, 2011, Orlando, Fla.

2nd 1⁄2 for Him leaders
April 7-9, 2011. Orlando, Fla.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Winchester Mystery House

“Nestled in the suburbs of San Jose, California, is an interesting tourist attraction: an estate built by the heir of the Winchester rifle fortune. In 1884, a wealthy widow name Sarah L. Winchester began a thirty-eight-year construction project guided by a superstitious fear. Evidently, Mrs. Winchester was convinced by a medium that continuous building would appease the evil spirits of those killed by the famous ‘gun that won the West’ and help her attain eternal life. So Sarah kept carpenters’ hammers pounding twenty-hour a day. The Victorian mansion came to the filled with so many unexplained oddities that it is now know as the Winchester Mystery House

. Even thou it has 160 rooms, three elevators, forty staircases, and forty-seven fireplaces, its size alone does not account for the architectural marvel-what does so is the bizarre purposelessness of the design. Stairs lead into the ceiling; windows decorate the floor, and door open into blank walls! Random features reflect excessive creativity, energy, and expense, from exquisite hand inlaid parquet floors to Tiffany art glass windows. Busyness, not blueprints, defined success.

The Winchester Mystery House is an accurate picture of what a church looks like in the absence of vision; there is lots of activity with little progress or purpose. Interesting programs and exquisite sermons do not necessarily lead to a meaningful whole. Structure exists for structure itself and not for life. “ Mancini, Will, Church Unique

How easy to be consumed by other than the vision. Maybe doing good things, but is it what God called you to do?