Orders Meeting set Aug. 20

Church consultant Jim Griffith passionately makes his point at a Baltimore-Washington Conference workshop in 2011.

Get out of the office!

That’s the message Jim Griffith plans for clergy when he speaks Aug. 20 during the Orders Meeting at OKC-St. Luke’s.

"Most pastoral training focuses on managing the internal mechanisms of the church and serving current members. There’s no relationship between this and reaching new people," said Rev. Griffith.

"Most pastors want and can free themselves from the constraint of their office and reconnect with their mission field."

Griffith began his ministry by starting new churches for the purpose of reaching new people. He started five churches in Florida, North Carolina, and Denver.

He is the founder of Griffith Coaching, which has assessed more than 1,900 church-planting candidates, trained thousands of planters, and coached hundreds of new churches.

Leveraging that experience, he focuses on training and coaching churches of all ages to reach the mission field around them. Griffith has worked with many organizations, from the Pentecostals to the Anglicans.

He graduated from The University of Florida and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He and his wife, Kim Saal Griffith, also a United Methodist minister, live in Celebration, Fla.

The August meeting will begin at 10 a.m. that Tuesday, with worship and Holy Communion. Bishop Robert Hayes Jr. will preach. Lunch will be at 11:30 a.m.

Griffith’s presentation is from 12:30 to 3 p.m. and will include question-and-answer time.