New Faith Communities offers multiple initiatives and opportunities to learn
New Faith Communities has been hard at work on multiple initiatives and events. Two initiatives are DreamAChurch and the Day of Discernment.
DreamAChurch
DreamAChurch is a new initiative recently started by New Faith Communities. Each month, for an entire year, one of the leaders in New Faith Communities (NFC) will release a 60-second video encouraging other church leaders to consider becoming church planters.
This initiative also educates leaders and congregations alike on the importance of new church plants.
“There seems to be a taboo on new church plants these days,” says Rev. Dr. Bessie Hamilton, Associate Director of Connectional Ministry for New Faith Communities and Multi-Ethnic Initiatives at the Oklahoma Conference of the UMC.
Hamilton, who has been church planting for years, stated, “People are not going to come to an established church. There is a need for something new for those who are de-churched, unchurched, or searching.”
Hamilton said, “It is an opportunity to invite pastors and leaders to become church planters and to educate the OKUMC of the importance of planting churches and creating new spaces for people who will never come into established places. It will be led by members of the NFC team each month with a video.”
Day of Discernment
The Day of Discernment was an opportunity for leaders to discern whether they were being led to church planting and ways to revitalize their current spaces. Rev. Dr. Bessie Hamilton shared A Day in the Life of a Church Planter and Rebekah Simon Peter led the DISC assessment to determine what kind of leader they are and whether church planting would be a fit. A mini boot camp, which will be led by Oklahoma planters, will occur in October and November.
New church plants are already moving along, like Ceili Community and Grace UMC.