Corlette and I are having an exciting time in Poland interacting with 720 church and ministry leaders from 45 European countries. They’ve gathered together for the European Leadership Forum [1] (ELF) for a week of training, fellowship and planning on how to “renew the biblical church and re-evangelize Europe.”
Although these leaders are invariably warm and friendly, many of them have described excruciating relational struggles back home (all names have been changed).
- Nikolay’s elder board has been deadlocked for three years because of personal conflicts. The stress has spilled over to his marriage and impacted his children to the point that he may need to leave the ministry.
- Joseph is a legal advisor to the Parliament in his country. Pressures from the economic downturn and refugee crisis have created an intensely adversarial atmosphere and stalled needed humanitarian action.
- Monika grieves to see the ongoing ethnic tensions in her Balkan nation, which can be traced back to atrocities committed during World War II and continue to spill into the church.
- Peter explained how hundreds of years of authoritarian political rule in his country have created an ingrained distrust of all leaders, including godly pastors who sincerely want to care for their people but can’t gain their trust.
- In Esther’s country, many of the women feel pressured to marry as early as 14 or 15 and often find themselves trapped in abusive marriages.
- As a church planting trainer, John sees many couples struggle to grow viable churches because they’ve never learned how to build personal relationships and resolve inevitable conflicts.
The church and ministry leaders here are incredibly gifted and committed, and they make daily sacrifices to share the love of Christ. As you can imagine, however, the relational challenges described above frequently impede their efforts to spread the gospel.
You can do something about it.
The response to our training on relational wisdom and biblical peacemaking has been overwhelmingly positive. During every break and meal Corlette and I are being approached by people who ask for further training and resources that they can use to disciple the people in their churches and ministries.
We are just a few weeks away from being able to grant these requests.
The day before we flew to Poland, we finished videotaping the 20 lessons in our new Discovering Relational Wisdom 2.0 Course. Our staff in Billings is now editing the videos and writing discussion questions and practical exercises for uploading to Pathwright [2], a state-of-the-art online learning management system that makes full use of interactive adult learning methodology.
Lord willing, we will launch this new online course by the end of June (see details here [3]).
The registration fee for the new online course will be $35. Since many of the people at this conference come from countries where the average income is 20-25% of what is typically earned in western Europe, they would have difficulty paying for this course.
So Corlette and I want to offer all 720 people at this conference a 100% scholarship for the training. Every one of them. We just didn’t feel right giving them a taste of these principles without sending them home with the resources they need to learn, model and teach these concepts to the people God has placed under their care.
Will you join us in making this gift possible?
Your donation of $35 will cover the cost of registering one pastor or ministry leader for this vital training.
$70 will enable a couple to train and grow together.
If you multiply these gift levels x 2, 5 or 10, you will multiple the number of churches and ministries that can be equipped to resolve conflict and build relationships that reflect the transforming power of Jesus and his gospel.
I plan to announce this scholarship offer during my plenary address Tuesday evening.
Would you please pray about joining us as we offer this gift?
To catch ELF’s vision for re-evangelizing Europe, please watch the video below (or click here [4]).
Then if you want to be part of this effort, simply go to our Donate [5] page (or send a check) to make a gift that will help to spread gospel-inspired relational training throughout Europe.
– Ken Sande
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© 2016 Ken Sande
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