Greetings Christian Leaders!

Our meeting on January 24th was a wonderful gathering. Thanks to all who attended! For those of you that weren’t able to make it, we MISSED you! 

Thank you to Pastor Orris Whitley for leading us in a time of connection and encouragement. This is always a huge highlight for me. One of the greatest parts of CLN is to be able to hear a little bit about someone else’s life and share celebrations and struggles and then pray together. This is worth the price of admission by itself!

Our featured presenter was Dr. Quentin Kinnison, Associate Professor of Christian Ministry and chair of Biblical and Religious Studies at Fresno Pacific University. Dr. Kinnison, or “Q” as he encouraged us to call him, has both ministry and academic experience around the subject of ministering effectively in one’s community. His presentation focused on Luke 18:35-43 and the story of Jesus healing the blind beggar.

He powerfully reminded us of the power of questions. 

  • Jesus asked the blind man, “What do you want?”

He drew out several important applications for us: 

  1. Far too often, we don’t ask questions of our community. We make assumptions about needs, rather than asking questions. 
  2. Asking questions causes people to take ownership of their own needs — it is an empowering practice.
  3. We must be careful to have the right people ask the questions! Sometimes the leaders are NOT the right ones to be asking.
  4. We must also be careful to ask questions of the right people — apartment managers, school teachers, shop owners, authorities, and residents all have their own unique perspectives that will yield different answers.
  5. How we frame the questions is incredibly important — it is usually better to ask, “What works here that we need more of?” Then a simply, “What do you need?”

His final encouragement was to remember that as pastors and leaders in our community, we would do well to see ourselves as conveners of need meeting organizations. We do not always have to do it all or have all the answers, but we have power to marshal together people who are already interested and engaged in meeting diverse needs within our community.

I was reminded of the power and potential the already exists in our community as we continue to work together for His Kingdom purposes!

Attached you will find flyers on several important announcements:

  • Human Trafficking Roundtable. The goal of this event is to come together find out what agencies & churches are doing when faced with human trafficking issues, and work toward a county wide protocol. Lunch will be provided. Register here
  • CLN Prayer Dinner on February 15th at 6:30pm. We want you there! This is for all pastors, their spouses, and ANY and ALL their leadership teams. If you attend CLN and that doesn’t describe you, you’re invited too! Would you please join us as we pray for our community, for our churches, and for our city, county, state and federal leadership. Let this be a time of unity as we ask God to touch our community! Tickets are online (so we know how much food to prepare) at CLNkings.com
  • Work as Worship on February 22nd at First Christian Reformed Church 
  • Other announcements in the PDF packet!
     

Our next regularly scheduled meeting will be on February 28th at 7:30am!

Blessings!
Andrew Cromwell for The CLN Team


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