Everything healthy is part of something bigger
Andy O’Connell and Mark Eley
Everything healthy is part of something bigger! That's a deep longstanding conviction for our family of churches – it's why we are in fact a family of churches – and it helps us understand the point of conferences. Andy and Mark had this conversation recently with our apprentices, ahead of them being part of our Thrive 2024 gathering, and we thought it was worth sharing more widely.
Before we talk about conferences specifically, 'everything healthy is part of something bigger' is about much more than conferences:
1. Every Pastor needs pastor. Just as we teach that every person does best when in an open and honest personal mentoring relationship, so too must every Pastor (senior church leader) have their own pastor (someone looking out for them personally). This is a key practice among our family of churches. Everything healthy is part of something bigger!
2. Every healthy church welcomes regular advice, input and support from a diversely-gifted 'apostolic team', and not just via the local Senior Pastor but team-to-team. Read more here. Everything healthy is part of something bigger!
3. Healthy local churches don't just receive, they give, by each playing their part in collaborative activity - events, training, trips, youth ministry - as a church, and sowing this value to new people in their churches, some of whom won't have seen this way of living before. Everything healthy is part of something bigger!
Thinking about conferences more specifically
4. Conferences are refreshing for those in leadership in our churches, being part of larger events that you're not responsible for running, with times of worship, prayer ministry and teaching, as well as conversation with friends and coaches from our wider family, is tremendously refreshing. Everything healthy is part of something bigger.
5. Conferences are a regular 'shot in the arm', especially for smaller churches (but beware just mountain-only experiences without ongoing change). Everything healthy is part of something bigger!
6. Conferences are moments of key prophetic input for us together and as individuals. Why is that? • God loves to speak to us together, as a family. • Jesus says something about the prophet having less honour at home ('familiarity that breeds contempt') and we often find that prophetic gifts 'go up a gear' in a less usual context like a conference, or when travelling. • Getting to a conference requires expectancy and intentionality. Which leads onto…
7. Christian leadership is a marathon not sprint. "Ministry is more like planting trees than building a wall. It moves forward imperceptibly and growth into maturity isn’t marked by an obvious crossing of a line" - which requires patience and perseverance and investment. Being part of a thriving local church is part of that investment strategy, but conferences take it up a level! Everything healthy is part of something bigger!
8. Conferences help us be 'buyers of the truth'. This phrase has long been a principle in our family of churches, reminding us that we're not the experts, we are all learning, and so we need help to keep finding fresh wisdom for our churches as we seek to bring God's word to a fast-changing world. This posture leads us to welcome regular guest speakers, send leaders to external conferences, as well as investing in training in-house. Everything healthy is part of something bigger!
9. Conferences remind us and help us be part of a movement, not loners. As adage goes, each flake of snow is fragile, but together snow stops traffic. We need each other and each other's differing gifts. Especially those of us who are more loner-like, conferences can be an important antidote. Everything healthy is part of something bigger!
10. Conferences facilitate friendships for purpose. In the early days of Oxfordshire Community Churches, leaders met regularly in a Chinese restaurant and "from relationship came strategy". That remains our conviction: we are joined in relationship, not simply functional partners to achieve something together.
Everything healthy is part of something bigger!