Workshops

Speakers: Brian Johnson and Rob Wegner

We see simple expressions of Church multiplying exponentially around the world in places like China and India.   Many of these church planting movements are now intentionally weaving in wholism through micro-enterprise, orphan care, and other simple forms of community development.

Is this possible in the West?  What does it look like to see missionaries on every street and a simple church in every neighborhood making the gospel tangible in wholistic ways?

In this workshop, Rob Wegner, Global Catalyst for the NewThing network, a network of more than 1400 churches planting in more than 20 countries, and Brian Johnson,  Director of the Simple Church Network in Kansas City, will unpack a twelve month planting process to equip ordinary people to plant simple expressions of church in their neighborhood or network here in the West.    Rob and Brian are both on staff at Westside Family Church, overseeing global missions and equipping people to live like missionaries here in Kansas City.

The workshop will include:

• Highlights of the Four Phases of Simple Church Training
• Practical tools for training missionaries in a Post-Christian, Post-Modern Western context, including the five essential incarnational rhythms.
• Practical tools for training disciples who can make disciples, moving from informal methods to more formal programs.
• How to build in reproduction and multiplication at every level.
• How to maintain a healthy connection between the simple churches and the sponsoring congregation.
• Access to an app and website through which the training is facilitated.

Speakers: Jason Morris, Reneé Terrill, Allison Colin, Enosh Kumar, Ed Phanursi

In this workshop, Jason Morris, Director of Global Church planting, a network of over 500 churches in 5 countries, and Reneé Terrill, Coordinator of Global Impact, will tell the story of how Adopt a Village came to be after discovering the synergy of Church Planting, Orphan Care, and Community Development. Jason and Reneé are both on staff at Westside Family Church, overseeing global missions and One Life Child Sponsorship. Allison Colin, from South Africa, is our expert on Orphan Care. Enosh Kumar, from India, is our expert on Church Planting. Ed Phanursi, from Thailand, is our expert on Community Development.

The workshop will include:

• An in-depth picture of the wholistic approach to Kingdom Building by synergizing:
• Church Planting
• Orphan Care
• Community Development
• How this framework applies in different cultural contexts
• How to intentionally connect Kingdom efforts into a cohesive strategy
• How the Adopt a Village model could be used to enhance what you do wherever that happens to be.

Speakers: Jason Morris, Enosh Kumar, Ed Phanursi

In this workshop, Jason Morris, Director of Global Church planting, a network of over 500 churches in 5 countries, will tell the story of how he learned the hard way how to empower national leadership instead of accidentally undermining the work on the ground and how to strategically leverage first world celebrity to catalyze systems of sustainable ministry instead of dependence. Jason is staff at Westside Family Church, overseeing global church planting and has served on the mission field for 8 years empowering nationals. Enosh Kumar is leader of Truthful Gospel Ministries in India. Ed Phanursi is leader of Asia All In Ministries in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.

The workshop will include:

• What mistakes to avoid in ministry partnerships
• How to design intentional ecosystems of growth using an empowerment approach of mutual servanthood
• How to coach ministry teams to appreciate and empower the national’s context
• How to strategically use false ‘American Celebrity’ to uplift national leadership
• Examples of long-term and fruitful international ministry relationships using this method

Speakers: Dan Southerland and Troy MacMahon, NewThing Network Leaders

Dan and Troy have led a church planting network and movement here in Kansas City that has planted 24 churches in the last seven years, crossing denominational boundaries for Kingdom purposes.  Currently, two church planting networks have launched with plans for four more to reach the goal of gospel saturation through 100 church plants in Kansas City by 2025 and 1000 church plants in Kansas City by 2035.

Come learn:

• What is a church planting network?
• Why start church planting networks?
• How do church planting networks function?
• How would I start one?

Speakers: Brent Foulke, Stadia Executive Leadership Team; Andrea Hamilton, Director of Global Development  

Stadia plants scores of churches in the West, and more than 100 in under resourced settings globally each year. In all settings planters are empowered, especially in caring for children. How do churches here start with a passion for wholism, both here (locally) and there (globally)? How does wholism become a part of the local church DNA?

In this workshop:

• What does a church planting process look like?
  • Will describe all Stadia services for church planting, what they look like and why they are important and help a planter in a wholistic approach to planting.
• How are church planters coached into a wholistic mindset?
  • Explain what are specific staff does for church plants in coaching including giving back to church planting.
• What does wholism look like in a new church plant, both locally and internationally?
  • Investing back in church planting, partnering for domestic planting and with our global partnerships
  • Explain our global partnership and what that looks like.
• Where do partnerships fit in and how are those down in a truly transformational way?
  • Domestic and global partnerships are created from the start. Explain how this is possible even as a startup church plant and how it continues.

www.stadiachurchplanting.org

Speakers: Meredith and Joshua Johnson

Outside leaders identify inside leaders who in turn can plant a reproducing gospel in their culture. Learn to Identify these inside leaders often referred to as person’s of peace and disciple them without creating dependencies.  Explore building coaching and mentoring networks that sustain generational growth allowing the gospel to move unimpeded through social networks.

This workshop will include:

• Learn the characteristics and qualities of a Persons of Peace
• Identify strategies that release Persons of Peace to disciple their communities
• Explore the dangers of dependencies and their devastating impact on gospel planting

Joshua and Meredith Johnson served with All Nations in Jordan working among Syrian Refugees, now as leaders of All Nations North America, Meredith & Joshua coach and train people to live in loving obedience to Jesus and His commands. They love 2 Timothy 2:2 and helped ignite and coach a Jesus movement among Muslim refugees in the Middle East. Joshua has a Masters in Social & Civic Entrepreneurship, and Meredith has a Masters of Divinity with Global Missions emphasis.

Speakers: Hermie Smit and Roy Moran

Explore the critical habits of successful discovery groups. Learn effective strategies for generational growth. Identify the three mistakes that most facilitators make when learning the discovery method. Discover where to start reading in the Bible with a new Discovery Group.

This workshop will include:

• A repeatable lesson plan for every Discovery Group
• Access to reading plans developed for a variety of populations
• Hands-on practice of the discovery process

Hermie Smit is with Cityteam coaching and mentoring disciple making activity among Latinos in the Bay Area of California. Roy Moran is founding pastor of Shoal Creek Community Church and is chairman of the board of New Generations (formerly Cityteam International) and Beyond. Roy is author of Spent Matches, a book in which he chronicles his journey into DMM as a pastor of a successful attractional church.

Speakers: Cory Ozbun and Phil Alessi

Prison populations are often receptive to the gospel but bear little fruit upon being released. Planting a reproducing gospel among incarcerated that spreads inside a prison and continues to bear fruit once released is a Great Commission strategy. Hear a case study of two places where the gospel is flourishing in prisons and disciple makers once released are continuing to plant the gospel.

This workshop will include:
Bridging the release by building receptive communities after incarceration
Providing material help that doesn’t turn into dependency
Building collaborative partnerships with existing agencies with fostering dependency

Phil and Ruthann Alessi serve with NOVO (formerly CRM) in the Greater Chicago area. Their ministry has focused on discipling people of peace inside then outside jails and prisons that have reached hundreds of inmates and family members. Some of those inmates, now in vocational ministries reaching gangs and youth on the outside and planting "con"-gregations on the inside that are seeing 100 inmates a month coming to faith. Phil is empowering leaders who are raising up teams committed to disciple making movements. Cory Ozbun works in Johnson County Kansas in the prison system.

Speakers: Dave Hinman and Jim Egli

Movements are more than Discovery Groups!  How do you implement a disciple making movement strategy in an organization or church?  Get a sneak peek at a new curriculum developed through a New Generations/Vineyard collaboration and how it might become a tool to make cultural shifts in organizations.

This workshop includes:
Identify where in your organization or church you can start implementing DMM
Understand the nuances of who and when you rollout DMM training
Explore the scope and sequence of a brand new tool for training DMM

David Hinman is an Associate Pastor at the Gilbert Vineyard in Arizona and the Multiply Vineyard Representative for the Southwest Region. He and his wife Lissa have been married for twenty-eight years and have three children, one son-in-law and a grandson, all who live in Denver, CO. Over the past year, he has been associated with Cityteam Ministries and involved in catalyzing, training and coaching Disciple Making Movements in Arizona, and in parts of the U.S. and Africa.  Jim Egli was formerly the Leadership Pastor at the Vineyard Church (Urbana, IL), a church with five campuses in East Central Illinois. His job is to multiply the number of leaders, small groups, and churches at the Urbana Vineyard. Jim now is the Learning Designer for New Generations Int’l.  Since 1992, his central ministry focus has been small groups. For eight years of that time, his full-time job was writing training and consulting with churches helping them to establish vibrant small group ministries. He has completed a Ph.D. in Organizational Communication from Regent University.

Speakers: Dave Johnson and Karl Mueller of DAI

Do you have a sense that your ministry is struggling?  Are you overwhelmed with the speed and nature of change and are unsure where to turn for help?  This workshop is designed to provide you with a  framework and tools by which can understand, assess and measure the internal capacity and the mission of your ministry as it relates to our ever-changing ministry context. You will learn and be exposed to innovative and creative approaches that will enhance your ministry and its ability to strengthen internally as well as grow in your external impact.

Speaker: Tom Bassford of SAT Talks

Is your organization torn between conflicting needs and priorities? Are you using resources that are given to your organization, but have “strings attached” which threaten to pull you away from your primary objectives and compromise your true mission statement?   As someone on the frontlines of ministry with the poor, you know better than most that shifting the church’s understanding of what is and is not “helping that hurts” is no short-term fix.  Do you have the freedom to speak the truth in love where donors and sponsors are concerned? This workshop will explore venues for productive feedback with organizations which provide resources. Our particular niche in this space is to help churches accelerate the learning curve and reframe their missions work around sustainable solutions and create room for business-minded people who can help that happen.

Speaker: Calvin W. Edwards

Ministry colleagues work together for good but may differ on how or why lives are changed. Often, underlying ministry assumptions are unknown or unstated. This can lead to disagreement on strategy, resource allocation, and messaging. The concept of Theory of Change addresses these issues. Mr. Edwards brings a refreshing simplicity and practicality to the topic. He will help you understand what a Theory of Change is, and then how to develop and articulate your Theory of Change, and how to use it to support strategy development, program design, fundraising, and consistent communication throughout the organization. He will also discuss Theory of Change in relation to the currently popular concept of “Collective Impact.”

Speaker: Calvin W. Edwards

Mr. Edwards draws on nearly two decades of experience advising major donors as a philanthropic consultant—including some of the nation’s biggest givers. He will discuss the key trends in funding—not fundraising tactics or so-called “best practices,” but what donors are thinking and doing. What is driving funding decisions? How are those factors changing? He will also suggest actions that will help your ministry have the characteristics that donors are looking for. “Three generations” of donor types will be profiled along with how to approach them, and which donor type is especially productive for fundraising.

Speaker: Rory Tyer, GO Innovation

In this participatory, hands-on workshop, attendees will experience three research-based leadership development frameworks that they can immediately apply in any context toward a variety of positive outcomes over time. These frameworks, part of a body of work called Leadership Essentials, are Social Identity (for building meaningful relationships quickly), D-A-C (to diagnose leadership deficiencies in any work and prioritize how to address them), and S-B-I (a framework for giving and receiving feedback that actually helps). Once you've experienced these Essentials, you will be equipped to use them for your and your team's benefit immediately. They require no special training to re-use and can be contextualized for a variety of needs: clarifying organizational vision and ensuring alignment to that vision; helping people have more candid conversations for higher performance; breaking down barriers that might otherwise divide individuals or groups in your ministry; and giving effective and timely feedback that helps someone know, and then repeat, things that represent the best version of themselves and of your organization.

Speaker: Dayo Obaweya, Medical Ambassadors International and Global CHE Network

Indigenous ministries often struggle to find sources of financial support within their own countries.  Foreign partnerships have greatly assisted indigenous ministries in supplementing these funding needs.  Sometimes, however, reliance on foreign funding can create vulnerabilities in the sustainability of indigenous ministries if local funding sources are not developed.  This workshop will explore examples of how local ministries are developing other funding through income generating activities, small businesses, and economic partnerships to create a more stable and sustainable economic funding model.

Based in his home country of Nigeria, Dayo Obewaya serves as the chairperson of the Global CHE Network representative council and the West Africa regional coordinator for Medical Ambassadors International.  He has helped coordinate a diverse network of partners in West Africa that has seen the growth of Community Health Evangelism to 17 West African nations.  Dayo will share his own experience of starting his own businesses and helping some of the ministries in West Africa start others.

Speaker: Ravi Jayakaran, DVM, Medical Ambassadors International

• How do ministries measure the impact they hope to make?
• How can monitoring and evaluation be owned, implemented, and empowering to local ministries not only as a requirement of donor partners but as part of the development process itself?
• Can monitoring and evaluation be done in a simple, effective, culturally-relevant way by community members themselves?

In this workshop, Dr. Ravi Jayakaran will share stories and cases from his 3 decades of international development experience while demonstrating practical examples of tools he has innovated and used to equip local communities in monitoring and evaluation.  Some of the tools he will present include the ten-seed technique, the holistic worldview analysis, and several smartphone-based apps to assess transformation.   While this workshop will be most valuable to practitioners in integral mission and transformational ministries, new learners will also benefit from exposure to general concepts, principles and challenges of monitoring and evaluation.

Initially trained as a veterinarian, Dr. Ravi Jayakaran has well over three decades of expeience leading international poverty reduction and strategic development programs and currently serves as the president of Medical Ambassadors International.  He has been the Global Director of Community Transformations for e3 Partners/I am Second, as well as the Catalyst for Integral Missions for the Lausanne Movement.  Dr. Jayakaran has worked in senior management positions in several well-known international ministries, the corporate sector, the Asian Development Bank, and the United Nations Development Program (SE Asia).  With his wife, Vimla, he has lived and worked long-term in India, Cambodia, China and the US.  He has provided technical support in more than 23 countries on issues of transformational development, integral mission, relief and development, participatory poverty alleviation and development, public health, and prevention of trafficking.

Speaker: Bibiana Macleod, MD, Medical Ambassadors International

It is estimated that over 80% of the world’s population are oral preference learners who better learn through non-print and non-written forms of communication.   Yet the majority of Christian cross-cultural workers use literacy-based communication and teaching styles, limiting their ability to develop deeper relationships and mutual understanding.  In this workshop, we will gain a better understanding of orality and tribal cultures through the challenging experiences mission teams have had engaging indigenous Guarani communities in northeastern Argentina.  After realizing that many of the key concepts and lessons in the community health evangelism strategy were difficult for the Guarani to understand even after translated into the local language, the team worked with local Guarani to completely revise the CHE approach into an oral framework and method.  Though the work is still in the pioneering stage, we will share stories and practical examples of oral lessons that have demonstrated great potential in helping the Guarani better understand the Gospel and transformational development.

Dr. Bibiana Macleod is a native Argentine and proud new Canadian who loves to see local communities take ownership and flourish using their God-given gifts, resources, and creativity.  Originally trained as an Internist, Bibiana followed God’s calling by serving as a missionary doctor in Haiti for over 15 years, then continued to serve there while living in other countries.  She grew to understand the complex social, economic, environmental, and spiritual factors that impacted the overall health of communities and realized that to truly see transformation, these issues needed to be addressed holistically by the community.  Bibiana went on to be trained in Community Health Evangelism and then served as country coordinator for Haiti and the Dominican Republic from 1993 to 2005.   She then served as Medical Ambassadors International’s regional coordinator for the Caribbean and South America, where she saw the growth of CHE to 6 countries.  Bibiana is currently studying in the Wheaton College MA Program for Humanitarian and Disaster Leadership and continues to serve with Medical Ambassadors as a specialty project coordinator for maternal-child health and nutrition, orality, and disaster response and community resilience.

Speakers: Anna Ho and Heather Hicks

In Workshop 1, we look at 3 key principles to integrate into any ministry, especially those looking to address the needs of vulnerable people in the Majority World. In an interactive format, we will consider:

• How central is God to your ministry? What does true dependence on God look like on a day-to-day basis at an organizational, leadership, and personal level?
• While we all agree that a wholistic approach is best, we often flounder as we try to integrate the physical and spiritual. What does true integration look like? How does an integrated worldview affect our goals, strategies, and day-to-day activities?
• Understanding that beliefs are powerful, how do we identify and confront the lies that hold people in poverty—those held by vulnerable people, by society, and even those that we bring with us? We’ll also look at key Biblical truths that lead to flourishing.

Speakers: Nam and Anna Ho

Workshop 2 will build on Workshop 1, with 4 more key principles that are crucial for seeing transformation among the vulnerable in the Majority World. We’ll discuss:

• Who do we seek to serve? Do we define them primarily by what they lack, or do we see them as God does—His precious creation with great potential and a calling to steward the earth and build God’s kingdom?
• How can we partner well with Majority World churches? What are the pitfalls and how do we overcome them?
• Why should we mobilize local resources among the poorest? What are the practical steps to seeing fruit?

Speaker: Ryan Kuja

Spiritual formation is an aspect of wholistic mission that often gets neglected by wholistic ministers. Our own spiritual health is a critical component of fruitful ministry. But our spiritual health is complex and requires a wholistic approach. Come and explore the following:

• • trauma and wounds - how they impact missionaries and the way we serve the marginalized
  • contemplative prayer/silence in the presence of God
  • becoming wounded healers

Speaker: Kim Kargbo

What is “wholistic” ministry? Is it word and deed? Proclamation and demonstration? Or is there more to it? Come to this workshop to identify the components of wholistic ministry, identify the Biblical basis for wholistic ministry, and gain practical tools for implementing a more wholistic approach for your ministry forward.

Speaker: Kurt Wilson

Measuring impact is a challenge! Particularly when you are trying to measure things that are somewhat abstract and require a long-term approach. How do you know if you have achieved “transformation?” Are you facilitating mature disciples? How do you know? Learn approaches for measuring what matters, beyond counting converts and baptisms.

Speaker: Jackie Nyamutumbu

The face of missions is changing. But it’s easy to get stuck in “the way we’ve always done it.” Forming effective cross-cultural partnerships is challenging. Colonialism, outdated missiological frameworks, and past mistakes can leave wounds that make effective relationships painfully difficult. Worldviews, language, attitudes toward money, and many other nuances can feel like barriers that cannot be overcome. But the task of fulfilling the Great Commission has been given to ALL followers of Christ. How can Westerners forge effective and empowering relationships with local counterparts – for the sake of the Kingdom, and the glory of the Christ we all serve? Diversity is essential – and created by God! Come and explore the possibilities!

Speaker: Mark Miller

How are you showing the world who you are and what your mission is? When we think of branding, we often think about images, colors and logos. But there is far more to that piece of our identity that we usually consider. Come and learn how to put your best foot forward in branding and marketing your ministry, to tell His story as effectively as possible.

Speaker: Gena Thomas

As practitioners in wholistic ministry, we all want to follow the Lord’s directive to do justice. But what does that mean? Often we view this injunction through a cultural lens, rather than a Biblical lens. Come and be challenged to reconsider your ideas on Biblical justice, contrasting what is being required with a typical American view of charity.

Speakers: Ruth and Nik Ripken

The Ripkens have interviewed over 600 believers in persecution from more than 72 countries.  Sitting at their feet, they learned how to thrive amidst suffering, not merely survive. Believers in persecution remind us that persecution in the Bible is normal. Suffering for Jesus is as common as the “sun coming up in the east.”  How does faith survive, let alone flourish in the places of the world that are overcome with the darkness of sin, despair and hopelessness? How can we help to expand the Kingdom of god by sharing truths and practices learned from believers in persecution? Knowing that many in America do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God or that He is the only way to eternal life, do you consider it a great honor to walk across the street to share Christ with your neighbor? This workshop will challenge believers to boldly follow Jesus, sharing their faith with others - no matter the cost.

Speaker: Elli Oswald

Many Christians visit or volunteer in orphanages. Yet, increasing awareness of the risks compels us to rethink how mission trips can better support vulnerable children.  This workshop will address the risks associated with visiting orphanages, and present practical guidance and resources for better volunteering and child-safe mission trips – aligned with biblical principles and a strong evidence base.

Elli Oswald is the Executive Director of the Faith to Action Initiative, a coalition of organizations seeking to promote best practices in global orphan care.  She has served as a missions pastor at Bethany Community Church in Seattle and as part of World Vision International’s Child Protection Technical Team, specializing in community-based care for children deprived of parental care.  She has a B.A. from Pepperdine University and a M.A. in Cross Cultural Studies and International Development from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Speaker: Don Johnson

Churches and agencies invest a lot of time and financial resources in short-term missions. But are we getting the best return on our investment? How can we capture and retain the growth that takes place in the lives of the participants (or help those who are struggling) and channel that into ongoing ministry? Many short-termers have their eyes opened to the needs of lost and disenfranchised people, only return home to go back to “normal life” unchanged by their experience. Debrief and follow-through can help them channel their new understanding into new and increased ministry at home or abroad. Other short-termers come home struggling with issues of doubt, guilt, or even depression after being exposed to the needs of others. They need help to work through the theological or practical struggles they are facing. Debriefing can help expose those struggles and is an essential aspect of doing short-term missions with excellence—but it’s only the first step. How do we accomplish “thorough follow-through”—moving short-termers into ongoing investment in ministry? We’ll look at the four stages of debriefing short-termers and share some tools for use at each stage to help ensure thorough follow-through.

Speakers: Linda Brock and David Thoresen

Does your Short-Term Missions trip feel like a vacation? In this workshop we will explore what can be done on a Short-Term Missions trip that will continue when you leave and have an eternal impact.

In this workshop we will:

• Discover creative ways for teams to be involved with CHE and DMM where they serve.
• Share examples of what other teams have done and some results.

Linda Brock spent 30 years serving with CMF International in Africa with her husband Garry using Wholistic Ministry strategies. For the past 12 years she has worked with CMF ministries training missionaries, nationals and Short Term Teams in CHE strategy and DMM multiplication principles.

David Thoresen is the Outreach Pastor at Pantano Christian Church in Tucson, AZ. He has been promoting the CHE and CPM/DMM strategies around the world through Pantano's global partners for 12 years.

Speaker: Randy Schmor

Speaker: Gena Thomas

Speakers: Marijana Čizmanski and Ron Seck

This workshop will introduce, explain and illustrate 8 major principles reinforced in the struggle to do effective and sensitive transformational development in a vulnerable population group.

Although refugees from the war-torn Middle-East are the vulnerable people group that receives Europe’s attention today, their circumstance actually pales in comparison to the on-going plight of the 13 million despised, poverty-stricken and marginalized Roma/Gypsy of that continent.  This is the population that Ron Seck, Coordinator of CHE EuroNet, and Marijana Cizmanski, Director of ZZ Serbia, and their Central European teams work with on a daily basis.

Important lessons about how to do transformational development among vulnerable populations can be learned from the many failures and few successes in efforts to help the Roma/Gypsy people thrive in Central Europe and the Balkans.

The Eight Principles we will cover in this workshop, time-permitting, are:

• The “Oscar” Principle
• The “Outsider-Insider” Principle
• The “Poverty” Principle
• The “Never-ending Story of the Good Samaritan” Principle
• The “Here today and … tomorrow?” Principle
• The “Which ‘Golden’ Rule?” Principle
• The “Who Does This Belong to?” Principle
• The “Stop the Traffic” Principle

Speaker: Elli Oswald

The call to respond to the needs of orphaned and vulnerable children is biblical. However, our responses to this call have often fallen short of wholistic healing and restoration. Both Scripture and social science demonstrate that the ideal place to raise a child is within a family. This workshop covers significant findings that demonstrate the importance of family care and the limitations of orphanages and provides practical tools and resources for how to take next steps.

Speaker: Maggie Conrad

Are you wondering how to reach out to vulnerable women, children and families in a way that is sustainable and doesn’t create dependency?  Do you want to see your efforts last and multiply long-term?  Come hear about how God is using community health evangelism and curriculum developed especially for vulnerable women and families, to transform communities. Join us to learn about Women’s Cycle of Life, Prenatal CHEPS, Healthy Birthing, 1000 Days and other family CHE resources.  Share YOUR stories with us.   Let’s work together to bring God’s hope to families!

Presented by Medical Ambassador International’s Women’s Health International Coordinator: a certified nurse-midwife, nurse-practitioner who facilitates trainings to bring physical, spiritual, and relational health to women and families around the world.

Speaker: Agron Aga

Community Health Evangelism’s Biblical strategy has proven highly successful for igniting transformational development programs and even movements among people groups and communities in rural and village settings in many nations.

But does it work in urban settings as well, including those that are under-churched and under-served?

“Yes, by the grace of God,” says Agron Aga, Director of CHE Albania.

His team has the flourishing urban CHE program in Tirana, Albania to prove it.  Currently Albania represents the most mature CHE ministry in the region, serving as a model for neighbor countries in the Balkans and Central Europe while being a key promotor of CHE expansion in Europe.

Equipped only with CHE’s initial training, but with a great desire to start a ministry based on CHE principles, Agron’s Albanian team started CHE in an urban setting, responding to its needs in a wholistic way that empowered the marginalized people in Rruga Ura.

This workshop will take you step-by-step through the process of transformation of the poverty-stricken people and neighborhood of Rruga-Ura .  Agron will explain how the CHE Albania team adapted CHE’s strategies, principles and methods to this urban setting and how your team can do the same in your city as well.

Agron Aga was born in communist Albania of Muslim parents.  His college degree from Albania’s  Agriculture University is in Agronomy.  After Agron became a believer in Jesus Christ, he served for 9 years in several Christian outreach ministries in his home country.  In 2003 Agron discovered Community Health Evangelism (CHE) and in 2004 he joined the CHE team in Albania.  Two years later he became a CHE Coordinator for the country.  In 2016 Agron became Director of CHE Albania.  CHE Albania presently has 6 flourishing community development programs in Albania, including an Urban program in the capitol city of Tirana.  In 2007 Agron took part in the Internship Program in the Philippines.  In addition, he is trained in environment protection and micro-business, leading a micro-enterprise program in three CHE communities.

Speakers: Matt Adams and Desiree Monize

In 2014 there were 1,400 homeless children in the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools. Three years later that number has been reduced by more than fifty percent. After three years, more than 95% of children and their families continue to thrive. How does a coalition of more than 23 agencies, churches, and government agencies work together to successfully address child homelessness?

Matt Adams is Pastor of Community Impact at Westside Family Church. He is married to Debbie and has two daughters. Matt works to develop collaborative networks with churches and businesses in Kansas City to maximize the impact for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. He also serves on the Board of Directors for several non-profits, including Avenue of Life.

Desiree Monize is the Executive Director of Avenue of Life, a non-profit dedicated to eradicating poverty through community development. Desiree has dedicated her life to urban ministry almost and has been a leader in the Kansas City non-profit world for more than 15 years. She launched Avenue of Life in 2014. In the last three years Avenue of Life has led a collective impact coalition that has reduced homelessness in the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools by more than fifty percent.

Speaker: Regina Foard

Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is an analytical measurement of the awareness and understanding of one’s own culture and potentially, the understanding and awareness of the ‘others’ culture so that the capacity for engagement may increase. There are cultural CQ assessments that measure the cultural intelligence one might have regarding their own culture which, in turn, should influence appropriate cultural behaviour towards the ‘other’ culture. This understanding further enables the practitioner to manoeuvre through various cultural differences between one’s own culture and the ‘other’s’ culture for successful capacity for engagement. This proposed workshop will emphasize a Christian approach to successful cross-cultural participation and engagement for gospel advancement through CQ.  The workshop PPT is created from the “Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage our Multicultural World” by David A. Livermore.

Speaker: Clint Hall of The Sending Project

We envision cities where John 17:23 is fulfilled. Imagine hundreds of churches working in unity, strategically joining forces to overcome physical and spiritual poverty around the world. God has a heart for the poor. He has a heart for the nations. And He wants His Church to be in unity. Now is the time for us to connect with His heart and work together to let the world know how much He loves them.