What does the church have to do with the home?
An upcoming conference featuring several speakers from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and other church leaders called “Connecting Church & Home” will seek to show the crucial relationship between the two and will equip church leaders with practical ministry strategies for ministering biblically to families within the church.
The conference will be held March 20-21 at Brentwood Baptist Church near Nashsville. The event is being geared explicitly for current and future pastors and other church leaders who desire to see the church partner with parents in the discipling of children.
It is also a practical outworking of Southern Seminary’s family equipping model of ministry in the local church, a model developed by the school that equips churches to assist parents in discipling their children biblically.
“We all know there is a problem with local churches failing to help parents disciple the children and we are tired of talking about the problem,” said Randy Stinson, dean of the School of Leadership and Church Ministry at Southern Seminary.
“We want to talk about a solution. This conference is unique in that it is not going to be theoretical. It is a nuts and bolts conference with key practitioners in the field discussing, teaching and training on how they transition their churches from a standard programmatic model to what we are calling a family equipping model.”
Southern speakers will include two of the family equipping model’s pioneers, Stinson and Timothy Paul Jones, professor of Christian leadership, along with David Adams, director of the International Center for Youth Ministry at Boyce College.
The conference is a collaboration of several sponsors including Southern Seminary, FamilyLife Ministries, Brentwood Baptist Church and the Council on Biblical Womanhood, among others.
Other speakers will include: Jay Strother (Emerging Generations Pastor of Brentwood), David Horner (Sr. Pastor of Providence Baptist of Raleigh, N.C.) Steve
Wright (Student Pastor at Providence Baptist Church and author of the highly influential book “ReThink” and the just released “Apparent Privilege”), David Michael (children’s pastor and Children Desiring God leader at Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis, Minn.), Dr. Brian Haynes (Associate Pastor of Spiritual Formation at Kingsland Baptist in Katy, Texas and author of the soon to be released book “Legacy Milestones).”
Pre-registration is available at the conference website, www.connectingchurchandhome. Cost is $50 per person, which includes lunch on Saturday. A pre-conference will be held from 2-4 p.m. and the first session is scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m. See the website for additional details.