Stephen Kriss, Director of Communication and Leadership Cultivation
This is the last issue of Franconia Conference’s Growing Leaders. It’s a tough time for print publications, from the weeklies in my neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia to the national papers like the Los Angeles Times. Today’s economic turbulence is accelerating the move from paper to web-based communication. With changes in our cooperative arrangement with Virginia and Lancaster conferences, we’ve decided to accelerate our changes as well.
Growing Leaders grew out of a desire for increased collaboration among the conferences of the Northeast corridor of Mennonite Church USA. After nearly a decade of publication, those relationships have changed and grown. We began by working together around expectations for credentialing and leadership development, now we’re moving toward more coordination of efforts around church-planting and mission. With this move, along with financial belt-tightening across MC USA, it’s time to change our approach toward how we equip and share ideas.
This change comes at the same time as the implementation of the LEAD (Leading, Equipping and Discipling) model of conference ministry being introduced into Franconia Conference congregations. Growing Leaders provided a meaningful communication and formational venue for leaders. It’s a venue we’ll miss, but will seek to supplement in new ways as the LEAD model for ministry emerges.
We’ll continue to move toward clear and more consistent communication efforts by increasing web-based supplements of blogs and information—nearly all conference communication will move into a virtual sphere, except for Intersections, which is becoming our bimonthly conference flagship publication. Conference staff may well be tapping more of you to help write and contribute as our conversation moves into more responsive and fluid virtual space. While the signs of the journey suggest that we’re picking up speed in a more interconnected world, we’re looking for ways to provide more timely and contextual resources.
Though it’s hard for me to imagine (or desire, really) a world without paper-based publications, we’ll likely need to continue to find new ways to share information and offer formation resources that extend our shared goals of healthy and growing leaders, disciples, congregations and connections that are both near and far. This could mean increased use of technology, but will likely need to be balanced with intentional relationship-building and sharing in face-to-face settings as well. Both the virtual and “real” will be increasingly important in this age to come.
May God who can move us into the future—with more creativity and imagination than we can muster—be illuminated in our work and our connections, now and forevermore.
The opinions expressed in articles posted on Mosaic’s website are those of the author and may not reflect the official policy of Mosaic Conference. Mosaic is a large conference, crossing ethnicities, geographies, generations, theologies, and politics. Each person can only speak for themselves; no one can represent “the conference.” May God give us the grace to hear what the Spirit is speaking to us through people with whom we disagree and the humility and courage to love one another even when those disagreements can’t be bridged.