Glenn asked the participants to build a model based on all they learned yesterday to demonstrate how their designated group envisions mobilizing a radical number of people - to have radical impact on the community - and exert a radical impact on the life of their congregation by the end of 2009.
The first group "tried to think outside the box" to create a model for any ministry usable to identify a need. It is based on "Stop, Start, Continue" evaluation that Don Simmons talked about. First the "Stop" is to do internal assessment to see where the church is overtaxed. Then, they would do an external assessment to see who else is doing something in a postive direction with which they can partner. Next, they would define success, identify and invite leadership, identify tasks and resources, identify and invite key folks like trainers and those already in the ministry, and bring people together to engage. There would be constant feedback to the planning team and to the church in which they would do the "Start, Stop, and Continue" evaluation. Stories would be going back to help invite people into the ministry. The arching principle is kingdom relationships. The potential with the model is that they do not need to create the ministry if it is already elsewhere. They would join them. It doesn't have to be all church people who are involved. It could be an opportunity to draw people in from the community. One of the norms would be discipleship that would be happening throughout process.The next group focused on making a major impact on the community and the church. In the 
model, the church and people are represented in the circle. The church could be the local congregation or the church of the city. The places they can serve are at work or school, with homeless or prisoners, and in neighborhoods for examples. The guiding principles would be to pray; communicate to the church through sermons and storytelling; identify ministry opportunities such as big events, small groups, individually like tutoring; and spontaneously by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, beginning discipleship in the process; invite and identify people, T.A.F.E.R.R. as outlined by Don Simmons; fund; and evaluate by tracking and monitoring to see that discipleship takes place and leadership is raised up. They will know if the model succeeds or fails by how many people are involved in ministry.
model, the church and people are represented in the circle. The church could be the local congregation or the church of the city. The places they can serve are at work or school, with homeless or prisoners, and in neighborhoods for examples. The guiding principles would be to pray; communicate to the church through sermons and storytelling; identify ministry opportunities such as big events, small groups, individually like tutoring; and spontaneously by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, beginning discipleship in the process; invite and identify people, T.A.F.E.R.R. as outlined by Don Simmons; fund; and evaluate by tracking and monitoring to see that discipleship takes place and leadership is raised up. They will know if the model succeeds or fails by how many people are involved in ministry.The final group discussed race relations. Their thoughts came out of the 3rd Thursday prayer meeting downtown. They learned how the business community perceives Little Rock. Crime is a huge problem keeping people out and the school system and racial relations are problems. This group decided to focus on race relations. There are problems with race relations in this city. They want to create some shared experience with different races of this city. What if they went into the city and identified three or four locations where people could come together - white, hispanic, and black? They could set up a parkfest in the summer. It would send a message to the city that the church is serious about racial rela
tions. It isn't going to happen at the picnic though. Before parkfest, they would need to plan an exchange of people in worship services. Then, there would be a practice picnic in the park in which the churches involved would come together for fun, food, prayer walk, and for community building activities that would include physical contact. Next, those people would invite their neighbors who are different from them to the parkfest. All this would be in preparation for the coming of Luis Palau in October, because this joining of races won't happen there if there hasn't been some preparation. They want to focus on relations more than race as is usually done. The barrier is that noone wants to talk about race. The guiding principle is creating situations where relatioships are formed.
tions. It isn't going to happen at the picnic though. Before parkfest, they would need to plan an exchange of people in worship services. Then, there would be a practice picnic in the park in which the churches involved would come together for fun, food, prayer walk, and for community building activities that would include physical contact. Next, those people would invite their neighbors who are different from them to the parkfest. All this would be in preparation for the coming of Luis Palau in October, because this joining of races won't happen there if there hasn't been some preparation. They want to focus on relations more than race as is usually done. The barrier is that noone wants to talk about race. The guiding principle is creating situations where relatioships are formed. Ray Williams added some information that could impact this plan. The season of service for Palau will be in July. The actual event is October 24. Child Care Evangelism who does outside Bible clubs and Good News Clubs in schools is bringing 200 college students to Little Rock from July 15 to August 1 to go out all over the city to do five day clubs partnering with the city and ending with a rally. Ray suggested having the parkfest after this in neighborhoods in which Bible clubs have worked and in September when the weather is cooler.
Some emerging themes that the participants of the conference discovered in all of the plans were as follows: vision that represents mobilization, engagement, need for identification, planning, leveraging existing successes by partnering with and not reinventing, positive deviant, new language that puts "church" things in common language, communication, shared experiences, revitalization personally and in the community, and anticipating barriers and planning to work around them.
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