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BY ERIK ALSGAARD
UMCONNECTION STAFF

Leadership Days in the Baltimore-Washington Conference have been hugely successful training events for clergy and laity in the past. More than 2,500 people attended the three workshop-filled days earlier this year, learning how to be better leaders in their local churches.

Next year?s Leadership Days seeks to build on that success and, at the same time, seeks to help leaders focus their ministry around the Discipleship Adventure.

The Discipleship Adventure is an inward and outward journey designed to grow deeper in relationship with Jesus Christ. Its five pieces include celebrating faith, connecting faith, developing faith, faithfully serving others, and sharing one?s faith.

'We?ve done Leadership Days successfully for a long time in the Baltimore-Washington Conference,' said the Rev. Rod Miller, director of connectional ministry. 'Now we see these events as a time for forming leadership around the Discipleship Adventure, engaging teams of people in the Adventure and to start living the Adventure.'

Held in three separate locations around the conference on three different Saturdays in early 2006, Leadership Days will still offer participants a wide variety of workshops. However, according to the Rev. Vivian McCarthy, associate council director and the person in charge of Leadership Days, this year?s format will change.

'We are going to look different,' she said. 'Our hope is that in doing the day differently we will be intentionally moving teams of people to begin or continue working in the Discipleship Adventure.'

In the past, McCarthy noted, workshops were offered at three different times ? one in the morning and two in the afternoon ? with one plenary session held just before lunch.

In the new format, one workshop time will be offered at 9 a.m. A plenary session will follow, led by Bishop John R. Schol, followed by lunch.

In the afternoon, a second plenary session will set up a series of exercises and learning tools for teams from local churches. After that training, church teams will meet together in small groups, with facilitation from conference staff, to look at ways their individual ministries help their church move toward the Discipleship Adventure.

'The whole day is designed to not only identify the various elements of the Discipleship Adventure, but to help connect those elements to bear Acts 2 fruit,' said Miller. 'We?d like to invite church leadership people to hear together and then move through the day and pull together the different pieces at the end.'

Both Miller and McCarthy see Leadership Days 2006 as a model for the whole church.

'We don?t want everyone just working in their own areas, in their own silos,' said Miller. 'We want to show how people can come together to work cooperatively in teams.'

The team aspect is important to emphasize, said McCarthy. She said that churches are encouraged to bring teams of lay and clergy and, rather than having each person do his or her own thing and never getting back together at the end of the day. The teams will then come together in small groups to process how to begin movement into the Discipleship Adventure.

'A lot of churches are already doing the Discipleship Adventure; a lot of churches think they?re already doing the Discipleship Adventure,' said McCarthy. 'By the end of the day, we want to have helped local churches put the Discipleship Adventure on the ground and get it started ? or continue its progress ? in each local church.'

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

No paper registration will be available for Leadership Days 2006. To register, visit www.bwcumc.org and click on the 'register for upcoming events' button on the right side of the page. If you need a paper copy, one may be faxed to you by calling Michell Savoy at (800) 492-2525, Ext. 427.

Registration deadlines are Dec. 30 for the Jan. 14 event in Inwood, W.Va., and costs $20, including lunch. For the Jan. 28 and Feb. 4 events in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., area, respectively, the early-bird registration of $20 is available through Jan. 6. After that date, the fee is $30, with a deadline of Jan. 13 for the Baltimore event, and Jan. 20 for the Washington event.