I’ve been waiting for something like this,” said Helen Adarme, member of Vallejo Drive church. “We learned a lot, and we’re hoping that what we learned will trickle down to actual action not just for us but also the community—and we hope for more!”
Through the years, different departments in the Southern California Conference (SCC) office have hosted training events for local churches—trainings that have been often technical and focused on specific ministries. This year, SCC introduced a new conference-wide initiative created to inspire, encourage, and equip. Aptly named, EQUIP25 was designed to bring valuable training directly to local church leaders— empowering ministry inside and outside the church.
Royal Harrison, SCC executive vice president, described the purpose of the event as twofold: to equip church leaders to better serve their congregations and to share the focus of the conference over the next five years.
The theme of the event was inspired by SCC’s mission to exalt Christ by cultivating healthy churches and schools. John H. Cress, SCC president, began his keynote asking, “What does a healthy church look like?”
Cress noted how difficult it is to target health in a congregation if we don’t know how to identify a healthy church, and so he outlined eight characteristics that healthy churches share: strategic clarity, empowering leadership, transformational preaching, biblically grounded, mission mentality, intentional discipleship, deliberate stewardship, and prayerful dependence.
“When a church knows its mission and vision, people gain a shared sense of identity and purpose,” Cress said. “They can say with confidence, ‘This is why we exist.’”
Following the keynote, more than 500 attendees moved from the sanctuary to designated classrooms where 15 different breakout sessions were presented on various topics. Greeting and hospitality, servant leadership, small group discipleship, designing an engaging worship experience, and how to give Bible studies were just a few of the topics covered.
“We intentionally brought people who were experienced in their particular fields to teach and to train,” Harrison said. “Our desire was to bring all our churches together in one place to be inspired, that people would learn something from each of their sessions, and that they would take back to their churches a renewed faith, inspiration, and excitement that would help to fulfill our mission.”
Plans are underway for another event next year.
“We know that a healthy organization doesn’t get healthier by accident,” said Danny Chan, SCC executive secretary/ministerial director. “It happens through intentional investment in the leaders—pastors, teachers, and lay leaders, who are most dedicated in ministry. They are the heartbeat of ministry.”
