MinDev Training Seminars

MinDev Church Health & Development Seminars

Positioning for Mission with Jesus. This seminar helps participants identify and develop strategies and structures for their active participation with Jesus in his work through the Spirit to advance the Father's mission of multiplying disciples of his Son Jesus. Topics include discovering and changing core values, discerning and embracing God's vision, and mobilizing for mission through setting missional goals.

Relational Evangelism. This seminar explores practical, “everyday” ways that believers may participate actively with Jesus in his ministry of sharing the Father’s love with non-believers.

Assimilating New People Into Your Church. This seminar helps participants learn to develop environments and ministries that encourage visitors to return to the weekly worship service and become active members.

Servants Passage. A three-part journey that helps church workers, leaders and pastors further identify and develop their lives and ministries in accordance with God’s “divine design.” It includes three weekend intensives. The time between intensives involves church-based learning related to equipping for ministering out of one's divine design.  For more information about Servants Passage, click here.

MinDev Ministry Life Seminars

Spiritual Formation for Pastors. This seminar relates the practice of spiritual disciplines to the demands of a pastor’s life. The seminar helps pastors develop strategies for spiritual growth specific to their personality and life circumstances. (Note: a weekend intensive version of this seminar is available through ACCM)

Managing Ministry Burnout. This seminar helps participants define and embrace a lifestyle that avoids ministry burnout. Topics include setting priorities and boundaries, spiritual formation, time management, and balancing work and family.

MinDev Ministry Skill Seminars

Understanding and Teaching Trinitarian Theology. This seminar discusses the theological vision that undergirds GCI doctrine. It seeks faithfulness to Jesus - the one united in the Trinity to the Father and Spirit, and united in the incarnation to all humanity. The seminar discusses the history of Trinitarian Theology and its basis in Scripture. Opportunity is given for questions.

Teaching Christian Doctrine. This seminar surveys the current GCI Statement of Beliefs, and discusses effective ways to preach and teach these core doctrines of the Christian faith through expository sermons and Bible studies.

Teaching Christian History. This seminar surveys the history of the Christian church from A.D. 69 to modern times. Emphasis is given to Ireneaus, Athanasius, the Cappadocian fathers, Karl Barth, Tom Torrance, and the history of the Adventist movement in the U.S. of which GCI was a part.

Trinitarian, Team-Based Leadership. This seminar helps participants develop ministry teams that faithfully reflect and participate in the union of the Father, Son and Spirit with all humanity.  Included in this seminar is an exercise to help participants identify and understand their unique “relationship style” and ways the different styles interact in a ministry team.

Transformational Preaching. This seminar helps participants develop and deliver expository sermons that lead to life transformation as people encounter through Holy Scripture the Living Word of God.

Ministry Coach Training. This seminar helps ministry leaders and pastors learn the principles and skills of coaching others in developing as ministers of Jesus working within the church.

Collaborative Decision-Making. This seminar helps participants learn the principles and skills of collaborative decision-making. An easy to use collaborative process is applied to decision-making within ministry teams. 

Leading Change - Managing Conflict. This seminar explores the dynamics of organizational change and discusses effectively leading people through a change process that typically involves conflict.

Urban, Cross-Cultural Ministry. This seminar explores issues related to ministering effectively within urban settings, which are typically cross-cultural. For more about this seminar, see the 11/09 GC2 equipper.

Providing Pastoral Care. This seminar offers helpful tips concerning providing effective pastoral care. Topics addressed include listening, encouraging, visiting and pastoral prayer.

Conducting Church Ceremonies. This seminar discusses a trinitarian, Christ-centered approach to conducting church services, weddings, funerals, baptisms, communion services, concerts of prayer, etc.

Developing Your Worship Team. This seminar is a “hands on” discussion of ways to further develop the team(s) that provides the congregation with music, prayer, Scripture reading, offerings—all of the elements of worship beyond the sermon. Various alternatives are explored that relate to various sizes of congregations.

Administrative Skills for Ministers. This seminar explores basic administrative skills for ministers including time management, delegation, financial management, and use of computers and other tools (email, telephone, blogs, text messaging, etc.). This seminar also overviews the policies and procedures found in the GCI-USA Church Administration Manual and Financial Management Manual.

Building or Buying a Church Building. This seminar overviews the policies and procedures found in the GCI Church Building Manual. The seminar addresses evaluating church facility needs and understanding key issues related to buying, building and maintaining church buildings.

Generations Ministries (GenMin) Seminars

Connection (Children and Teen Ministry Environments). This seminar explores the defining characteristics (foundations) of ministries that help children and teens celebrate their connection in Jesus to the love and life of God. Through five hours of instruction and discussion, Connection helps ministry workers, ministry leaders, pastors and parents identify effective ways to help young people experience and express the life and love of Jesus – finding in him the full expression of God's love, person, story, will, people and purpose. This seminar is a great place to start in building new or growing ministries that reach out with God's transforming love to disciple children, teens and/or young adults.

Journey with the Master. This program is similar to Servants Passage, but geared for those age 15 to 30. It helps these younger adults discover and live out through ministry their God-given “design.”  The journey lasts about two years and includes two or three training intensives.

Grace-Based Parenting (and Grand Parenting). This seminar helps parents develop approaches and skills for parenting based in God's unconditional love in Christ for all people (children and teens included).  The seminar is interactive, giving opportunity for parents to share frustrations and victories and thus learn from one another.

Connected Marriages. This seminar helps married couples build stronger bonds of Christ-centered love. It deals with issues of understanding (and capitalizing on) differences, communication styles and marriage “seasons” (marriage over the adult life span). This seminar helps married couples draw closer and work together to make a good marriage even better.

Leaving a Legacy. This seminar addresses opportunities for older adults to participate actively in the ministry of the church—in ways that “leave a legacy” that endures into the next generation.  The focus is on ministry through older adults. Practical alternatives and strategies are explored.

Developing Effective Ministries to Children. This “hands on” workshop helps congregations start or develop ministries to children (toddlers through middle school). It examines principles and “nuts and bolts” detail related to teaching methods, curricula, volunteer staffing and facilities.

Church Multiplication Ministries (CMM) Seminars

Church Multiplication Vision. This seminar explores theological framework for church multiplication (based upon Trinitarian theology) and the reasons for planting new churches (spiritual and pragmatic reasons). It also provides an overview of GCI-USA church multiplication vision and goals as well as an overview of the training and support resources provided by CMM.

Church Multiplication Forum. This seminar provides an opportunity for open dialogue about church multiplication questions, concerns, obstacles and training needs, etc.

Working Together to Start New Churches. This seminar examines the essential elements of church multiplication leadership (assessment, training, coaching). It provides an overview of CMM resources for assessing, training, coaching and discusses GCI's Church Multiplication System including long-range vision, goals, and plans for church multiplication.

Can YOU Start a New Church? This seminar examines key characteristics of leaders who start Christ-centered, growing, multiplying new churches. It provides information that helps congregations identify, train and deploy leaders with the gifts and competencies for starting new churches. It also provides an overview of CMM resources for helping leaders prepare to start new churches

Preparing to Plant a Church. This seminar examines key characteristics and practices of reproducing churches. It helps congregations identify and overcome obstacles to church multiplication.

Leaving a Legacy for Church Multiplication. This seminar explains how small or under-resourced congregations can “leave a legacy” by partnering with CMM to start new churches.

Models for Church Multiplication. This seminar surveys alternative models whereby individual congregations and district church planting networks can start new churches.

Sponsoring a Church Plant. This seminar helps congregations learn to sponsor a church plant. Participants learn about assessing church plant leaders, evaluating New Church Proposals, and determining financial support levels.

Funding a Church Plant. This seminar teaches key practices for effective fundraising including major donor development, financial planning, and missional budgeting. It also explains relationships and accountability roles between church plant leaders and sponsoring congregations.

Healthy Church Planting Processes. This seminar helps pastors, congregations and district leaders develop vision for church planting. It also outlines the process of strategic planning for church planting at local and district levels, including: The role of partner/sponsor congregations; demographic research; recruiting church plant leaders; assessing, training and coaching church plant leaders; funding a new church; and continuing the church multiplication process.

Church Planter Assessor Training. This two-day event teaches participants how to assess potential church plant leaders. Participants learn how to evaluate prospective planters (using self-assessment tools) and how to conduct assessment interviews. Training includes participation in an actual assessment interview.

Church-Next Training (Church planter leadership training). This five-day event prepares potential church plant leaders for starting new churches. The essentials explored include vision, mission, strategic planning, core group development and going public.

Office of Reconciliation Ministries (ORM) Seminars

ORM offers seminars related to mending broken relationships by removing walls and building bridges. Through open dialogue, participants are led to find positive solutions to difficult issues that separate people (racism, sexism, conflict, etc.). Click here to download the ORM brochure.

MinDev Consulting Services

MinDev partners with CMM, GenMin and ORM to offer consulting services to pastors and congregations through email, telephone, online and face-to-face meetings. Consulting services are offered in four general areas:

• General ministry issues, including:
  • Congregational health. Assisting pastors and pastoral care teams in evaluating their congregation's health.  Evaluation includes the use of assessment tools related to the church's disciplemaking mission.
  • Pastor performance. Assisting district pastoral leaders and pastors in evaluating pastor performance. Evaluation includes use of assessment tools designed to help pastors recognize both strengths and needs for growth.
  • Conflict resolution. Providing trained mediators to help congregations work through difficult interpersonal conflicts.
• Church Multiplication issues: planting and developing new churches.
• Generations Ministries issues: discipling children, teens & young adults; ministering through older adults; supporting parents and strengthening marriages.
• Reconciliation Ministries issues: addressing racial, ethnic and other reconciliation issues.

Scheduling MinDev services

District pastoral leaders, pastors, and leaders of ministries are encouraged to contact the Ministry Development Team to schedule MinDev training seminars and consulting services. Contact may be made in the following ways (and see ministry development team contact information below):

• Contact your district pastoral leader
• Contact the CAD office in Glendora, CA
• Contact a CAD ministry developer

MinDev services contacts

MinDev services costs

The Ministry Development Team seeks to provide high quality services at low cost. Following is information related to determining and paying for the costs related to hosting an MinDev seminar.

When an MinDev seminar is conducted for a district pastoral network, the denomination reimburses the ministry development team trainer for transportation to and from the event.  If the seminar is for one congregation, that congregation reimburses the trainer for transportation costs.

In all cases, the host either provides (or reimburses the trainer) for the ministry development team trainer’s on-site needs (lodging, meals and on-site transportation). The trainer will help the host determine these costs up front, and reimbursement of the trainer may be handled as a guaranteed “flat fee” or as reimbursement of actual costs.

The host then provides and pays for all other local seminar needs including meeting hall, printing of the training workbook provided by the trainer, group meals/ refreshments, etc. Hosts typically recover all their seminar-related costs by charging participants a registration fee.