2010 Southwest Conference Annual Meeting       

Featured guests: Geoffrey Black & Cameron Trimble

Emerging Insights Across the UCC
The Rev. Geoffrey A. Black was elected General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ in June 2009. His previous ministries, as a local church pastor, university chaplain, seminary lecturer, national staff member, justice advocate, ecumenical enthusiast and Conference Minister, has led Black to descibe himself as a ‘generalist’ rather than an ‘expert’ in any one aspect of church life. Black states, “I think it's important that the church have a sense of its breadth, because our reach is broad."

As a true and faithful leader, General Minister and President Geoffrey Black has used the early part of his ministry to engage the church in dialogue. He is conducting listening visits across the entire denomination with churches and leaders. Those listening visits will end up defining and shaping his ministry as our called and chosen leader.

In this address, Black will share with us the key insights that have emerged thus far in the dialogue, adding his own sense of what this means for the United Church of Christ as it moves into a new day.

Churches Birthing Churches
Supporting the birth of new liberal and progressive Christian congregations and strengthening existing progressive churches is the mission of the Center for Progressive Renewal. This is nothing new for the Rev. Cameron Trimble, co-executive director for the Center, she has dedicated her entire ministry to this goal. She will share her knowledge and experience relating to new church starts and revitalization of existing churches.

Many mainline denominations mistakenly have believed that planting new congregations could be done best by the denominational experts in the conference or national office. We have discovered that this is the most expensive and least productive way to give birth to a new congregation.

Just as elephants give birth to elephants, churches give birth to churches. A church willing to birth another church is a church willing to grow. A church crouched in a protective and fearful mode is not going to attract many people looking for more hope in their lives rather than fear. Trimble will talk about the basics of church multiplication and challenge churches to join a national movement of churches birthing churches in the UCC.