Church of God General Overseer Dr. Tim Hill and Michael Nations, founding director of The VITAL Initiative, will host a unique gathering for pastors via Zoom on Monday December 7, 2020 at 8:00 EST. All pastors are welcome, and the discussion will concentrate primarily on issues highlighted in the work of The VITAL Initiative, a ministry founded to benefit the pastor of the smaller congregation.
“This time together will be of great benefit for pastors serving smaller churches, pastors serving in obscure places, church planters, and pastors that are bi-vocational or co-vocational,” Nations stated. “There will be ample time for questions and comments with this format and attendees will be encouraged and inspired when joining pastors from across the country realizing they are not alone in their labor for the Lord. We are colleagues.”
According to Nations, topics will include:
• The importance of pastors
• The importance of churches, even if they are small
• Positively bi-vocational, co-vocational
• Mission stations, missional calling, missionary efforts
• Multiplication? Do we need more small churches?
“The VITAL Initiative is changing the way the Church of God thinks about small churches!” Hill said. “This is critically important since it is obvious according to 2019 statistics that the Church of God is a denomination primarily of small churches. We have 6,575 churches in the United States and Canada and of those churches, 5,260 have less than 100 people attending on Sunday. That is eighty percent (80%).”
In recent years, The VITAL Initiative has focused on this segment of the Church of God to stress the importance of the work taking place in small churches and the crucial role of pastors in these churches. The stated mission is to help the Church of God realize and utilize the place and power of small churches in 21st century Kingdom work.
“In many instances, pastors serving small churches are misunderstood, misrepresented, and marginalized from ministry discussions,” Hill continued. “The VITAL Initiative is working to create a new ethos within the Church of God that recognizes the small church as a valid and vital part of God’s redemptive plan. Small churches are not failed large churches. They are outposts of the Kingdom of God in a hurting world.”