Nearly seven hundred missionaries, family members and guests gathered on August 15-19, 2007, at Caronport, SK for a conference on First Nations ministry. The conference, organized by Inter-Mission Cooperative Outreach, has been an every-fifth-year event since 1972. As always, this conference proved to be a worthwhile forum for renewal and reconnecting.

The theme, Divinely Appointed Relationships, served as a guide for both plenary speakers as well as the facilitators for some forty-five workshops. Dr. Erwin Lutzer, Senior Pastor of Moody Church, Chicago, provided outstanding teaching on how to manage relationships when conflict arises. Dr. Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Specialist and faculty member of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL, offered a practical model of building relationships and serving in ways that honor host cultures.

The workshops covered a broad range of issues from family issues to Aboriginal church development to difficult issues of ministry to ministry skills, attitudes and awareness. Of special interest were Dr. Emerson Falls’ workshops on contextualization and Mary Lederleitner’s ground-breaking workshops on the financial issues of cross-cultural partnering. Forty percent of the workshops were facilitated by First Nations leadership.

Strong relationships are vital to weathering change, and this conference served the IMCO partnership well in addressing a wide range of relationship issues. “The conference certainly affirmed the recent changes happening within the IMCO partnership and laid the foundation for future change in the coming years,” commented Warren Cheek, IMCO Chair.

Click here for a conference summary in more detail.

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