Nearly 70 Grace Brethren pastors and ministry leaders are gathered this week at The Oaks Conference Center in Lake Hughes, Calif., for the annual Southwest Focus Retreat. Participants have come from around California and as far away as Arizona, Alaska, and Ohio to participate.
This retreat, as with the previous ones in Ohio and Maryland, is launching the identity movement in the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches. Dave Guiles, executive director of Encompass World Partners, is leading the discussion. Monday evening, following the first session, participants broke into generational groups of three to talk about why each individual is part of the Grace Brethren movement. This morning, they divided again to talk about what they value in the Grace Brethren “tribe.”
As lunch approached, the group again split, with each person spending time alone to write to their “Timothy,” or a younger person they are mentoring in ministry. Those letters will be used to cull a number of values that are important to the group and the letters themselves will be posted to the graceconnect.us page.
Thoughts and impressions from the two days are being captured on the FGBC Identity Wall at graceconnect.us. You may also follow the hashtag “FGBCidentity” and “FocusEast” on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Photos are also be posted in an album on the graceconnectus Facebook page.