“To inspire, challenge, and equip the church to share the Gospel with the lost from here to the nations.” This is the goal of Calvert Grace Community Church’s annual outreach conference.
Calvert Grace Church, located in Owings, Md., strives to have a robust missions culture. While they regularly pray for their missionaries and hear testimonies of their work during Sunday services, their outreach conference puts missionaries and congregants together in a different context. Outreach Pastor Trevin Hoekzema explained that exposing people to both local and global missionaries helps create connection and relationships between the church and missionaries. “Those who speak at this conference become household names to our people,” he said.
Trevin works with the Outreach Team, a group of a dozen volunteer leaders with unique backgrounds, callings, and responsibilities, to plan and carry out the conference. Each year has a different theme and focal point, all based on Acts 1:8, which says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Trevin said this is their guide in how they structure their conference, focusing on missions near them (Jerusalem), missions in their region (Samaria), and missions overseas (to the ends of the earth).
The overall structure of the conference is not just to hear updates from missionaries, although there is an element of that, but rather to have the missionaries lead trainings that equip others for missional work. Trevin works with the missionaries to plan main sessions and breakout discussions centered on their particular area of work in a way that also provides practical training for those attending.
The first year of the conference, Encompass workers Tom and MaryAnn Barlow spoke along with Jason and Christy Carmean. The second year Dave Guiles, international coordinator for Charis Alliance, spoke on the concept of a plentiful harvest but few laborers, and he was joined by regional missionaries. The third year Nathan Bryant and Phil Bryant, with Assist Church Expansion, spoke on Ephesians 4 and equipping the saints for the work of ministry, with an emphasis on spiritual gifts and being a healthy church.
This year focused on discipleship and what it looks like in their church. Discipleship Pastor Phil Shearer spoke on local discipleship and Florent Varak, director of the Church Equipping Network at Encompass World Partners, spoke on discipleship in a global context. They spoke on Acts 19 and how the early church multiplied leaders by sharing the Gospel cross culturally. They also had a local missionary serving with Fellowship of Christian Athletes share as well as a panel of elders discuss how they have been discipled in the past, how they are discipling others now, and where else they see discipleship happening in their church. Trevin said, “Our elders are actively involved in our church, and it’s helpful for people to know them and to see how discipleship happens in all shapes and sizes.”
The conference concludes by providing people a practical way to respond to something they learned. This year attendees received a 13-week discipleship tool from Navigators and people committed to finding one person to walk through the study with, and the church committed to following up for accountability. “It’s such a joy to watch our global partners share from their ministries and teach from their expertise in ways that inspire our people to do the same here,” Trevin said. “Every year our Outreach Team and our staff have incredible follow up conversations for weeks afterwards.”
The outreach conference was born out of a desire to both train the church and to give missionaries a voice. By pairing practical training with personal stories, a shared mission is created and a deeper commitment is developed. Trevin is passionate about churches fostering these environments and would love to connect with churches to help them think through ways they can expand their outreach both locally and globally. He can be emailed here.