Q: How do you have a Michael Green conference without Michael Green? A: Plan G

Of course, Dr. Michael Green would be the first to tell you that our Sharing Our Faith conferences are always a team effort. But, it was his generous offer to donate his time to the Network which launched the Good News Initiative just over a year ago. And, anyone who has read one of his fifty books or heard him speak before was certainly looking forward to hearing him at the two-day conference held Feb. 8-9 at Church of the Epiphany in Herndon, Virginia.

However, Dr. Green came down with something between bronchitis and the full-blown flu just as he arrived in the Metro DC area to attend the National Prayer Breakfast the day before the conference. His condition worsened as the days progressed and ultimately, he was unable to speak at the conference. On Thursday night, the team began to pray and discuss how we would cover for Michael's eight talks in the event that Dr. Green wasn't miraculously healed.

The Metro DC conference was our largest conference with over 220 people in attendance on Saturday, over 70 for the clergy training day on Friday, and another 100+ at the youth outreach on Saturday night. (Scott and Miriam Seely, Trinity seminarians from Pittsburgh, PA pictured right.) By the grace of God, we also had the largest team of speakers that we'd ever had and once Plan G (God's Plan) took effect, it took everyone's flexibility and cooperation to fill Dr. Green's very large shoes!


Bishop Keith Ackerman and Carrie Boren (pictured left) each managed to merge two talks into one and still run out of time on Friday. Rosemary Green realized that since she'd heard Michael do the Friday night talk a dozen times or more, so she could probably do it this time.



On Friday afternoon, the Rev. Clancy Nixon (pictured right) made the mistake of telling me that he'd love to join our team at some point in the future, and that night I asked him to step in and do Dr. Green's workshop on "Evangelistic Preaching and Speaking" the next morning!



The Rev. Dr. Jack Gabig (pictured left) had 24-hour's notice to put together the outreach talk on Jesus: The Perfect Lover. He used videoclips and the scripture of the woman at the well to talk to teens about the amazing love of Christ. The Great Hall was transformed into a youth night club and The PowerHouse Praise Band was outstanding! Plan G had Jack speaking from John 4, Carrie Boren sharing her testimony about giving her heart to Jesus after reading the Gospel of John, and me just happening to have a case of The Gospel of John in my van to give away! One of the phrases that we've picked up from a conference participant this year is "Just go on and be yourself, God! Go on and be yourself!" This was one of those moments!

We offered 18 different workshops at this conference on all kinds of ways to share the Gospel in effective ways from drama, church planting, liturgy, prayer, apologetics, and just plain friendship. (Rosemary Green pictured right.) One of our intercessors, Irene Simmons, stepped up to do my workshop on prayer, so I could do Carrie's workshop on "More Ways Than One" so Carrie could do Dr. Green's workshop on "Handling Difficulties in Evangelistic Conversations!" Now that's creativity! God was so good to provide everything that was needed to accomplish His wonderful purposes!

We brought Kevin Kallsen of AnglicanTV down from CT to videotape Dr. Green. Since the Greens have moved back to the UK, they won't be able to be on every team so we wanted to capture as much of Michael's teaching on video for future use. Instead, we got the rest of the team captured on video which will be tremendously helpful in introducing us to those who are considering having a Sharing Our Faith Conference in their neck of the woods.

To view or download any of the videoed talks from the conference, go to www.AnglicanTV.org. Please donate to AnglicanTV if you do make use of these videos. Kevin's ministry is solely supported by donations and so many of us have benefited by Kevin's camera rolling in high level meetings and places where we Anglicans could not go! Let's show him we are grateful for his ministry by supporting him financially.

Kevin videoed all day for us Friday and Friday night, then grabbed a quick bite and went to his host home for the night, where he proceeded to be sick from food poisoning throughout the night. He was set up and ready to roll the tape on Saturday morning, but he looked like a ghost! When he told me what he'd been through I couldn't believe it! He served all day and all night again and even went to All Saint's Dale City on Sunday morning where Michael finally was able to preach amidst fits of coughing. When I asked him for his receipts, he told me his mileage from CT and said to forget the reimbursement for meals - he didn't want to have any more reminders of that! Thanks, Kevin, for effort above and beyond the call of duty!

We had 15 partnering churches for this conference. These churches helped by publicizing the conferences, bringing teams of folks to the conference, offering volunteers to serve, financially supporting the effort, etc. I want to thank each of these congregations for supporting hosting a Sharing Our Faith Conference in their area. (The Rev. Luke Lucas, Assistant Rector at Epiphany, pictured right, was on the executive planning team along with me, Heather Adams of All Saints, and the Rev. Richard Zalesak of St. Francis, Richmond.)

We know that God worked in all of us to show us that He is raising up a team of evangelists to continue this important work in the future and that it is the job of every Christian to lead others to Christ - not just the Billy Grahams and the Michael Greens of the world - though we are so grateful that these two men in particular have been so faith in answering God's call on their lives! They would be the first to say "We need every Christian to do his or her part in sharing the amazing Good News of Jesus Christ with others. We can't do it alone!"

I want to thank everyone who volunteered to serve at this conference. The staff and members of Church of the Epiphany were unbelievable in their attitudes, flexibility, hard work, and service to Christ in this event. Thank you, thank you, thank you to so many who were part of this team effort!

The speaker team fanned out and spoke at eight different churches on Sunday morning. The Rev. Tom Herrick(pictured left) had the joy of leading an 86-year-old man and three others to Christ at the new church plant Christ Our Savior in Mt. Vernon. Carrie and I traveled to Goochland, VA to be with the good people at St. Francis. As soon as we entered the elementary school where they meet, I felt like they would benefit from doing a Harvest Unlimited campaign, but I didn't mention it to Carrie. Harvest Unlimited is a phone calling and prayer campaign whereby you invite your surrounding neighborhoods to come to your church and join you for a meal or other event. (I'll blog more on it later!)

After the service, Carrie and I met with some of their members to talk about how they could reach out and attract more people. Carrie shared about some of the successes that her parishes in Dallas have had and after about 45 minutes, she said, "Actually, the thing I think would best suit this congregation at this time is doing a Harvest Unlimited campaign!" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the electricity in the school went out. Since we were in a windowless room, we found ourselves in complete darkness until someone found their cell phone and we used it as a flashlight to gather up our things and exit the building. I'm sure that the Evil One thought that he had just ended our meeting and squelched that idea! As we were walking out, I shared my agreement that this congregation really should do a Harvest Unlimited campaign and I don't think anyone had any doubts about it at that point!

Finally, one last story. On Tuesday afternoon, I got Carrie to the airport in the middle of icy weather about 15 minutes before her plane was due to depart. I told her that they would just put her on the next flight out as there was no way that she would make it on that plane – she didn't even have her boarding pass yet. They selected her for the whole luggage check at security, she had to take the Dulles shuttle out to her gate, the door to the boarding ramp was already closed at the gate and after they opened it for her, the door to the plane was already closed and THEY OPENED IT to let her on! If that doesn't qualify as a miracle I don't know what does. I think the reason that God orchestrated that was to show us that He is going to be opening doors that might seem to us to be impossible to open in the near future.

So, how do you have a Michael Green conference without Michael Green? Plan G! God's plan is the only plan that I ever want to participate in. It's exciting! It's fun if you keep your sense of humor and hold everything very loosely in your hands! And, the most amazing fruit will come about in His timing. I can't wait to hear the testimonies about the people of Metro DC sharing their faith and having the privilege of seeing people come to faith in Jesus, joining us as part of God's Kingdom from now to eternity!

(All photos taken by the fabulous Karen Rummel of Fairfax, VA! Thank you!)

Testimony: Brian Dennison & family head to Uganda to teach law at UCU

Click here to hear the testimony of Brian Dennison of Christ Church, Savannah, GA - how he came to Christ, how his religious upbringing became a personal relationship with Jesus, and how he heard God's call to move his young family to Uganda to teach law at Uganda Christian University after having just made partner at his law firm in Savannah! Brian shared his testimony at the Sharing Our Faith Conference held in Savannah Oct. 5-7, 2007.

The Dennisons will be moving to Uganda this summer and they've established a blog for those who would like to continue to pray for them and follow their journey.

Sharing Our Faith Conference coming to Metro DC

February 8-10 is the next opportunity to attend a Sharing Our Faith conference and one of the last ones which will feature Dr. Michael Green! The Good News Initiative will be hosting another evangelism training conference - this time right on the heels of the National Prayer Breakfast in our nation's capitol. Church of the Epiphany located in Herndon, VA will be the site of the conference which will feature a Clergy Training day on Friday, Feb. 8, a kick-off worship service Friday night, a full Evangelism Training Day for everyone on Saturday, Feb. 9, and an outreach to youth on Saturday night.

The Good News speaker team will include 10 speakers who will offer 18 different workshops during the Saturday training on various aspects of sharing the Christian faith with others. Four plenary sessions will also be offered on Saturday including What Good News?, The Church God Multiplies, One-to-One Evangelism, and Follow up and Nurture of New Believers. The Saturday evening event will focus on reaching young adults with Dr. Green sharing a talk entitled "The Perfect Lover."

Registration is only $20 for the clergy day (spouses and seminarians are welcome!) and $50 for Saturday's training. Students and seminarians can attend all training for half-price. Full conference details are available and online registration is now open or check out conference links from www.anglican-evangelism.org.

Any church can register as a Partnering Church and receive 10 registrations for only $300. For information on this option, contact Heather Adams at hadams@acn-mac.org. This event is sponsored by the Anglican Communion Network's Good News Initiative in partnership with its Anglican Common Cause partners as well as other ecumenical partners. The conference will help equip any Christian believer in being a more effective witness for Jesus Christ in our society today. All are welcome!

2007 Good News Initiative Report

Report on the Good News Evangelism Initiative in its first year of inception:

Formed in early 2007, the Good News Initiative Core Team consists of The Rev. Cn. Dr. Michael Green, The Rt. Rev. Keith Ackerman, Rosemary Green, Carrie Boren, The Rev. Cn. Daryl Fenton, and Jenny Noyes. The Rev. Dr. Jack Gabig, The Rev. Tom Herrick and The Rev. Steven Tighe have also joined us on occasion as plenary speakers. This team represents the full spectrum of Anglicanism- evangelical, catholic, and charismatic. It also represents different ages, genders, churchmanships, and is both ordained and lay. We have hosted six three-day Sharing Our Faith conferences in Texas, Illinois, Florida, Ohio, Georgia and Massachusetts in six months and two promotional partnering church luncheons in California and Virginia to promote upcoming 2008 events.

• An estimated 770 people have been trained in evangelism through these conferences.
• An estimated 1525 people have attended outreach events associated with our
conferences.
• Many new people entrusted their lives to Jesus Christ for the first time.
• Many more renewed their commitment to follow Jesus, received healing, and received
spiritual gifts and encouragement through the prayer ministry opportunities
offered at these events.

Also, during this past year, Jenny Noyes moved from ACN Communications to ACN Evangelism Coordinator, indicating the level of commitment the Network has to helping its people and parishes win lost souls for Jesus Christ. A new Anglican-Evangelism.org website now publicizes events, explains resources available, and promotes evangelism in Anglican parishes. In addition, a new blog http://jennys-noise.blogspot.com shares testimonies and reports from each evangelistic event as well as discusses effective evangelism tools which parishes can use locally.

Goals for the Good News Initiative include:

(1) Identifying and training missioners for evangelism for every proto-diocese/convocation much like Carrie Boren’s position in the Diocese of Dallas, and,
(2) Developing lay evangelism teams in every parish helping to build a heart for evangelism into the very DNA of Common Cause parishes.

Plans for 2008:

• Hosting a Sharing Our Faith conference in Metro DC, Feb. 8-10, followed by a training and outreach on the George Mason University campus, Feb. 10-11.
• Offering a 4-day in-depth training for potential evangelists and evangelism trainers to widen our cadre of Anglican evangelists, tentatively planned for April 7-10, followed by a Sharing Our Faith conference April 11-13 hosted by the Diocese of San Joaquin.
• Adding to our speaker team qualified evangelists who can step into Michael and Rosemary Green’s shoes after April 2008
• Hosting a Sharing Our Faith conference in Pittsburgh, PA, September 12-14 at Church of the Ascension as part of the Celebrate 250 campaign in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

(Stay tuned to this site and anglican-evangelism.org for more info as plans for the future come into focus!)

Good News for New England

Thank you for your prayers for our conference in the Boston area! I can't believe our team has done six of these conferences in six months! To God be all the glory and praise!

The New England Sharing Our Faith conference drew 85 lay and clergy leaders to Christ Church at Hamilton and Wenham, MA October 25-27 (not too bad for the New England area!) Our team arrived on a gorgeous sunny day one week after the fall foliage peak - now that's just good planning! It was also the week of the first few games of the World Series with the Boston Red Sox hosting the Colorado Rockies - there's no way we could have predicted that! Between the Red Sox's games and those traveling to the Salem area just 9 miles to the south of us for Halloween, Boston was buzzing!

We always start our conferences off by having people write down on index cards the names of three people that they are praying will come to the Lord. Then, we collect them and have the on-site intercessors pray over them throughout the weekend. It puts people in a serious and intentional frame of mind about reaching the lost for Christ!

At the break right after we did that exercise, a woman walked up to me and said something to me about being from the South (I don’t know how she knew!) and I told her I was from a little town in NC called Mebane. She looked at me with disbelief and showed me the three names on her card – all of them – extended family members - live in NC and one lives in Mebane! We stopped right then and prayed that these dear folks would come to know the Lord Jesus as personal Lord and Savior.

We kicked off the conference on Thursday evening with "The Church God Uses" based on the church at Antioch. That talk never gets old as it reminds us that a ragged band of Jesus-followers (first called Christians at Antioch) who had no money, no employment, no 5-year plan, no theological training and no buildings helped to launch a revolutionary movement that 2,000 years later still commands the devotion of 1/3 of the population of the planet! Now that's what I call effective ministry!

The half-day conference on Friday included "Why bother?: Motivating the church for evangelism" by Dr. Green; "Developing an evangelism team in your parish" by Carrie Boren, and "What's your story? Reaching out through testimony" by me, where participants had a chance to practice in pairs, sharing their testimonies of coming to faith in Christ. Dr. Green finished the afternoon with a session on the topic of the occult. The timing of course was very relevant for the area and the time of the year. Although it's not a topic that we want to dwell on, it's one that we need to understand in order to deal with the impact that it has on our culture. We will encounter the forces of darkness if we are reaching out to non-believers so better to arm ourselves as best we can.

Friday night, our outreach with musician Nathan Tasker (now my new favorite Christian artist!) went very well with over 150 in attendance. Nathan played his original music and shared his faith for about 40 minutes. Then, since this event was a benefit concert, we learned about the Bolivian orphanage, Niños con Valor, and took up an offering that raised over $1,300 for these precious girls! Finally, Dr. Green gave an evangelistic message called "A Spirituality that Works," masterfully interweaving more of Nathan's songs into his presentation. The evening combined music, word and image in a unique way that I thought was very effective.

About a dozen people came forward and committed their lives to Christ. Most were children and teens! And we didn’t even have a “youth” track – proving that God can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants! Percentage-wise, this was an excellent response to the Gospel presentation.The churches involved will be following up with these new believers to make sure that they are properly discipled!

The full-day conference on Saturday followed our typical format with plenary sessions and workshops. The Rev. Mario Bergner, who is an Associate Rector at Christ Church and founder of Redeemed Lives ministry, led two workshops. One workshop was entitled "Reaching the gay community of their own turf." Here again, if we are to engage our culture, we have to understand how to engage people where they are. If you aren't familiar with Mario's testimony and work, then I recommend that you check out his website or read his book "Setting Love in Order."

The training part of the conference went well. Michael Green had to leave mid-day on Saturday so Carrie, Daryl and I carried on – a taste of how we’ll have to operate once the Greens really retire!

On Sunday, Carrie preached and I led an adult forum at All Saints' in Amesbury, Bishop Bill Murdoch's church. Both the 8:30 and the 11 a.m. services were full, and it was wonderful to see God's provision of the beautiful building that the local Catholic Church has now sold to this congregation (after All Saints' walked away from its facilities in West Newbury!) What joy and freedom were expressed in worship by this lively and warm congregation. The Venerable Paul from Kenya was among us for the whole weekend and consecrated All Saints' Church as a new parish on Thursday, Nov. 1 (All Saints' Day!) in the Kenyan diocese and province to which it now belongs.

Personally, I was able to spend some quality time with my niece who attends college near Hamilton, MA and my sister-in-law’s family as well as a dear Alpha leader friend of mine who lives in the area. Just after the conference (it had rained most of Saturday) we saw a full rainbow across the sky against the gorgeous fall colors! I felt that the Lord was pleased and that we truly brought hope and a new beginning to the New England area.

San Jose Conference Moved to April!

The Sharing Our Faith Conference that was scheduled for Nov. 16-18 in San Jose, CA has been postponed until April 2008. We are more excited than ever about the potential for this conference to be a wonderful time of equipping and encourgement, but we also now realize that we need to add a few more pieces to our preparation to maximize the effectiveness of this type of event!

Stay tuned for actual dates! We will still offer the live video-streaming option in April!

Our core team of six will be flying to San Jose during the original November dates to host a leadership luncheon for key ecumenical pastors and lay leaders in the San Jose area. We will be casting the vision for the April evangelism conference, enlisting partnership from several churches and working with the local planning team to train them in their respective roles and responsibilities.

We've now done six of these conferences across the country in just six months. We praise God for the fruit that has been borne, but we want to take this opportunity to implement some of the lessons we've learned and improve upon our model.

I keep forgetting that proactive evangelism is a new concept for many Anglicans and other mainline denominations! One of our goals going forward is to include the participation of more Common Cause partner churches and more ecumenical churches in not only the conference, but also in the area outreaches we do as part of our evangelistic weekends.

So, I would ask for your prayers as our team meets to pray and plan in November for our 2008 events, for this first leadership luncheon, and for the San Jose local planning team.

San Jose Conference Offers Live Videostreaming!

The San Jose Sharing Our Faith Conference, November 16-17, is being broadcast live via videostream to any location for only $25. If you are interested in hosting this event in your own area via videostream (Pacific Standard Time), please register here.

The Network's Good News Initiative team of six, led by the Rev. Cn. Dr. Michael Green, will be at St. Edward's parish in San Jose and the two day conference is also only $25 per participant.

These conferences teach you how to do evangelism and include both theory and practice. If you're interested in the 1/2 day Friday and full-day Saturday conference, you'll find info here and registration details here.

Saturday evening's outreach event at 7 p.m. is open to the public. St. Edward's own Steve Kritzer and band will perform followed by a talk by Dr. Green on "A Spirituality that Works." A collection will be taken to benefit the Santa Maria Urban Ministry. Invite your friends to come!