2021 Forest Lakes District Spring Conference

1000 East Riverview Expressway,Wisconsin Rapids WI 54494

19 April, 2021

Description

"Feels Like Home: How Rediscovering the Church as Family Changes Everything." We are excited to host the 35th year anniversary of the FLD Spring Conference! It is our privilege to have Pastor Lee Eclov as the main speaker! Doors will open for registration at 7:45 am. The conference will run from 8:30 am - 4:15 pm, starting off with Session 1 in the morning, followed by 7 different workshop options for everyone. We will provide lunch during affinity networks and wrap up the day with the Business Meeting & Session 2. This conference will be in-person but will also made available virtually for a discounted price. Details for pricing will be found in the ticket section. This is a great opportunity for your whole staff team to attend together! Spouses also are more than welcomed to attend. Our team desires for this conference to help you connect and create environments for relationships, equip and offer you resources and training, and help multiply and support the multiplication of disciples, leaders, and churches. With how 2019-2020 has been, we believe this year's theme supports our mission to you. We wanted to give you a preview of Pastor Lee's content below! He also will be doing one of the workshops during the conference. Morning General Session: The Ministry Measure We Almost Missed: “Love One Another.” Focus: So many of the things we’ve depended on to build our churches were stripped away this last year under the unprecedented pressure of pandemic and politics, leaving us to see just how well our churches had been doing the one thing most important to Jesus. Based on Jesus' thrice-repeated command in John 13:34-35, how do we rebuild unity and re-examine our leadership priorities? Workshop: “Feels Like Home” Topic: The church is God’s household, his family and ours. This isn't a metaphor for the church. It is the literal fact of the matter. Church leaders often approach our work as though our churches are organizations when they are much better described scripturally as families. In this workshop, Pastor Lee will give ideas on how thinking of the church as family might affect our worship, the ways we welcome guests, our care for the hurting, what we preach, and how we approach board duties. Afternoon General Session: What Makes Us Different? A Short Course in the Ties that Bind. Focus: Our theology of our life together can be strengthened by three short texts we might have overlooked--Ruth, Philemon, and 1 Corinthians 14. These passages which you may not have thought about in a while deepen our understanding of what the household of God involves and accomplishes. Pastor Lee Eclov retired from local church ministry in February 2020 after 40 years serving Evangelical Free Churches in Deerfield, Beaver Falls, PA, and Lincolnshire, IL. He was an adjunct professor at TEDS for over 15 years, teaching pastoral counseling. He authored the Pastor's Service Manual (NextStep Resources), and two books from Moody Publishers, Pastoral Graces: Reflections on the Care of Souls, and Feels Like Home: How Rediscovering the Church as Family Changes Everything. Currently he writes a weekly column for PreachingToday.com that is read by an estimated 20,000 church leaders. He's written many articles for Preaching Today, Leadership Journal, and CTPastors. In retirement, his ministry focuses on pastors.