5 Ways You Can Better Equip Vital Congregations

From Discipleship Ministries July 2015 Every month we send you just 5 ways you can better equip Vital Congregations and make disciples of Jesus Christ. Here’s this month’s issue! Get ideas and encouragement for growing generous disciples. If your congregation faces the challenges of growing generous disciples or is looking for funding ministries that transform lives and support mission work, subscribe to Generous Living, a free e-newsletter from Discipleship Ministries.Generous Living includes timely pieces that connect leaders to helpful tools, as well as stories that inspire members to "give until it feels good!" To subscribe, go to http://bit.ly/1UCuvbw.   Attend training to launch new places for new people. LaunchPad, a training event resourced by New Church Starts (Path 1), helps leaders and teams learn to successfully plant new faith communities. A session in English focused on planting teams looking at a missional community will be July 27-30 in Louisville, Ky. For more information and to register, go to http://bit.ly/1CqkoRo. A session in English and Spanish will be Aug. 21-23 in Lebanon, Pa. For more information and to register, go to http://bit.ly/1IKAhTL.   Teach your children how to help other children in the world. The United Methodist Children’s Fund for Christian Mission uses teaching activities to help children learn about missions, practice care of others, develop habits of discipleship and practice generosity. Gifts to the 2015 Children’s Fund will benefit ministries in Haiti, Honduras, Thailand, and Virginia. To learn more about the projects and activities you can use with children, go to http://bit.ly/1CqmgK0.   Help answer daily prayer requests for people in need. Nearly 600 Living Prayer Center volunteers pray for the 800 prayer requests received each day by The Upper Room. These requests come by phone or are posted online at the new prayer wall by people in need of physical healing, burdened by stress, living with grief, and more. Working with the Living Prayer Center, an intercessory prayer ministry staffed by Christian volunteers, is a great prayer project for covenant groups or individuals. Learn more at http://prayer-center.upperroom.org.   Help children grow in faith. New from Upper Room Books, Passing It On, provides families a suggested daily practice and a prayer for each week, along with guidance for weekly family gatherings. Author Kara Lassen Oliver also offers easy-to-follow suggestions for the seasons of Advent, Lent, summer and back to school. A leader’s guide helps parents and church groups who are studying this book together. For more information and to order, go to http://bit.ly/1ILzJNr. That’s all this month.  5 more ideas coming your way in August. P.S. – Don’t forget to check out the dozens of webinars on various church-related topics atwww.umcdiscipleship.org/webinars. Subscribe to the Monthly Newsletter More from Discipleship Ministries