Heart & Mind
| The Vision and Passion of Bethel Seminary's Transformational Church Series |
You’ve been looking forward to this. Though it’s one more event in your already busy schedule, you know you should try to learn how to grow your church. You arrive at the auditorium, freshly showered, fully caffeinated, wholly prepared for a typical day at a typical church growth workshop. Or so you think. But instead of sliding unobtrusively into your auditorium seat, you are greeted at the door by an enthusiastic staff member wearing a loud tropical shirt, who promptly and without your permission slips a seashell lei around your neck. Equally loud is the pulsating beat of the native music playing inside the room. You stumble down the aisle, mesmerized by the rhythmic worship team on stage, all dressed in native Hawaiian costumes, dancing and singing in praise. This is Minnesota? This is church?
This is church, at New Hope Christian Fellowship, O’ahu, Hawaii.* And this is Minnesota, too. It’s Bethel Seminary’s annual Transformational Church Series, where each year you’ll find a different, diverse, and dynamic church showcased on the stage of Bethel University’s Benson Great Hall. The idea began simply enough, the logical response to a needed component in the education of seminary students. It has grown into a phenomenon, a large-scale event that ministers not only to the students for whom it was created, but to pastors and lay leaders nationwide.
Designed to inspire
Initiated in 1996, the Transformational Church Series (TCS) was designed to inspire Bethel Seminary students with the passion and ethos of churches God is using greatly by bringing their key leadership on campus to share their experience in person. According to Leland Eliason, executive director and provost, “We ask [pastors and ministry teams] to come and infuse Bethel Seminary with the vision and passion that God has given them. We want to be infected with what God is doing in their lives.”
The series’ original intent was student-focused, providing a needed practical component to students’ hours of academic study of ministry concepts. Provost Eliason stated that “our goal is to ensure that during the course of three or four years of study, every student is exposed to what God is doing in great and powerful ways through the ministries of very contrasting kinds of churches and approaches to ministry.”
Seminary students, many of whom are future pastors and ministry leaders of their own transformational churches, find training, inspiration, and challenge at each TCS they attend during their years of study. They are joined by an ever-growing contingent of pastors, ministry practitioners, lay leaders, and alumni from the Twin Cities, greater Minnesota, and states as far-flung as Ohio, Florida, and California. In 2004, a group of six people traveled from Winnipeg, Canada, to attend.
A ministry to ministers
Just what attracts these attendees, many of whom have returned for more than one event? “This series has helped me in my ministry more than anything I’ve ever read or attended!” exclaimed Steven A. Huggins, pastor of church ministries at Edinbrook Church in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Kathy J. Smith of Valleybrook Church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, found “powerful insight into personal spiritual growth…I anticipate lasting change.” Lee McConnel, then chair of the executive deacon board at Berean Baptist Church in Burnsville, Minnesota, summed up the event’s impact as “a day to consecrate to the Lord as a reconnection with Him and as preparation for future ministry.”
Indeed, many churches send their entire staff, often including lay leaders, to TCS as a sort of retreat day. The seminary does its best to accommodate these groups by providing private meeting rooms for them to gather for lunch and for debriefing at the end of the day. “There are pastors and church leadership who say, ‘We wouldn’t miss this for anything,’” said Provost Eliason. “They attend every year and some even wonder out loud to me: ‘Why aren’t more pastors and board members here?’”
During each annual conference, students and ministry leaders alike experience firsthand the worship and preaching of a unique transformational church. Each church brings its senior pastor and ministry team and presents what might be its typical Sunday service. From the first presenters, Bill Hybels and the ministry team from Willow Creek Community Church of Barrington, Illinois (1996 and 2002), to the most recent, Peter Scazzero and the team from New Life Fellowship of Queens, New York (2004), each TCS has offered a refreshing and engaging program. As attendees participate in worship, listen to the senior pastor, and attend breakout sessions geared toward specific areas of ministry, they nourish their own personal spiritual lives as well as gather invaluable input for their current or future ministries.
Spiritual formation
Several conferences have offered a special emphasis on spiritual and personal transformation. In 1999, Gordon and Gail MacDonald, who formerly ministered at Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts, presented a unique dialogue about spiritual and personal formation, using many examples from their own personal journeys. Participants responded enthusiastically. One commented, “I deeply appreciated the MacDonalds’ honest dialogue and sharing. Their transparency…was refreshing and instructive.”
In 2000, nationally-recognized revival leader Henry Blackaby presented four powerful teaching sessions at Bethel, followed by a citywide event at the Minneapolis Convention Center, all focusing on the power of prayer and spiritual transformation as leaders discern and join in God’s activity in the world.
Attendance reached record highs in 2000 as ministry teams and lay people were drawn by knowledge of Blackaby’s reputation and books such as Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God and Fresh Encounter: God’s Pattern for Revival.
Behind the scenes
While hundreds of students, pastors, and ministry leaders are blessed and challenged at each year’s TCS, there is another side to the event that many of its attendees never experience. One person who does see the bigger picture is Meg Thorson, executive assistant to the provost, who is responsible for coordinating the details of each conference from the original concept to the follow-up afterwards. “When I began, I was totally daunted by the project,” she confided. “But it has turned out to be so much fun! It is so different every year, and each year it is like a puzzle to solve all the logistics, down to the smallest details.” Thorson credits the commitment of the provost and the support and hard work of the seminary staff with helping her pull off an increasingly successful event each year.
For each conference, Thorson works with the visiting team from the featured church, coordinating their travel arrangements, structuring their conference presentation, and providing for their needs while they are visiting and ministering. This close interaction with each ministry team is her favorite part of the process. “Working with the visiting team from the guest church is such an edifying experience,” she said. “During the in-between times like rehearsals, meals, and travel, I get to see who they really are, their interaction with one another, and their belief in each other’s calling and commitment. Their incarnational relationships with each other are so refreshing to observe.”
Long-term impact
Incarnational relationships behind the scenes translate into presentations that can have a profound impact on those who attend. Provost Eliason recalled one student who experienced God’s call to missions during a Transformational Church Series message and is now a missionary in the Ukraine. Other participants have been equally changed. Ivan Veldhuizen, senior pastor at Edinbrook Church in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, said that the conference would “make a significant impact for years to come,” and Lane Skoglund-Anderson, minister of worship and music at Minnetonka Baptist Church, Minnetonka, Minnesota, called it “a healing balm for the inner part of me.”
The Transformational Church Series is doing just that—using transformational churches to energize the lives and ministries of seminary students and ministry leaders, one life at a time. Then they in turn are better prepared and equipped to touch the lives of others in a transformational way. According to Provost Eliason, that’s what it’s all about: “What matters most is experiencing firsthand the vision and passion that God uses to reach lost people and that grows deeply committed Christ-followers. That’s God’s will for His church. And ultimately, catching a contagious vision and passion for doing church effectively is why we do the Transformational Church Series.”
It’s been a long and eventful day. You have been stretched beyond your comfort zone, challenged by new ideas, stimulated by vibrant worship and teaching, refreshed by authentic fellowship. You’ve arrived at a new appreciation for all things tropical, even those impossibly loud shirts. You are encircled by the energy, the momentum, the inspiration of the day as surely as the seashell lei that still encircles your neck. You thoughtfully remove the lei and place it gently on your nightstand.
You’ve already decided. You’ll
be back next year. •
* Wayne Cordeiro and the team from New Hope Christian Fellowship were the featured guests at Transformational Church Series 2001.