JEFFERSON CITY – The “not just another conference” conference CORE is coming to Missouri Baptists.
The two-day meeting revolves around three core values as Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) seeks to better equip believers to live out the Great Commission. Those values are becoming disciples, missional living and developing leaders. The conference is March 19-20 at Concord Baptist Church in Jefferson City. It begins that Monday at 1 p.m. and goes through Tuesday at noon, so anyone from Missouri can attend by taking only two days off, with a one-night stay.
The conference is free, but attendees can pre-register at www.mobaptist.org/CORE or by calling the MBC at 1-800-736-6227.
“We’re not putting the MBC’s core values onto your church.,” said Rick Hedger, partnership missions specialist for the MBC. “There are other core values that you and your church might have. Any church that’s focused on the Great Commission will have these three values. They may be stated differently, but they have the concepts.”
“The CORE Conference is an attempt to sweep away the dust and clutter surrounding three of these core values that often define who we are as Baptists. [They] revolve around each other and find themselves intertwined throughout the Great Commission given. You really can’t separate them. If you’re not doing one, you’re not doing the other two.”
By no clutter, he means that the conference will only feature speakers on each of those three core values. There will be no worship times and no breakout sessions. Each speaker will answer audience queries during an extended Q&A session.
“We’re not going to have our MBC facilitators,” Hedger said, “that way there’s more time for the Q&A. Last year we got feedback saying that Q&A time was very valuable and there were way more questions submitted than we had time to answer them.”
Attendees will be able to text or write-in their questions on cards.
Each of the speakers is recognized as a leader in disciple making, leadership development and missional living.
J.D. Payne and Mark Snowden will speak during the Missional Living segment. Payne is director of the Center for North American Missions and Church Planting at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. Snowden the author of the book, Truth That Sticks.
Real Life Discipleship Ministries, based out of Idaho, will focus on becoming disciples.
Reggie McNeal will wrap up the conference on day 2 by focusing on developing leaders. He is the missional leadership specialist for Leadership Network based in Dallas and has written several books on leadership.
BRIAN KOONCE/staff writer
bkoonce@mobaptist.org