Generations Ministries

This update is from Anthony Mullins, national coordinator for GCI-USA Generations Ministries (GenMin).

The GenMin Advisory Council (pictured below with several guests) met recently in Southern California to review progress from the last year and prepare and plan for the future. In our strategic planning, we had clarity around our focus for 2016. In GenMin, we are calling 2016 The Year of the Child as a mantra for our intentional efforts to share the gospel and disciple the youngest children among us. It’s our intention to bring awareness and provide resources to help GCI-USA churches in their children’s ministries and to encourage our camps to provide mini and/or junior camp programs to tweens and children.

GenMin is in the process of forming a team of competent and available children’s ministers to help churches and camps as needed. Susi Albrecht and Nancy Akers have agreed to serve on this team and others will be added. We plan to promote a curriculum to children, for use in churches, each quarter in 2016 and tell stories of best practices churches and camps are using to minister to the youngest. We have other exciting developments in GenMin and I’ll be sharing those soon.

Paul Young, best-selling author of The Shack and Eve, stopped by our meeting and spent a few hours with us and gave an update on the movie being made based on his best-selling book The Shack. Several young adults and teens also joined us to have honest dialogue about church life and the best way forward for our camps and short-term mission trips.

Note: in 2016, GenMin will be hosting two Converge conferences: Converge East will be held at Deer Creek Resort and Conference Center in Mt. Sterling, Ohio on March 4-6, 2016 and Converge West will be at the Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Encino, California on April 15-17, 2016. For additional information, click here.