Promoting Fellowship Among Clusters
Becky Wingo - District Leader of Fellowship
Fellowship can offer occasions wherein we come together because of our lack of community or because our commonalities bring us together. Fellowship can reinforce the concepts of FLOWS. For example clusters can emphasize fellowship through:
Fellowship Opportunities: Join in fellowship through
- Dinners
- Worship services
- Retreats
- Sporting events
- Age Levels events
Learning: Join in fellowship through learning opportunities by offering:
- Mission emphases through UMW/UMM.
- Bible Study/Book Studies to fulfill the requirements of UMW/UMM/UMYF.
- Youth discipleship events designed to promote UM heritage, UM tenets, and the spiritual disciplines
- Trips that promote age level ministries.
Outreach: Join in fellowship opportunities by
- Together exploring methods of outreach through training and/or workshops.
- Exploring the demographics of the cluster area and targeting populations.
- Implementing team visitation events or publicity drives.
- Expanding services designed to bring in local populations to the local congregations (ex. Mother's Morning Out, Basic Car Mechanics, Basic Electrical Repair, Shut-In Shopping Service, etc.)
Worship: Join in fellowship by
- Offering different modes of worship in alternative settings.
- Exploring new avenues of worship through training events and/or workshops in various worship styles
- Teaming up to visit churches where innovative worship is taking place.
- Planning and implementing strategically placed and timed alternative worship events.
Service: Create cluster fellowship opportunities of service by
- Joining together in teams to assist the local soup kitchen/homeless shelter.
- Planning/promoting/implementing a specific ministry in your cluster area.
- Promoting youth service emphases.
- Working as teams in the Repair Affair.
- Planning and implementing a VIM team project.