Leader to Leader Encouraging each other to be faithful & fruitful!
September 2007 Come Together Missionary Eyes Teen Mission Trip Top Multiplying Churches in US	Come Together is just around the corner! In just a few days our CB family will gather at Word of Life for refreshment, instruction, and important decisions. Marty Giese, pastor of a CB church in Minnesota will be speaking on Leadership in Context. He will also be leading a seminar on Leading the Rurban Church. In addition to this seminar there are fourteen other seminars and forums on various ministry topics. This year’s Annual Meeting will consider the proposed bylaw revisions. It is important for each member church to send written credentials with their official messengers to this annual meeting. Please submit the Official Messengers Form at the CBMNE table at registration. If you are unable to come for the entire conference and are coming just for the day, advanced reservations are required if you want to eat in the dining room. Phone Word of Life Inn at 1-800-965-7177 for meal tickets. Complete details on the Come Together and the Proposed Bylaw revisions are available at www.MissionNortheast.org.
Printer Friendly Version	Looking at Your World with Missionary Eyes By Randy Keeley, Exec. Dir., CBMNE randykeeley@missionnortheast.org A recent consultation with a church in decline revealed that their community was changing with many people moving in and out. Although they grieved the loss of those who moved away, they hadn’t thought too much about how to reach the new people who took their place in the community. Apart from adopting “missionary eyes” a church like this will continue to decline. In Leading through Change, the authors deal with this issue in the second chapter entitled: Land of Opportunity – The Change: Newcomers Moving In. They suggest a simple exercise to help people adopt missionary eyes: “…it would be good for leaders to help people in the church understand the demographic changes that are happening around them and help people see it is these changes that are exposing cultural differences. Use basic principles from Cultural Anthropology 101: “How do you suppose the [name a missionary family known in your church] had too adapt when they went to Africa? Now that the mission field is moving in here, what might God want us to do to reach these different people for Christ”? There are endless texts to share from God’s Word that can help: texts that encourage us to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21), to “become a Jew to win Jews” (1 Corinthians 9:20), to do all we can to live at peace with others (Romans 12:18), to have new and flexible wineskins to accommodate new wine (Matthew 9:17), to have the kinds of attitudes that enable us to live in unity with each other (Ephesians 4:2-3). These kinds of teachings will help people posture themselves differently. Many honestly don’t realize they are wrestling with cultural differences; they think they are defending the faith or dealing with obstinate people” (36). Our speaker at our Come Together this year is one of the coauthor’s of this book, Leading Through Change, Shepherding the Town and Country Church in a New Era, ChurchSmart Resources, 2005. This book is available at a discount from the CB Mission Northeast Resource Center at the discounted price of $10 (including postage). You can also learn more about your community through Link2Lead, a demographic study by Percept available at no charge to our member churches. To sign up, click this link to our website: Link2Lead.
	Looking for a Mission Trip? By Eric Couch, Youth Pastor youth@ibcfamily.com
		What a week! My wife and I took our youth group from Immanuel Baptist in New Hartford, NY on an Inner city missions trip to Pittsburgh, Pa. Our teens spent seven days serving the handicapped, the under-privileged, the elderly and the needy people of Pittsburgh by
	fixing up their homes. They did everything from breaking down concrete walls to scraping wallpaper. We were the “hands and feet” of Jesus and our teens were touched by the kindness and thankfulness of the homeowners they served. One of our teens said: “I didn’t think that I was going to like serving other people, but after this week, I know that this is something I want to do more of.” God calls us to “serve one another in love.”(Gal.5:13b) What opportunities to serve the needy people in your area have you discovered?
	I have been to the Pittsburgh Project www.pittsburghproject.org multiple times and find it to be one of the most organized missions projects in my eight years of youth ministry. The staff of the Homeowner service is top notch and will challenge your teens in many ways. In addition
	to serving various homeowners, each morning begins with breakfast, devotions and goofy skits. There are worship times every evening, with fun games, and great speakers with relevant teaching for youth. The cost of the missions trip is reasonable compared to others, prices include meals, lodging, construction materials, and tools. They establish contact with homeowners, set up the worksites ahead of time, and provide technical guidance on site. All you have to do is show up with your youth and get ready to serve the Lord in the city of Pittsburgh.
Remember to forward Leader to Leader on to your leaders or better yet, sign them up to receive it themselves!	Top Multiplying Churches in America Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York was ranked the number one multiplying church in America. Based on a survey sponsored by Leadership Network, Outreach Magazine's 2007 list of "America's Top 25 Multiplying Churches" placed Redeemer on top, Mars Hill Church in Seattle second and NorthWood Church in Keller, Texas, third. All three churches have planted a total of 100 churches since their founding. Read more.
	CB Mission Northeast PO Box 441, Nassau, NY 12123 www.MissionNortheast.org PLEASE DO NOT REPLY to this email, send subscription requests & article submissions to KathyKeeley@MissionNortheast.org All articles for submission are subject to editing or rejection at the discretion of the CB Mission Northeast staff.