Reflecting on the ICETE Consultation 2015
It was an honor being invited to participate at the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education Conference this year. A group of their leaders and a few others recommended we open an intentional dialog between those of us doing non-formal theological education and those doing more formal theological education.
As you can tell from our group photo from Antalya, Turkey, it was a tremendous week together. Of course, I loved it all the more because I used to live in Turkey. What a fantastic country and Antalya is a great location!
Measuring Ministry Impact
The focus of our week together was on Measuring Ministry Impact. Paul Penley from Excellence in Giving and Craig Parro from Leadership Resources International gave outstanding presentations on research initiatives and ways to measure ministry impact. Not only was I impressed, but also encouraged, because we have been looking more thoughtfully at fruitful practices at A3.
Granted, we are hearing positive stories every month about the impact of A3. To get a glimpse of these uplifting stories, take a look at our latest blog articles on A3 BlogCentre.
Even so, we continue to ask ourselves, "Is there something beyond this anecdotal evidence?" We have taken a deeper look the last few years at The Essence of A3 to determine how we can get our arms around the fruitfulness of our ministry.
As a part of better understanding what we do, we have been developing a logic model that helps us stay focused on our four key outcomes, while considering the inputs, processes and outputs of our core leader development program. Coming out of ICETE, I believe we are on the right track and ask for your prayers as we seek to better appreciate how God is using our movement. We are a learning community and are always interested in seeing how we can improve. We will keep sharing what we discover over the coming months.
Sharpening One Another
Being at ICETE was also good because we could interact with some of the top leader development groups out there today. All those who are considered best practice organizations were present and it was particularly fun to spend time with Malcolm Webber from LeaderSource and Jane Overstreet from DAI. They are some of the best groups out there doing leadership development along with A3. It was an honor to be invited to ICETE to see how we can explore further collaboration with formal theological educational institutions.
Pray for us that we might better serve one another and the body of Christ by seeking ways to add value to one another. Both formal and non-formal theological education have important roles to play in God’s kingdom, and I think we can enhance one another and collaborate more effectively.
How do you measure your fruitfulness? I’d like to know…
Joe Handley
