Convo with Pastor John Bowman

Pastor John Bowman,

He is from Dover, Delaware; his family was there because his Dad was based in Delaware at the air force base. Started at Calvary Assembly in Dover Delaware in 1990, he started attending as a person who had just became saved and was looking for a church that met his needs. From that day in 1990 he has never left the church. Got involved in working with the church by taking kids to a camp. 1994 he had an urging from God (which he didn’t know was God at the time) to right down and ambition to be a Children’s Pastor, about a year later he was asked to come on staff as the Children’s Leader and he has been the Pastor there since then. The church has the mindset to continue growing by reaching unchurched people. The motto he goes by for his Children’s ministry is “my business is kids so Kids are my business”. His Children’s group has about 3000 people on the roster, but children who are being brought to the church every Sunday ages 3-12 is about 500. They are reaching another 500 consistently on a weekly basis through their “G-team” which goes into the neighbor hood of the community. Recently they just gave one of their trucks from the “G-team” to a church from a different denomination so that the ministry could be spread. The “G-team” is not what he considers a Calvary ministry or a John Bowman ministry but a ministry for the community that goes beyond denomination.

He meets in different parts of the community on a different day of every week. One neighborhood asked him to leave over spreading the Gospel after 3 years, He spoke with the leader and offered that he would still go into the community to be with the Kids regardless. But after hearing his hear the supervisor told him to stay in the community because he was needed. Right now he is ministering predominately in lower class neighborhoods, but he would like spread into the upper class neighborhoods because those kids need Christ just as much as lower class Children. He’s working with Boys and Girls clubs and Family Crisis Therapists to effectively reach communities. The biggest one time donation given to the ministry was 10 grand

Holistic Ministry and Pastor Gerry

“holistic ministry is ministry through acts of love towards people”

based biblically out of the two greatest commandments- LOVE GOD-LOVE PEOPLE

finding new ways to be effective, sometimes you will have budget constraints but there are ways to get around budget.

holistic ministry is about using other means of ministry such as feeding people and helping people through counseling to minister to their spirits and introduce the idea of Jesus Christ

What are the concepts behind holistic ministry

Geography, demographics, politics, denomination, socioeconomics

Uniting trait is that the church must preach the Gospel and that community outreach is a main priority.

One-on-one relationships leads to

Lasting change leads to

Moral framework

Leads to faith in Christ………………..All of these things take patience and time

Focus on social services ministries as ad door to evangelism

Felt Needs, Conversation of faith, meaning, and Christ

Focus on ministries of reconciliation that witness to unity in Christ

Racial, Economic, Physical and mental, social and family, multicultural and worship

Focus on community development to express God’s love for whole persons and communities

Pervious conditions, self sustainability, provides identity, schools health clinics, rec-centers

Focus on justice ministries that embody the empowering message of the Gospel

Unjust systems, Racism, sexism, political corruption, unfair economic structures, prevents development and progress, social advocacy

Focus on reaching skeptics by demonstrating that the church makes a difference

Image, self serving, hypocritical and irrelevant-secular society, developing reputation for social activism.

All of these things provide opportunity for witnessing.

Pastor Gerry stoltzfoos - Speaker from freedom valley

Mike flemming (missionary to the DR- working together on a church plant)

Haiti sending people to the DR

Pastor Gerry- Respects the dedication of America to rush into help other countries.

Great up Amish, struggled with the idea of pacifism and had to work through those issues with his family, this was a defining moment for him.

Had struggles with the idea of his church not being acceptance. Ended up checking out a Pentecostal church

Went to the church and hated it, ended up being introduced to someone there, was impressed by the relationships with people. The care from individuals replaced the problems he had with the church its self.

Ends up becoming a church planter ends up in Gettysburg,…..crazy god occurances worked out well in the long run even tho it wasn’t wanted by him….good quote while he was going through some pressure someone told him “ who do you serve (he answered Jesus)…the guy then replied, well what did Jesus go through?)

His churches strategy was to reach people who had given up on church (this remains his churches mission)

Knew a girl who got saved and started a ministry in a tattoo parlor, ended up buying the lease on the tattoo parlor so they could stay open as an effective ministry until they could purchase the lease

Bought a Harley to raffle off, ended up having to buy a PA gambling license…….BUT the guy who won the bike ended up getting saved.

gerry@freedomvalley.org

Notes from Matthew Barnett's breakout session

LA Dream Center with Matthew Barnett

A few points about pastor Matthew

In the First six months his church went form 18 people down to 2 people. In the second six months it went from 2 people to 700.

He gained his passion from his father, because he was a friend, he never had religion shoved at him, he just gained the passion through their relationship.”

Focusing on success was his fault, he needed to focus on being used by God.

A few good quotes

“Build relationships to Build the church”

“If you go and reach the people that nobody wants God will send you the people that everybody wants”

“your always a success when you seek after the welfare of the people”

How the dream center thrives

Being a permission giving church: They give the permission to try in ministry

Being there for people by using adopt a block, inviting people to all aspects of ministry through being in the community on a constant basis.

Consistency is key, two people who take 30 doors and go there every day

Letting people do what they are good at.