03 Jun XLR8, the Prequel

Bishop Ron Ramsey in front of the entrance to the registration area, which, come tomorrow, will be swarming with over 800 people.

Several dozen people are at Saw Mill Creek (Huron, Ohio), getting everything set up for the XLR8 US National Conference, which starts Thursday afternoon. It’s a lot of work–decorating the hotel in a racing theme, setting up the main conference hall (lights, video, stage, screens, you-name-it), stuffing packets, hanging signs, and much more.

A number of photos have been posted here. You can also follow the UB Twitter feed for updates throughout the days of the conference.

03 Jun Setting Up for XLR8 is a Whole Lot of Work

02 Jun All Packed. Next Stop: Huron, Ohio

Bishop Ron Ramsey (right) and Pat Jones, Director of Healthy Church Ministries, in front of the loaded trailer. Among all the supplies, printed materials, etc., are many pieces from actual Nascar vehicles. They’ll be used in set decoration by Heather Umbaugh, who is heading up that part of the conference.

The trailer will head to Huron, Ohio, Wednesday morning, and we’ll spend the day–along with many other volunteers–getting everything set up. Then, Thursday noon, registration starts.

27 May XLR8 Update: Approaching 900

Oh ye of little faith. Registrations keep climbing toward the 900 mark, which we hit in 2007. Here’s how things look right now:

857 people registered.
182 ministerial delegates
195 lay delegates
120 teens and children
138 people attending the UB Historical Society banquet.
26 signed up to play golf each day (Thursday and Saturday)
22 attending the LEAD Team (church multiplication) lunch on Friday.

We also have 47 former missionaries registered. They’ll be recognized Saturday on Missions Night. Global Ministries is using the theme “Looking Back, Looking Ahead,” to recognize both our rich history in missions and where the Lord may be taking us in the years ahead.

All of the reports have now been posted online. Delegates received most of them by mail a couple weeks ago, and will get the rest when they arrive.

If you’re attending as a delegate, you might want to download a copy of the UB Discipline. It may come in handy during the business meeting. At the least, you can use it for devotional reading.

20 May Strategic Planning Workshop

A one-day workshop on “Strategic Planning for the Local Church” will be held July 16 in Fort Wayne, Ind. It’s limited to 30 persons–the first 30 to register. This seminar was previously held in February, and it filled up.

The presenter is Dr. Rick Upchurch, director of the Huntington University EXCEL adult education program. His office, along with all other graduate school offices, is in the Healthy Ministry Resources building (and all of us agree that he’s a great guy). Rick is an ordained Nazarene minister who has worked with local churches the past ten years as a consultant in leadership-related areas.

Date: Thursday, July 16, 2009
Time: 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Location: Innovation Center, 3201 Stelhorn Road, Fort Wayne, Ind.
Cost: $99 (or $79 each if 3 or more persons come from the same church). Includes lunch.
CEU Credit: .5 CEU

The class will focus on:

• Steps to an effective strategic plan for your church.
• How to implement change in a way that produces results.
• Leadership types and how to maximize your personal type.

You can register online. You can also contact Dr. Upchurch by email.

13 May Get Ready to Read! Reports are Coming!

Wow, things are a bit crazy around Healthy Ministry Resource as we put together a big packet of materials for all delegates to the National Conference. Which is just three weeks away.

The packet contains:

• Reports from Bishop Ramsey and the various directors.
• Materials regarding elections–vision statement, bios, ballots.
• All of the proposals for changing the Discipline (about 30 of them).
• Executive Leadership Team minutes from the last two years.
• The Rules and Procedures of the conference.

Bishop Ramsey stresses: READ THE REPORTS. We’re not going to spend a lot of time going over them during the conference. That would be redundant. We have too much ground to cover.

The packet of reports will probably go out Thursday or Friday. But right now, you can download most of them, and also view them online at the US National Conference site.

Delegates are also advised to download the UB Discipline from the US National Conference site. Perhaps pastors could print out a copy for each delegate. It may come in handy when we’re doing Discipline revision.

09 May Creeping Toward 800

Registrations now stand at 788, so the big 8-0-0- isn’t far away.

The number of ministerial and lay delegates has been running neck-and-neck, but now the laypersons have jumped out to a decent lead:

• 180 ministerial delegates
• 189 lay delegates

The UB Historical Banquet will be quite the deal, certainly the largest the UB Historical Society has had. Current signees: 135.

The golf outing has 25 people registered for Thursday and 27 for Saturday.

We’ve been publicizing the LEAD Team luncheon on Friday. We now have 22 people signed up to learn more about church planting.

05 May Live from the UB Youth Workers Summit

Jerry Davis speaking to the UB youth workers.

I am attending the UB Youth Workers Summit, which started today at First UB church in Holly Hill, Fla. We have 33 United Brethren youth workers from as far away as Boston.

Dr. Jerry Davis, from Huntington University, is our speaker. The theme is “Rooted.”

• Rooted in relationships
• Rooted in worship
• Rooted in scripture
• Rooted in prayer
• Rooted in Christ

04 May More on XLR8

We’ve added some information about XLR8:

A very complete list of restaurants near Sawmill Creek, where the conference will be held. Some of these may be closed, and probably some new ones have opened. But this list–quite lengthy–should be pretty close to reality.

Information on the four keynote speakers:

• Tim Brown (Thursday and Friday).
• Pat Jones (Friday night UB Historical Society Banquet).
• Jeff Bleijerveld (Saturday night focus on missions).
• Ron Ramsey (Sunday morning).

Ministers: set up a time with Denny Zimmerman to go over your pension account.

Sign up for the Friday luncheon on church multiplication.

01 May XLR8 Numbers

The numbers for XLR8 keep climbing and climbing. Here in the national office, we’re very pleased, excited…and maybe a bit scared.

Here are the latest numbers:

• Total registrations: 751
• Ministerial delegates registered: 185
• Lay delegates registered: 184
• Attending the UB Historical Society Banquet: 125
• Golf outing: 25 on Thursday, 25 on Saturday
• Teens and children registered: 113
• LEAD Team lunch on Friday: 11

We’ve got an interesting neck-and-neck race between laypersons and ministers to see who has more voting members.