Small Group Outreach: Turning Groups Inside Out
Price: $13.00

Leading Beyond the Walls: Developing Congregations with a Heart for the Unchurched
Price: $22.00

Warm-Ups and Wrap-Ups: 101 Great Ideas for Small Groups
Price: $19.99

Caring Criticism: Building Bridges Instead of Walls
Price: $9.95

Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying
Price: $17.00

Repeat Attenders:

Why People Attend a Second ETC

At nearly every Equipper's Training Course you'll find several people attending a second time. These "Repeat Attenders" tell us that they gain a great deal from experiencing the training again.

ChristCare Equippers return for many reasons. Some want to refresh their understanding of key skills and ideas and brush up on working the system steps, especially if it's been a while since their original Equipper's Training Course. Some join new members of their Equippers Team so they can plan together for future ministry. Some are bringing ChristCare to a new congregation.

Here are the stories and comments that four returning ChristCare Equippers shared with us at the 2006 St. Louis ETC.

Vonna Hall,
Saint Stephen's Lutheran Church,
Urbandale, Iowa

An ETC ChristCare Group with its Arch emblem

Because Saint Stephen's Lutheran Church enrolled in ChristCare just before the 2004 ETC, Vonna Hall had little time to prepare when she first attended. "It was an absolutely wonderful time but we had not done any foundation building. There was no congregational buy-in," Vonna said.

Returning for a second ETC was a great decision. "I came back because the first time I was here, I didn't have a clue--I hadn't done anything before with small groups," Vonna said. "Coming back, it's wonderful because it just makes so much sense. It's affirming and reinforcing what I'd already learned, what I forgot, what I didn't even realize I had learned."

The congregation now faces a major transition: the search for a new pastor. Vonna views the crisis as a challenge, an opportunity for ChristCare to thrive. "In our SEA Group I said, 'We can be a calming influence in the church, the reassurance that we're going to be okay. Make your group a safe place for people to come with concerns or if they need to talk. We can keep our focus on building up the community and our members' relationships with Christ.' And so we've been able to be a calming presence, certainly to the people in our group, but also to others in the congregation outside our group."

Vonna looks forward to taking ChristCare to the next level as a result of this ETC.

Paul Nickel,
Our Savior Lutheran Church,
Louisville, Kentucky

Another ETC ChristCare Group poses beside its tree emblem

Deciding to attend this year's ETC could have been a challenge for Paul Nickel--the ETC took place during the Kentucky Derby Week in Louisville and, as Paul said, "It would be easier for me to get people to come the week before Christmas than Derby Week." But Paul attended the 1996 ETC in Baltimore as a solo Equipper. A decade later, working to resurrect ChristCare at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Paul didn't want his fellow Equipper Charles Puckett to experience the week alone--"so I went with him, and it's been very beneficial to me, too.

"I wanted to see how the week has changed--and it has changed," Paul said, noting in particular group-based training and the presentation on inward- and outward-focused congregations. "And the opportunity to talk with Charles here rather than just when we meet together at the congregation is very beneficial."

An ETC ChristCare Group during the Dedication Banquet

Our Savior, Louisville's largest Lutheran church, deals with the challenge of a transient population. "A tremendous number of people transfer in and out every year with job-related transfers," Paul said. "So we lose about a fifth to a fourth of our congregation almost every year. It's almost like starting from scratch because so many of our congregation really have no idea what ChristCare is all about.

"We've been casting the vision and building the foundation," Paul said. "Once people go through our membership class, we'll encourage them to join a ChristCare Group right away as part of assimilating them and helping them make connections."

Our Savior's ChristCare has a solid base upon which to build. "As we've been resurrecting ChristCare, some of the people who were leaders once have come up and told us how meaningful their experience was to them," Paul said. "We've actually had people come up to us and say, 'I'm really interested in being a ChristCare Group Leader.' We think that recruiting leaders is going to be a much more joyful experience for our Equippers than before."

Genevieve Tomlinson,
Bellevue First United Methodist Church,
Bellevue, Washington

Equippers sing along
with the St. John's
Worship Band at the
Dedication Banquet

Gen Tomlinson first attended the ETC in 2001; in 2006 she returned with the new pastor at Bellevue First United Methodist Church, Rev. Beryl Ingram. "Our pastor had never been through the training, and I very definitely wanted her to get it," Gen said. "So we are here together, the two of us, and that is wonderful."

Gen plans to revitalize ChristCare at her church. Over the years the other Equippers became inactive due to health problems and other issues, leaving only Gen. "We are planning to get more involved, now with our pastor on board, fully understanding what it's all about," Gen said. "It's one thing to tell somebody about ChristCare, but it's much more valuable to have her experience ChristCare at the ETC, to go through the process and see all the possibilities."

Gen has found attending a second ETC valuable. "The first time you go through it, it's so overwhelming," she said. "But when you go back, you know what to expect and it's not quite so overwhelming. It's just tremendous!"

Bob Abernathy,
Our Savior Lutheran Church,
Indianapolis, Indiana

Bob Abernathy (back row, second from left) with his ETC ChristCare Group

Bob Abernathy, an Equipper who had trained in the mid-1990s with Pioneer-Partner congregation Messiah Lutheran Church in Indianapolis, returned for a second ETC, attending with three others from Our Savior Lutheran Church. Bob hopes ChristCare will help members stay connected in this fast-growing congregation.

"As any church gets larger, it has a great need for small groups," Bob said. "People need to feel connected; they need to have a place where they can get deeper into their faith life. When people can open up, they can discover who they are and where they are, and they can discover how much God is in their lives and how he can help them have a better life if they'll let him."

Bob found the second ETC much less overwhelming than the first. "The first time, by Wednesday my brain was saying, 'Shut it off. I'm loaded. I don't know if I can take any more.' I've been trying to relay this to people this year: By Wednesday evening your mind will be full, but on Thursday and Friday you're going to draw it all together and it will make sense. By the time you leave, you'll know, 'I'm ready for this; I can do this; I am ready to go back and get this started.'"

An ETC ChristCare Group commissions each of
its Equippers

For Bob, ChristCare's quality is as strong as ever. "I'm really impressed with the first-class organization of the Stephen Ministries ChristCare system. In the training we learn that if we follow the program by the book, which is what we did when I went back to Messiah, ChristCare is a fantastic system that continues and feeds itself.

"The biggest change is the expanded Equipper's Manual presentations used to train group leaders," Bob said. "There are so many more resources and explanations of what you can do and what you need to watch out for. It's been tweaked and refined. It's better than ever!"

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