PHOENIX (BP)–“Boot Up: Building and Rebuilding Our Lives Personally and Professionally” will be the theme of this year’s Baptist Association of Christian Educators meeting at North Phoenix Baptist Church Feb. 26-March 1 in Phoenix.
The association, founded in 1956 as the Southern Baptist Religious Educators Association, seeks to build bridges among religious education professionals to give a growing branch of church ministry recognition and a vehicle for the exchange of ideas.
With more than 1,600 members, BACE brings together church education ministers, workers from various Baptist national and state conventions and regional associations, administrators involved in Christian education, students and people from other professional interests.
Dallas Willard, Lisa Milne and Reggie McNeal will be featured speakers at the annual meeting.
Willard, professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, is the author of “The Spirit of the Disciplines,” “In Search of Guidance” and “The Divine Conspiracy.” His BACE sessions, titled “Search Me O God and Know My Heart” and “Edit: Copy, Cut and Paste, Make Me More Like Christ,” will challenge members to step aside from the politics and pieties of contemporary Christian times by embracing the true meaning of Christian discipleship.
Milne is Second Baptist Church of Houston’s program coordinator and will draw from her experiences of coordinating a Bible study program that reaches more than 8,000 lives a week, administering staff training and supervision, and planning church-wide special events and conferences as she leads a session called “Settings: Control Panel, Staying on the Creative Cutting Edge in Professional Ministry.”
McNeal is the director of leadership development at the South Carolina Baptist Convention and author of “Revolution in Leadership” and “Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders.” After 20 years in local church leadership, 10 years in various staff roles and 10 years as a founding pastor of a new church, he will lead a session called “The New Frontier — Creating a Learning Community in the Local Church.”
“Our hope and prayer for the conference is that today’s Christian educators would be encouraged in their ministry and in their lives personally,” said Ron Pratt, president of the Baptist Association of Christian Educators and national events planner for LifeWay Conference Centers, a division of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. “In addition, BACE offers those who are members and those seeking membership an opportunity to build their networks in ministry. These networks, because of friendships established, often pay rich dividends for years and years to come.”
For more information about the Baptist Association of Christian Educators meeting, visit www.baptisteducators.org.
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