“In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” — Philippians 2:4-5
On a beautiful fall weekend in Boston, 216 Christian professionals converged on the Hyatt Regency Cambridge lodged between MIT and Harvard University to explore and expand their partnerships in the gospel. They came from 26 churches in 22 states and four countries to share in the 2016 Christian Professionals Conference.
Joe Galeota, professor at Berklee School of Music and owner of Jag Drums, opened the weekend with a drum circle that added African beats and dance moves to everyone’s resume. Doug Arthur and Ken Lowey delivered the keynote message sharing God’s principles of relationships that built the Boston Church of Christ to effectively serve the poor and raise $1,000 per day in 2016 to meet benevolent needs. On Saturday morning, in a room overlooking the beautiful Charles River, staff and non-staff disciples from the Boston church shared further dynamic stories of God’s building of partnerships over the past decade to impact ministry, missions, HOPE worldwide and capital campaigns.
Following a network lunch in the pavilion tent, four three-hour interactive workshops focused on:
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Marriage, Family and Success
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Maximizing Your Professional Life – executive and life coaching session
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Leaving a Legacy – Spiritually and Financially
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Leadership Partnership in Your Church
Click here to read the brief bios of these incredibly talented, spiritual disciples.
Click here to see the full program.
After an evening free to explore Boston with new friends, the professionals joined about 2,500 for the Boston Church of Christ Sunday service at the Marriott Copley Place. One of our presenters, Darryl Owens, was appointed to serve as an elder! (Another of our presenters, Al Baker, will soon be appointed to serve as an elder in the New York City Church of Christ .)
Disciples Today and everyone attending the 2016 Christian Professionals Conference owe a huge “thank you” to Doug Arthur and Richard Hislop of the Boston Church of Christ for partnering with Disciples Today on short notice to make this a success and for providing their incredible speakers.
Comments overheard at the CPC:
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“I have not thought enough about my service to God being through my profession.”
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“I am taking this inspiration home to work on building more partnerships with the staff to build our church by engaging more professionals to use their talents in the church.”
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“I have been to a lot of professional conferences even for huge corporations and this was the best one yet.”
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“Very high-quality weekend, full of guidance in critical areas of career and family. For me, the legacy giving workshop was incredibly informative and eye-opening. So glad I went.”
History
Disciples Today is indebted to those who initiated the first Christian Professionals Conferences (CPC) in 2013 in Chicago, Singapore and 2016 in Johannesburg. When two dear brothers in Denver asked about when the next one would be, we investigated and found there was no plan. We felt that we could give the conference a home and encourage the concept to spread.
In July at Reach2016 in St. Louis, 200 disciples turned out for the DT Christian Professionals Luncheon originally planned for 100 seats. That Saturday over 400 attended the DT-sponsored Executive Coaching Workshop that launched DTConnect.com and our offering of online coaching for disciples by Shawn Sommerkamp of Motivationeer. With all the seats selling out for our 2016 CPC, God is showing us there is a huge thirst for these kinds of partnerships to use our talents together to build his kingdom.
Next steps:
Click here to see our Challenge, Purpose, Principles, Strategy and Advisory Group.
A survey is being sent to all participants to evaluate the 2016 CPC and seek new ideas for the future. Our vision is to have the next CPC hosted by another church that has exemplary partnership relationships we can all learn from. Hopefully these events can multiply and morph to meet many needs in building God’s kingdom to his glory.
Audio and video from the conference will be available soon on DTV.
