Registration 

Hotels

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Plenary Speaker Brandon Guindon

Live Stream, Preconference - Eldering, Sunday, Sept 27, 6:30 pm

Live Stream, Business Meeting, Monday, Sept 28, 3:30 pm

Live Stream, Evening Worship, Monday, Sept 28, 7:00 pm

I'm eager to see you all at the MWD annual conference called "Transform." We'll be at First Free Church in Lincoln on Sept 27-29. You can find out more about it elsewhere is this issue. There are a few particular items I want to point out:

• The website. Everything about the conference can be found at http://efcamidwest.org/conferences. That also includes the videos from previous conferences. You can register here.

• The new app. Everything you will need to navigate the conference will be in a mobile app called "conf.app." This will have the schedule, the speakers, the exhibitors, the reports, registration, and so on. All you'll need is the app. Use the conferences webpage above to see how to download it and use it. Pro tip: Once you get the app and link to our conference, scroll the agenda and put a star on each item you want to attend. That will then populate your "My Agenda" button that shows only the items you starred. That will make it much easier during the conference to know what's next. It's best to make your selections before the conference begins. (Note: we're still fine-tuning the content.)

• Brandon Guindon. Our guest speaker was recommended to us by a pastor in the MWD. His focus will be on a disciplemaking culture starting with us. It's not a "how-to" set of tools, but it's about building culture. The Midwest District Foundation will be giving out copies of Brandon's book Intentional.

• Ken Cooper. The MWD's own will lead the preconference Sunday night on Eldering and how to built trust and unity with your elders. I've observed one of the coaching sessions he has with future elders and believe that he has an effective, replicable set of practical ideas. There will be plenty of time for Q&A.

• Preconference and your elders. The preconference Sunday night will be live and livestreamed. So if your elders can't make Transform in person, have them plan on getting some pizza and meeting together Sunday night to join the livestream. They'll be able to ask questions remotely. Then plan 30 minutes or so after the preconference for them to process what was covered in the session. We'll publish the links to the livestream soon.

• Greg Strand. The EFCA Executive Director of Theology and Credentialing will address a current hot-button issue of complementarianism. That word describes a spread of practices. How does the EFCA hold its distinctives with respect to this topic?

• Higher education. TEDS is the EFCA-affiliated seminary that we have always supported and continue to do so. We're glad they are joining us again this year and I'm sure many of you have questions for them about TEDS' new location. But not all MWD pastors are TEDS grads and TEDS is not the only good school. As the MWD has made agreements with other good schools, we're going to see a few more schools represented at Transform. Dallas Theological Seminary will join us and talk about the discounts available to MWD church staff members. We also have an agreement with Moody Online, but they will not be present at Transform. Central Baptist Seminary (Kansas City area) is another guest to Transform and will have a pastor-centric breakout session. Central Baptist? Don't we have some secondary theological differences with them? Yes, we do. But their counseling department that will be featured at Transform is more theologically aligned with EFCA because of the department's roots from MBTS. 

I hope to see you there!