Elevate: Opportunities to Sharpen Your Skills as a GTN Trainer

We all want to become better stewards of the ministries that the LORD has entrusted to us. To this end, GTN has created a series of webinars and in-person training opportunities for you. Each will be led by facilitators with subject expertise, either from within the GTN family or from without.

The events will be highly conversational. We intend to address your questions and share answers from the collective wisdom and experience of other GTN staff. To maximize interaction, most webinars and in-person events will be limited to 15 people or fewer. So, sign up early to ensure your place. A few webinars will be offered multiple times. The webinars are free; costs for in-person events are indicated.

These specific learning opportunities were developed based on survey results that many of you provided. We will be adding other subjects and topics later in the year as we get more feedback from you. GTN staff member Craig Parro is leading these staff development efforts and will help facilitate these initial events. Please feel free to contact him with any questions or suggestions for future topics. [bio & contact info here]. Recordings of the webinars will also be available at: www.craigparro.org.

We hope that you take advantage of these opportunities to sharpen your training skills and, at the same time, build deeper relationships with other GTN staff.

2024.Schedule

1.Training Trainers—Making 2 Timothy 2:2 a Reality:  March 7 or May 23 webinar.

Why should I participate? We all desire 2 Timothy 2:2 to happen, but to what extent is it actually happening? How might we help those we teach develop into trainers and multipliers? What might be preventing robust multiplication?  Fortunately, we have many in the GTN family who are seeing much multiplication. What are their “secrets”? What have they learned? What mistakes have they made? Let’s learn from one another and together discover what might be done to enhance and deepen the multiplication of our training.

2.Evaluating the Impact of your Training: 2-part webinar

April 25 & May 2 or, June 6 & 13.

A 2-part series on ways to discern the extent to which your training is leading to lasting transformation. Parts 1&2 will be offered one week apart. We strongly encourage you to participate in both parts. This series will be offered twice: first in late April/early May, and then in June.

Why should I participate? We have devoted our lives to training leaders—but what difference is it actually making? As we pour into leaders, how is it impacting their lives…their churches…their communities? Is our training re-shaping their attitudes, their habits, their relationships, their families, and their walk with God? How can we know? What questions should we be asking? What indicators of transformation should we be looking for?

Part 1 (repeated April 25 and June 6) will discuss these questions:

• Why evaluate? What’s the biblical case for evaluation?
• Why is measuring life change or impact so difficult…and so necessary?
• What different questions might we ask, if/when our training is focused on knowledge or skills or character or relationships or spiritual growth?

Part 2 (repeated May 2 and June 13) will discuss these questions and provide a simple evaluation tool for your use:

• What are common ways to evaluate the training of leaders? What’s helpful and not-so-helpful about each?
• How might we identify the appropriate “indicators of transformation?”
• What changes might be needed to build effective feedback loops into our training process?

3. Equipping YOU…to Develop Pastors into Expositors: an in-person workshop

July 24-26, Colorado Springs, CO

Why should I participate? Rightly handling God’s Word is the essential skill for pastors. Many pastors whom we serve have a deep respect for the Bible, but simply don’t know how to study, teach & preach the Scriptures. Craig Parro will demonstrate a simple but profound method that has proven effective in developing faithful expositors of the Word. This method has been refined over two decades at WordPartners, the ministry which Craig previously led. It’s been used effectively in 50+ countries, even with pastors with limited formal education.

This workshop will be a hands-on learning experience. Together, we will study the book of Ruth utilizing the WordPartners’ training process and principles, which can then be applied to any book of the Bible. You will leave the workshop with the ability to equip pastors using this method. Come and develop a new tool for your training toolkit. Click here for more details and to register.

4. Navigating Cross-cultural Training Pitfalls

August 29 or November 21 webinar

Why should I participate? As cross-cultural trainers, we learn pretty quickly, like Dorothy & Toto, that “we’re not in Kansas anymore.” We’ll explore the significant and often hidden challenges to healthy cross-cultural relationships. When are good intentions not good enough? What are the vulnerabilities that Westerners face as we seek to serve Majority World leaders? When do our strengths tend to morph into weaknesses? In what ways might we inadvertently undermine the very leaders that we’re seeking to build up? Let’s laugh at ourselves and learn from each other: mistakes made and lessons learned.

5. Southeast Regional Leadership Gathering:

Sharing life, Sharing ministry in-person

October 23 -25, Myrtle Beach, SC

Why should I participate? A beautiful opportunity to do the Relational-Missional Dance with other GTN couples from the Southeast U.S.  Facilitated by Doug Dorman & Craig Parro. Contact Doug for details.