Reaffirming Disciples Together

Rev. Josh Patty

Regional Minister & President

This Spring, we had Visioning Together sessions, where we invited people from around our region to reflect on our region’s ministry, including our priorities and our structure.

In general, I heard an appreciation for key pieces of our regional ministry.  There is strong support for our camping ministry and the Christian Conference Center.  There is a strong desire for better resourcing for congregations and congregational leaders; in fact, many mentioned that they missed the School for Congregational Leadership.

Several mentioned that there was strong “buy-in” when Disciples Together began in 2003, but awareness of what that means seems to have diminished.  Our region has been successful at supporting a wide variety of ministries organized in many ways, instead of presuming that our regional office needed to guide all ministries.  However, much of our regional ministry is heavily staff-dependent.

In the conversations it seemed that our region’s ministry will benefit from clarifying our vision and priorities, as well as defining specific aspects of our structure more.  As part of this, our Operations Council has been exploring ways to amend our current bylaws, including at a day-long working session this month.  I anticipate that our bylaws will be amended this year in key ways – many of which were explored in the Visioning Together conversations.  Those details are still being finalized.

One thing that I’m confident our amended bylaws will include is an explicit statement of our regional ministry priorities.  There is consensus on four, which I share here (understanding that the language may be fine-tuned in the bylaws):

1. Resourcing congregations and their leaders, including establishing new congregations, assisting with pastoral transitions, offering guidance in best practices, mediating conflicts, visioning, opportunities for learning and connection, and helping congregations end their visible ministries.
2. Nurturing clergy, through ordination and commissioning processes, credentialing, opportunities for learning and connection.
3. Offering explicit connectional spaces (camps, retreats, and other experiences) where people connect with God and others, including our Christian Conference Center.
4. Connecting people denominationally and ecumenically as the middle judicatory.

Where in the Upper Midwest is Josh?

Josh's travels take him across our four-state region to share in worship, support, and celebrate your ministries! Here's where Josh's travels have taken him in the last month:



• May 22 - Cluster Retreat, Prairiewoods, Hiawatha, IA
• May 29-30 - CCC Intern Orientation
• June 9 - Worship, First Christian Church, Spencer, IA
• June 12 - Operations Council Work Session, First Christian Church, Ames, IA
• June 14 - Visit to Junior 1 Camp