The 2023 Fellowship of Christian Military Ministries (FCMM) 32nd annual conference was hosted by ACCTS and Christian Military Fellowship in Vienna, VA from Monday 27 March through Wednesday 29 March, with ~80 in attendance. The theme of the conference was “enlarging our ministry territory through increased communication, coordination, cooperation, and collaboration (C4).” The FCMM Covenant includes communication, coordination, and cooperation, and the 2023 conference sought to add collaboration as an essential aspect of the FCMM – leveraging our various ministry capabilities to collaboratively expand God’s kingdom throughout the world.
The Conference Planning Team took a different approach to move the fellowship towards this goal: the plenary sessions included two panel discussions how collaboration has worked to bring God glory through joint ministry initiatives, and one presentation on “A Biblical Basis for the FCMM” illustrated how the early church spread through C4. The three breakout sessions were planned to give the participants 4.5 hours together to get to know one another, familiarize themselves with one another’s ministry capabilities, explore opportunities to increase collaborative ministry, and develop plans to take advantage of those opportunities. At the final plenary session, the facilitators for each group presented their group’s findings including challenges to collaboration, partnerships that formed, and the way ahead.
Breakout groups met on Women’s Ministry; Ukraine, both now and after the shooting stops; Ethics and Leadership; and Military Marriages and Families. Each group identified the way ahead for their topic, laid out an implementation plan, provided an expected completion date, and described the expected benefits of their plan. In their discussions, they discovered who was doing what to address the topic and explored ways to collaborate in achieving their goals:
· The women’s group had already formed the Military Christian Women Coalition which meets monthly for prayer and encouragement. This will continue to grow with the goal of increasing spiritual fitness for wone in the military community.
· The Ukraine group focused on ways to expand healing from war-caused trauma by training Ukrainian trainers to be ready to help once the shooting stops. Several prospective partnerships developed as the group discovered the various capabilities each ministry had to offer and assigned completion dates for various actions up through July 2023.
· The Ethics group identified mentoring, evangelism, and prayer as opportunities for collaboration, assigned secretaries for each area, and agreed to explore how these goals might be achieved with a plan to report on their progress to the 2024 FCMM.
· The Military Families group shared their ministry capabilities and needs. The ensuing discussions resulted in several plans for collaboration: MMN and SkillBridge; OBI & Cru in Rwanda; OCF & CRU Military with Navy Chaplains; CMF and MMN on updating the FCMM directory; CMF and Soul Survivor Outdoor ministering on Air Force Bases; and Club Beyond seeking fellowship with other ministry leaders. The group also asked for an online resource to facilitate ongoing C4 between ministries Military Marriages and Families group noted that 75% of naval forces are 18- to 25-year-olds, but that the Navy has a growing shortage of chaplains to meet their spiritual needs. With most chaplains forward deployed ministries such as the FCMM are increasingly in demand to minister to sailors and their families and will need increased C4 to meet those needs.
The 2024 FCMM conference will be held at a date and place to be announced. Progress on the plans from the 2023 conference will be reviewed and revised as needed.
Pray that God will bless the efforts of the 2023 conferees, and that the FCMM will continue to glorify Him through effective communication, coordination, cooperation, and collaboration in ministry.
