Small Church Voices Newsletter

From the Iona Collaborative

As the season of Advent approaches, the Iona Collaborative team is looking ahead to next semester. Our Fall 2024 Continuing Education courses are wrapping up, and our Spring 2025 courses are open for registration. Check out the offerings below and click to register on our website. We are also celebrating the success of our Fall 2024 Spiritual Tools for Bi-Vocational Congregations Workshop, held at Camp Allen in October. More information on this semester's workshop can be found below, and check your inboxes for the announcement of our Spring 2025 workshop coming soon!

In this season of gratitude, we are thankful for all of you, as you pursue your callings and serve your communities in beautiful and meaningful ways.

Christina C. Gordon

Digital Communications, Iona Collaborative

Please forward this newsletter widely and send us your own stories about the power of small.

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Thriving Bi-Vocational Congregations Fall 2024 Workshop

In October, representatives of small and/or lay-led congregations from across the country gathered at Camp Allen in Navasota, TX for Iona Collaborative's Fall 2024 Thriving Bi-Vocational Congregations workshop. This weekend of discernment, spiritual practice, and collaboration provides retreat participants with tools, strategies and resources, while also equipping and empowering them to take back all they have learned to their congregations as they continue to serve their communities and each other, according to God's call.

Iona Programs Director, Rebecca Hall, and Iona Executive Director, Rev. Nandra Perry, Ph.D., along with Iona's team of Spiritual Directors and Events and Logistics Coordinator, Katherine Buzzini, led participants through Iona's new Spiritual Toolkit for Congregations--focusing on building an asset-based mindset as a faith community, and transitioning the congregation's leadership and decision-making process from a top-down to a circular, more collective approach.

Members of St. Mark's (Montesano, WA) and Christ Church (Anacortes, WA) at the

Fall 2024 TBVC Workshop.

Members of St. Hugh of Lincoln (Allyn, WA) review their Asset-Based Mindset tool at the

Fall 2024 TBVC Workshop.

Members of St. Andrews (Aberdeen, WA) prepare their Asset-Based Mindset tool at the

Fall 2024 TBVC Workshop.

Members of St. Francis of Assisi (Prairie View, TX) prepare their Asset-Based Mindset tool at the Fall 2024 TBVC Workshop.

Friends from Holy Innocents St. Paul's Episcopal Church (Philadelphia, PA).

Representatives from St. Philip the Apostle Episcopal Church

(Scotts Valley, CA).

TBVC Workshop participants from St. John the Divine

(Morgan Hill, CA).

Interested in Attending aThriving Bi-Vocational Congregations Workshop in the future? Click here!

Iona Collaborative is now accepting applications for our Spring 2025 Continuing Education courses. From preaching and theology to pastoral care, social justice, and spiritual formation, we have a course for you! If you are a locally-formed priest, deacon, or lay leader in the Iona Collaborative network of dioceses or a graduate of an affiliated local school of formation, including BKSM, or Stevenson School for Ministry, please visit our Continuing Education webpage for more information and to register.

These classes fill up quickly, so register today!

Featured Resource: Video for Small Churches

Join Rev. Canon Leyla King, Canon for Mission in Small Congregations for the Diocese of West TX, as she shares strategies for vibrancy in rural and small churches, and celebrates the callings of these faith communities. Use this resource as an opening for a vestry meeting or a leadership gathering.

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