The Kerusso – September | 2025 Kerusso (Greek): “To publish, proclaim openly: something which has been done.”
We’re Looking Forward to EMC’s General Conference 2026 Pastor Max Edwards PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS! We know that July of next year feels a bit far away, but we also know how quickly church calendars get jammed full of camp dates, VBS, Summer picnics and other fun activities. SO PLEASE write General Conference 2026 on your planning calendars now – July 21-24.
THE EVENT REGISTRATION LINK WILL BE OPEN IN EARLY 2026.
34th General Conference
This event is going to be great! The speakers that have committed to come share with us are going to bless your socks off. Rev. Carla Sunberg is one of six Nazarene General Superintendents and is a deeply respected voice in Wesleyan Holiness circles. She will be preaching two of our evening services. You can read some of Rev. Sunberg’s thoughts in her “Reflecting the Image” Blog (Link here). In her August 2024 blog, she wrote about us as “living sacrifices” crawling off the altar: “Sadly, far too often we try to separate out our “secular” and “religious” life. Paul would never have recognized this type of a spiritual life because it is the whole of the human which is transformed, even in this lifetime. The result is a total transformation in worldview, one that is ruled by righteousness and the presence of the Spirit. All of this sounds wonderful, and it is very good. But if this is true, then why doesn’t the church, and therefore the world, experience more of a transformed Christianity? The problem is that living sacrifices can keep crawling off the altar! We can’t just climb up on the altar on Sunday morning, but spend the rest of the week somewhere else. The call to the Christian life is the call to lifelong transformation, but that requires daily placing ourselves upon the altar. The greatest temptation we will face is to climb off that altar for a day, or maybe just a week, then a month, and suddenly a year goes by and you are a long way away from where you had been.”
And we are so excited to be able to share Rev. Karl Vaters with you! His insights into church health and revitalization are tremendous and will transform your thinking and your ministry. Pastor Vaters writes: Small churches make up 80% – 90% of the known churches in the world, but are the subject of probably less than 1% of the books and blogs about how to do church ministry. Small churches are no better and no worse than churches of any other size. But they have been the most neglected, especially when it comes to pastoral training. We want to help fill that gap. We exist to help small churches thrive. That’s not just a slogan – it’s what we actually do. We want to see better, stronger, healthier small churches, led by passionate, prayerful, capable, innovative and loving pastors. We believe being small is not a problem to fix, but a strategy God wants to use. Most small church leaders have not been told that – or at least they haven’t been told it enough. If we can help turn up the volume on that message, we will have done what we set out to do.” Excerpted from Pastor Vater’s website: h7ps://karlvaters.com/start-here/about-us/
Karl Vaters