Looking for ways to connect with new people? Join us for an interactive and practical day that will have you dreaming about possibilities and opportunities instead of limitations!
About the Day
Fresh Expressions, Garden Day is a one-day training kick-off event with a wide-net approach. The purpose of this Day of Learning is to equip churches to reach new people, in new places, and in new ways by focusing on imagination and seeding ideas.
The workshop helps people envision new Christian communities that serve the present age. By exploring biblical frameworks, blended ecology, current stories, and methodologies of the Fresh Expressions movement, teams will be prepared to cultivate inclusive, accessible, transformative, and connectional forms of church.
Take Aways
- There is a strong emphasis on how traditional established churches and new expressions can work together.
- Along with teaching and interactive exercises, participants will learn about real stories of everyday people of God reaching their communities.
- The training is practical, exploring simple and creative ways churches can connect with new people.
Fresh Expressions, Garden Day
Presented by Michael Adam Beck
Tuesday, October 29, 9:30am – 3pm
Genesis UMC (Cary, NC)
$40 (includes lunch)
Bring Your Team!
We believe this Day of Learning, like most of our events, will have the biggest impact when clergy and laity attend together. Bring a group of 3 or more from your church and receive a 20% discount on your total registration. The deadline to receive this discount is October 7. If you don’t have a team, no worries! Please come and engage with other church leaders, sharing ideas and excitement across the connection.
About Michael Adam Beck
Pastor. Professor. Coach. Consultant. Author.
Michael is currently the Director of the Fresh Expressions House of Studies at United Theological Seminary, Director of Fresh Expressions Florida, and Director of Fresh Expressions for The United Methodist Church. He serves as the co-pastor of Wildwood UMC, St Marks UMC, and Compassion UMC with his wife, Jill, where they direct addiction recovery programs, a jail ministry, a food pantry, an interracial unity movement, and house a faith-based inpatient treatment center. Wildwood and St. Marks are traditional congregations AND a network of thirteen fresh expressions that gather in tattoo parlors, dog parks, salons, running tracks, community centers, burrito joints, and digital spaces.
Michael guides leaders in an individual, regional, statewide, and national capacity. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at several educational institutions. He coaches entrepreneurs across the theological spectrum and has consulted with hundreds of churches, districts, denominations, networks, and dioceses. As an active ministry practitioner, he has started and developed businesses and planted missional communities most of his life. Michael has done this for over a decade while pastoring in the local church. His coaching and consulting work are not theoretical only, but experiential. He believes in maintaining a practitioner’s ethos: “I eat my own cooking and share experimental recipes.”
Beck earned a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary and a Doctorate in Semiotics and Future Studies at Portland Seminary. He’s the author of fourteen books, including Deep Roots, Wild Branches: Revitalizing the Church in the Blended Ecology, Deep & Wild: Remissioning Your Church from the Outside In, and A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions; and co-author of Contextual Intelligence: Unlocking the Ancient Secret to Mission on the Front Lines with Leonard Sweet, Fresh Expressions in a Digital Age with Rosario Picardo, as well as The 21st Century Christian: Following Jesus Where Life Happens with Michael Moynagh. His most recent books include Painting With Ashes, Fresh Expressions of the Rural Church, The Five Congregational Personality Types, and Doing Justice Together. He has also authored three ebooks, available exclusively here.