Summer Updates
Please be in prayer for those at the Quest Conference this week. There are 365 students and leaders from 29 different ARP Churches represented. Quest is the Middle School conference run by Christian Education Ministries and held at Bonclarken Conference Center in Flat Rock, NC. Pray as the Lord works in the lives of these youth.
Also, pray for the various Vacation Bible Schools this summer at our ARP Churches.
Be sure to tag ARP Magazine in your photos through social media. #ARPmagazine
ONA/ARPC AND FAITH FOR LIVING, INC. PARTNERSHIP FOR THE D. JAMES KENNEDY INSTITUTE FOR REFORMED LEADERSHIP
[Greenville, SC] – Outreach North America and Faith for Living are pleased to announce the official partnership launch of the D. James Kennedy Institute for Reformed Leadership.
The D. James Kennedy Institute was founded by Dr. Michael A. Milton in 2013 when the Kennedy family entrusted him with the name of the late pastor and evangelist for ministry to pastors and other church leaders. The late pastor’s daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, announced the DJK Institute at an event at the Ronald Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California.
The ministry was fine-tuned as Milton was studying in the School of Government at UNC Chapel Hill as an Army Chaplain. Milton, a Presbyterian minister, educator, and former pastoral intern under Dr. Kennedy at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, researched a growing trend of clergy problems that often led to leaving the ministry. He turned a major portion of his Master of Public Administration into a plan for reversing that trend through the DJK Institute’s “pastors-in-residence” fellowship.
Milton explained: “The model is quite simply to create a vocational residency much like a medical residency. Pastoral students just out of seminary go to their first pastoral assignment. While there, they enroll with the DJK Institute in a “pastors-in-residency” fellowship. The resident then cultivates twelve core competencies through online lectures of distinguished Senior Fellows, under the supervision of a senior minister in the church or in the community, and with a Senior Fellow with the DJK Institute. The resident also must go through theological reflection on the practice of that competency (e.g., visitation or counseling) with a peer, his family, and online with other fellows in a guided discussion group. The goal is sustainable pastoral health and congregational health.”
Milton went on to explain that the relationship with Outreach North America, the “home missions” arm of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARPC), an evangelical Presbyterian denomination, allowed the ministry to have a home “within the Church, which is where it should be.” Moreover, he sees the DJK Institute as serving the broader Church. Pastors can earn credit through Erskine Theological Seminary for work done at the DJK Institute. This can count towards further postgraduate education.
Rev. Mike Jones, Executive Director of ONA commented, “We are thrilled to offer this residency for new ministers. It fills a vital place in the shaping of men to “to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands” (2 Tim. 1:6). Those who complete the DJK Institute will gain invaluable knowledge, insight and wisdom from those who have gone before them in ministry. This type of guided mentoring was the practice of the early Church but has been somewhat lost in the academic rigors of modern seminary education. The institute’s goal is to mate the knowledge learned in the classroom with practical training for ministry, thus producing ministry wisdom. ONA is humbly proud to be a partner in continuing the legacy of Dr. D. James Kennedy.”
Those interested in learning more about the DJK Institute can go to djkleader.org. The first cohort group of pastoral residents is slated to begin in September 2018.
The D. James Kennedy Institute for Reformed Leadership is a partnership ministry of Faith for Living and Outreach North America seeking to shepherd the shepherds that shepherd the flock for sustainable spiritual health in pastors and their families, as well as in congregations throughout North America.
Contact: Erin Hipps, Outreach North America, ehipps@arpsynod.org | 864-467-1800