GEORGETOWN, Ky. (ABP) – Current, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s young leaders’ network, is sponsoring three regional meetings as a way to reach out to a new crop of young seminarians and those in their first call as clergy.
The first Kentucky Current Retreat for Young Baptist leaders is scheduled Oct. 24-25 at Georgetown College. While it is being held in Kentucky, the meeting is open to anyone, said Joshua Speight, associate coordinator of the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship.
For several years CBF held an annual Current retreat in February that was a gathering place for young Baptist leaders. It was combined with a retreat for Christian educators in an annual event now called ChurchWorks. The next ChurchWorks conference, scheduled Feb. 27-March 1, 2012, in Norfolk, Va., features author and teacher Brian McLaren and musical artist Ken Medema.
Speight said Current’s leadership has talked a lot in the last year about becoming more regionalized in their approach and offer more opportunities for networking about young Baptists. In addition to the Kentucky retreat, Current is sponsoring a breakout session at the Alabama CBF fall meeting Oct. 9-10 at First Baptist Church in Huntsville, and an Oct. 6-7 symposium on 21st century Christianity featuring Brian McLaren in Columbia, S.C.
“Current is a ministry of introduction, a place for engagement into the wider CBF movement,” Speight said. “Through dialogue and fellowship with others, Current hopes to help young Baptists find their ways to connect, serve and learn within the CBF world and beyond.”
Amy Butler
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The Current retreat in Kentucky features Amy Butler, senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and a columnist for Associated Baptist Press. She will talk about "Living the Call" — how to answer, find and sustain God's calling. She also is scheduled to speak during Georgetown College's chapel service at 11 a.m., Tuesday, Oct. 25.
In addition to its annual retreat, Current facilitates a month of mission projects across the country each fall called Service in September. The event began as Eleven on 11, an effort to do something constructive to remember Sept. 11, 2001, and grew from there to unite Baptists of all ages and locations in community service to commemorate a day remembered for destruction.
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Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.