VocationCARE Trainings

Recognizing the need for local communities to gather together and learn from each other, Calling Congregations offer training events that support VocationCARE practices and the call to ministry.

We offer the following training events for church leaders interested in learning more about how to care for vocation: 

Offering for conferences and events around the country

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The Art of Storytelling: A Pathway to Discovering Passion, Purpose and Commitment to VocationCARE

Timeframe: 1 Day Regional Event 

Description: When was the last time you heard a good story? A story that touched you deeply, inspired you and moved you to care about what really matters to you and your community? We all have a story because stories are the means for how we care for and understand our lives and the lives of others in community. But storytelling is about more than simply telling stories. It is a leadership art to be practiced in community. In this workshop, you will learn and return home with "a model for conversation in which safe, trustworthy space is created, where the Holy Spirit is heard and the particular gifts and commitments of members, including clergy, are honored and called forth.

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Fall in Love with VocationCARE: A One-Day Introductory Event

Timeframe: 1 Day Regional Event

Description: Is your faith community a place where people are exploring together the deep questions about meaning and purpose in their lives? Who helps you figure out what you are going to with your life personally and professionally in light of your faith, gifts and purpose in the world? 

This is a one-day introductory event for leaders of churches and church-related organizations interested in FTE's VocationCARE approach, a congregational process for helping congregations and faith communities become places where everyone--particularly young people exploring Christian vocations and the call to pastoral ministry--hear, respond to and serve God's call in their lives. 

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A Deeper Look at VocationCARE: A Two-Day Retreat

Timeframe: 2 Day Regional Event 

Description: This is a retreat for leaders of churches and church-related organizations from across the country interested in having a deeper experience of VocationCARE and understanding the theories and assumptions that inform the approach. Recognizing the need to cultivate leaders and renew the Christian church, this retreat provides participants an opportunity to discern whether or not they want to be trained to lead the VocationCARE approach in their ministry context. 

You will: 

• Engage a particular discipline that leads to spiritual renewal and activism in your faith community
• Experience how to care for vocation in one another and your children's children as a way to create a future for the church that is distinct from its past
• Explore how to adapt the VocationCARE approach to the particular needs of your ministry to form Christian disciples and emerging leaders

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Leap into VocationCARE: Training for Practitioners

Timeframe: 5 Day Regional Event

Description: This is a training for teams of leaders from churches and church-related organizations across the country who learn how to lead the VocationCARE approach in their efforts to call young leaders, renew the church and change the world. Participants will be formed and prepared to lead VocationCARE practices in their congregations and communities of faith.

Your teams will learn to how to lead: 

• Storytelling and listening as a way to discover vocation and leadership in one another
• New forms of conversation that identify gifts for leadership in your church
• Practices that attune your faith community to its motivation, direction and choices
• A leadership practice for adapting the VocationCARE approach to your particular context

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Check out our upcoming events to see if one of these workshops or trainings are being offered in a city where you live. 

Please contact Regional Directors Courtney Cowart or Jim Goodmann for more information about these events or how to co-host one of these regional events or trainings in your city or town.