The Tribune

By JEFFARAH GIBSON

Tribune Features Writer

jgibson@tribunemedia.net

ADVANCING THE kingdom of God by spreading the gospel and ensuring ministries around are able to do this through church growth is a top priority for one local ministry.

The Life Changers Ministry International is hosting a church growth conference next week towards achieving these goals.

The conference aims to teach pastors, ministry leaders/workers strategies on how to grow their churches and take it to the next level.

It is open to churches of all sizes, but specifically targeted towards small to medium sized ministries whose ministries have less than 500 members.
It will be held on February 22, at Life Changers Ministry.

During the conference participants will be provided with practical information, inspiration, wisdom and knowledge on how to advance the kingdom of God through church growth.

“I decided to host the event because I was inspired by God (after running from this assignment for years) to share with other pastors some of the principles Life Changers Ministries International has used over the years that has caused our church to grow by 500% over the last 5 years. Our congregation is now 5 times the size it was 5 years ago and growing strong. As a matter of fact, our church grew by over 180 recorded new members in 2013,” said Apostle Valentino Williams.

“Let me emphatically state that I am no church growth guru, but there are some things God has shown me that I have been doing that has caused our church to experience uncommon growth and I want to share them with other pastors. I am not about building any personal empires or kingdoms, I’m about building up the kingdom of God,” he said.

Apostle Williams said he saw the need to host this conference because he desires churches in the Bahamas to feed the word to as many persons as possible.
He said the conference will help churches have a greater impact on the community, because the more people impacted the greater the change will be in various communities.

“These types of conferences are held annually in the USA and other parts of the world. Lots of money is needed to travel to these conferences. However, considering the present economic condition, many cannot afford to travel, so I figured this would be ideal to bring this conference to the people of the Bahamas free of charge. The Lord specifically told me to seed this conference into pastors and ministry workers.

The event is the first of its kind to be held by Life Changers Ministries and will be held annually. Preliminary plans are already being made for the Church Growth Strategies 2015 event, he said

“Our vision is for this conference to be the conference of choice when it comes to church growth and development. We eventually would like for this conference to attract pastors and churches from around the world to come here to the Bahamas to learn about church growth. We see this conference playing a major role in the religious tourism markets once it becomes established and fully developed,” he said.

“I hope to inspire churches to become passionate about church growth and development. Additionally, I would like to see conference participants put principles learned from this conference into action and grow their churches to the next level,” he said.