Happy New Year!

During our most recent HGC staff meeting, I asked the team to each describe how they were currently feeling in a single word.  It was fun to hear the variety of words chosen and even more fun to hear the reasons why.

The word I shared to describe me was excited and I went on to tell the staff why.  A big part of my choice for using ‘excited’ had to do with HGC.

I am excited about what God is doing and what He will do through HGC in 2017.  We have some very clear goals for the coming ministry year as we continue to engage leaders and churches to be healthy and multiply.

With our final blog post of the year, I want to take a moment to provide a snapshot of what we think God might be up to in new year.

We have a fantastic list of learning moments planned through our monthly network calls, quarterly micro meet ups, and pre-con and breakouts at the Exponential Conference.  We hope to train more than 500 leaders next year through these moments.  When we launched my church, Journey Church, back in 2006, moments like these were my lifeline as a pastor.  They not only provided the creativity and insight to help us get to our next ministry win, but they also provided a community so I never felt alone. I am so honored to be able to provide those moments for other leaders in 2017.

We continue to see tremendous fruit from our consultations.  God authored some wonderful stories this past year as we engaged several churches begin new life cycles.  Our coaching ministry continues to empower pastors go further faster than they could have on their own.  Our cultivating congregation initiatives is sparking a deep and productive conversation about disciple making and church multiplication.  In ’17, we plan to engage at least 100 churches across the United States and around the world to get healthy and multiply.  We firmly believe healthy churches are the hope of the world.  We are so excited about helping more churches create significant kingdom impact in the communities where God has them planted.

Significant doors have opened the past year for Greg to develop assessment tools for some global
ministries like the Exponential Conference and World Vision.  God is using the development of these tools and relationships to open doors we never dreamed possible.  We intend to leverage Greg’s unique skill set to develop 10 more unique assessment tools next year. 
I cannot wait to see more doors open as God continues to increase our influence and impact.

Over the years, HGC has accumulated a large amount of tools (surveys/assessments) to help individuals, churches, and organizations assess where they are in a variety of different ways, but they haven’t been readily available in one spot online.  In 2017, we plan to do something about that.  Before quarter one ends, we plan to have hgctools.com live and fully functioning.  It will be thrilling to see the development and growth of this new site as the coming year unfolds.

Hopefully now you can see why I, along with the HGC staff, are so excited about the 2017 ministry year!

I would like to extend to you both an invitation and challenge to join us in this ministry plan for next year.  There are three clear ways you can help.

First, pray for us.  Nothing significant ever happens in the Kingdom without prayer.  There is no way we will accomplish any of what is captured above without an army of prayer warriors.  Will you be one of them?

Second, give monthly.  Being an organization that is primarily fee based, but also relies on donor funding, is a delicate dance.  Our donor support is one of the ways we are able to have price points for our ministry that is affordable for pastors and churches.  One of our big needs in ’17 is to increase those individuals and churches that give monthly.  Will you give monthly so we can continue to serve the Church?  You can easily set that up by using this link.

Third, tell a friend about HGC.  While we so love and appreciate the champions who have made our progress to date possible through prayers, donations, and participation in our services, we have targeted to raise up 40 new champions and friends of HGC in ’17.   Will you help us by just asking people you know to join our newsletter to learn more about us?  This can be easily done by using this link.

I fully believe 2017 will be the best year yet for HGC.  I am excited to see the many ways God will show up and the significant kingdom impact that will be the result!

Post contributed by Tom Planck, HGC Healthy Church Catalyst.