I know this is ‘the day after day three,’ but to keep with the pattern of my previous posts, this will focus on what happened our last day at the Assessment Center. I’ll write an entry or two on overall reflections soon.
Our final day began with the presentation of our group project. As we had been preparing the project for presentation to the assessors, they were meeting in order to draft our written assessments following their reviews/scores (and subsequent votes) on what kind of ‘light’ each couple had received. The project opened up the opportunity for the potential planters to interact with each other and get a little bit of insight into the process of understanding a community and a small part of the detail of planting a church. That process was one of the significant ‘takeaways’ for me from the week’s events and helped instill an even greater excitement about the potential of being a planter myself.
Following the project presentation, there was varied interaction with the assessors about the project and some of their insights. Then came the moment we had been waiting for: when we would meet with our individual assessors (the person who had done all of our one-on-one interviews) to receive our results and gain insight into how the assessors had reached their conclusions. I’m happy to report that all three of the couples were ‘green-lighted’ to pursue with church planting!
Everyone then regrouped to have a Q&A—this time with the planting couples asking questions of the assessment team. There was discussion about ‘next steps’ (especially the need for training) and some practical helps which included a number of resources being given out. The ‘official’ day ended with lunch, but the folks from WPA stayed longer to debrief and continue building relationship.
Each of the three couples who completed the assessment now have the joy of praying through what will happen next in their journey. But, as it stands today, there are three planters preparing to partner with God’s Spirit in touching communities with the most effective tool we have for reaching those who don’t know Christ—planting new churches. And, if you ask me, it doesn’t get much more exciting than that!
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This entry is also posted at theydidweill.blogspot.com, the blog for the M3 emphasis of the Western PA District of the Wesleyan Church
Thanks for sharing your experience. Just out of curiosity, what does it cost to be assessed?
Howdy, “anonymous!”
This is a great question, and I’ll be answering it in a later post as well as here: If memory serves the cost for CPAC itself is about $1500. There is a pre-assessment battery of personality profiles and whatnot with some cost incurred there as well. Depending on your ‘sending organization,’ some or all of this may be covered. Sarah and I were fortunate/blessed enough that our district covered all of our expenses. Because we were ‘green lighted,’ the district received an assessment grant from our denomination to help defray about $1000 of the cost.
Does that help?