Going to conferences and having opportunities to travel and gain information about ministry has been an unexpected benefit from being a student pastor. I have had multiple opportunities to travel and head to conferences and colleges to learn and talk about how to be more effective in helping people to discover God and develop their relationship with Him. When going on these informative trips it is important that this information not just stay with you. Setting up opportunities to share with staff, particularly leadership, about what you’ve learned is crucial in the return from these experiences. A chance to download and process what you’ve learned with other people in your ministry and your leadership team helps them to learn, creates unity and creates excitement to do another experience again.

Share what you’ve learned

Coming back from an opportunity to learn yourself, it is important to download this information. Take some time to process your experience and come up with some key points that you want to utilize and communicate your leadership team and people who you oversee. You have just had a great opportunity and it is time to spread the wealth. Ask for meetings and come up with a clear presentation. Look for ways that the knowledge you’ve gained can benefit your organization. Brainstorm ways to begin to utilize this information to become a more impactful, and therefore more effective, ministry.

Unity

While away you’ve also learned a lot of new strategies and vernacular that may be new to other people. If you have learned and talked about something that you are now passionate about it is important to process that within your ministry. This helps create unity around a new idea and and any new components you want to add to your ministry. If you begin to implement something and no one has a clue what you’re doing or why, tensions can rise. Communicate these things with all stakeholders. With superiors and with those people that you supervise. Your ministry will take these new ideas and be even more effective when everyone is on the same page.

Send again

When you are able to communicate the things that you’ve learned while away in an effective way it increases your chances of going again. It is an easier sell to attend these workshops and conferences when you are able to take away knowledge, share that knowledge and then implement it within your context.

These conferences and workshops are not just a “day out of the office.” New knowledge and strategies are being discussed and wrestled with here. To be on the forefront of these strategies in your ministry you need to communicate what you’ve learned with the major stake holders in your ministry. When everyone is able to take away something from your trip the unity it creates allows momentum to be gain within your ministry. Share the knowledge of these experiences you have to see a better relationship, better unity and more trust within the church environment.