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Vitality Project
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Strengthening the systems that help prepare churches for revival and renewal
 Vitality project

The Vitality Project strengthens the systems that help prepare churches for revival and renewal as we seek to understand the long-term growth of Christianity in Boston and beyond. We do this by

  • encouraging prayer movements,
  • networking urban ministries and churches in different cities,
  • and developing Living System Ministry.

Prayer

For over the last four years, the Vitality Project team has engaged local pastors and prayer leaders in the development of Pray For Boston (www.prayforboston.org) as a grassroots Metro Boston prayer movement with a comprehensive, four-part approach:

  • Encouraging neighborhood-based pastor-to-pastor relational prayer and fellowship meetings with the goal of establishing relationships, building trust, and taking greater spiritual authority over their neighborhood.
  • Encouraging neighborhood-based congregation-to-congregation concerts of prayer, fellowship, and other ways of working together.
  • Convening and supporting citywide and regional prayer networks.
  • Encouraging more intercessory prayer and thinking about how intercessory prayer can relate with other prayer aspects.

During the last year, Pray For Boston collaborated with the “60.12 vision” to develop a New England Regional prayer network that convened day-long monthly prayer and fellowship meetings that took place in all six of the New England states, engaging hundreds of local pastors and prayer leaders. It also worked with the Boston Prayer Summit to promote a 1-day, 12-hour Metro Boston Region gathering at Camp Wonderland in Sharon, MA. Pray For Boston continues to collaborate with other local and regional prayer movements including The Boston Prayer Summit, 333 House of Prayer, Hosting His Presence, New England Apostolic Prayer Network, and others to nurture prayer at neighborhood, citywide/metro and regional levels.

Metro Boston Fall 10-day prayer event. Local pastors, prayer leaders, and multiple existing prayer networks are planning a 10-day prayer event in September 2011. A local core group of leaders has committed to gather each morning for 10 days at a Boston church for prayer and worship. Each evening during the 10 days we plan to meet at a different Boston church for a citywide prayer and worship event. For more information, contact us, attention Brian Corcoran.

Networking

The Vitality Project helped to launch GUMNet (Global Urban Ministries Network), which now includes over 70 citywide, regional, and international leaders from approximately 25 ministries (including YWAM, Intervarsity, Campus Crusade for Christ, Transform World, Redeemer International Church Planting Network, NYC Global Leadership Center, and The Urban Leadership Foundation) that will collaboratively focus on research, education systems, and learning teams.

Jeff Bass, executive director, and Brian Corcoran, project director of the Vitality Project, attended the Movement Day Conference in NYC and were invited to participate in the one-day pre-conference consultation which included 65 citywide ministry leaders from 25 U.S. cities. Dr. Mac Pier, Movement Day Conference organizer, commented during the event, “EGC provides a best-of-class model of the power of research based on decades of work in Boston. Their model is inspiring similar efforts in other cities including New York City.” (Learn more about our research...)

Training

Rev. Dr. Gregg Detwiler (Intercultural Ministries director) and Dr. Bianca Duemling (Intercultural Ministries assistant director) joined Dr. Doug Hall, Judy Hall, and Dr. Bobby Bose in the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Doctor of Ministry, Urban Ministry Track teaching team. A new D. Min. cohort began in January 2011.

We are developing curriculum and exploring ways to share urban ministry training materials on Living System Ministry, the school of thought presented in The Cat and the Toaster: Living System Ministry in A Technological Age, a book published in 2010 by Doug and Judy Hall and Steve Daman. For more information on the book...

The Vitality Project provided training regarding intercultural church research and co-led in the design and presentation of the 2010 Ethnic Ministries Summit’s Pre-Summit Research Consultation. This for-credit course attended by 40 leaders was offered as part of the 2010 Ethnic Ministries Summit in Boston.