10th Anniversary
Spring Training & Gathering 2023
“Together We Learn. Together We’re Sent.”
APRIL 17th – 29th
ECCT’s annual gathering of lay and ordained leaders to learn, share, and pray together.
April 17–April 27 Online | no registration fee
Online Course Booklet & Registration beginning March 15
April 29 In-Person 8:30AM–3:00PM | $20 fee (includes lunch)
**In-Person Registration Deadline is April 14th**
In-Person Class Booklet & Registration beginning March 15
In-Person Locations:
- Christ Church Cathedral (CCC) 45 Church St, Hartford, CT 06103 *lunch and keynote speaker featuring Mary Foster Parmer: Invite. Welcome. Connect.
- Capitol Community College 950 Main St, Hartford, CT 06103 *in-person workshops
Parking
- Street Parking is free on weekends
- MAT Garage located across the street from CCC (bring your receipt to CCC for validation & free parking)
This year we’re celebrating our 10th Year of Spring Training & Gathering 2023 (ST&G23. For the past decade, ECCT’s leaders, educators, vestries, and parishioners have gathered together to learn from each other how to join Jesus in building God’s realm.
This year’s gathering is aptly titled Together we learn. Together we’re sent.
Yet, this year’s ST&G23 is also a first. We’re offering both online learning—with dozens of courses online April 17 through 27—and one daylong, in-person gathering at our Cathedral and Capitol Community College in downtown Hartford, Saturday April 29, 8:30AM-3:00PM.
ONLINE OFFERINGS:
We’ve added several courses this year as well as many of the old favorites. From Worship, Vestry Ministry, Preaching, and Lay Eucharistic Visitor Training to Creation Care, Anti-Racism, Parish Administration, and Evangelism, we’ve scheduled 25 workshops, each offered twice and at a variety of times and days beginning April 17. Workshops are organized by category and may serve you individually or as a group (vestry onboarding or retreat, parish study groups, Ministry Networks, etc.).
IN-PERSON ST&G 23 GATHERING
Invite. Welcome. Connect:
Learning How to Share the Good News of the Risen Christ with Mary Foster Parmer
Join us in person as and gather Saturday morning at Christ Church Cathedral for our opening worship service and plenary with Bishop Mello and Bishop Ahrens. Afterward, participants will walk across Main St. to Capitol Community College for a morning of presentations—including offerings from Ministry Networks and our Bishops’ Staff—returning to our Cathedral for lunch and the afternoon workshop with our featured speaker Mary Foster Parmer.
Mary is the Founder and Creator of Invite/Welcome/Connect that explores the gospel imperative to “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Through a series of creative and engaging conversations, Mary explores ways to empower individuals and congregations to share Jesus’ Good News by cultivating the intentional practices of evangelism, hospitality, and belonging. “Invite Welcome Connect is not a program,” Mary says, “but a transformational ministry that helps congregations move from a maintenance culture to a gospel driven mission culture.”
Mary shares the deep truths of the ministry of evangelism and in this dynamic workshop, she will lead us through creative idea generation exercises and engage dynamic practices that help transform communities into being truly hospitable. Not a program as much as a sound theological framework, Mary offers simple practices that are about transformational change, allowing us to better connect within our congregations as well as the world around us. “Transforming culture is at the heart of God’s mission in the world,” Mary adds. “Becoming creative culture changemakers is the work of the church.”
Come to learn and practice new ways of being The Episcopal Church and return home with new ideas that you can share with your parish. Who knows what God has in store for you?
Join Us for our Spring Training & Gathering Plenary Session
Mary Foster Parmer:
Learning How to Share the Good News of the Risen Christ
Saturday April 29, 2023
- Morning Workshops begin at 8:30AM
- Mary’s Keynote begins with lunch at 12:30PM
- ST&G23 concludes at 3:00PM
Born and raised in the deep South, Mary Parmer is the founder of Invite Welcome Connect, a transformational ministry that equips and empowers congregations and individuals to cultivate intentional practices of evangelism, hospitality, and belonging. Invite Welcome Connect has circulated throughout The Episcopal Church and to date, has been presented in 65+ dioceses, three Episcopal seminaries, three universities, the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, the Anglican Church in Canada, and Lutheran congregations in Akron, Ohio.
Mary’s award-winning book, Invite Welcome Connect: Stories & Tools to Transform Your Church, was published by Forward Movement in 2018. Mary served as Lay Deputy to four General Conventions of The Episcopal Church, and she is past director of the Gathering of Leaders, a national leadership gathering of young Episcopal clergy. Mary holds a degree in Religious Studies from St. Edward’s University in Austin, and she formerly served as Director of Adult Ministries & Evangelism at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Beaumont, Texas.
