Beyond These Walls 2025

Kurt Kandler - Good intentions aren’t enough...

Good intentions aren’t enough. Everyone wants to see extreme poverty alleviated, but too often, well-meaning e=orts, especially from the North American Church, fall short.

Poverty is more than just a material issue, and those a=ected are more than a set of problems to be solved. True change requires a comprehensive shift in thinking on both sides of the bridge and an understanding that we must do ‘with’, not ‘for’, the poor. Kurt Kandler, author of "If You Really Want to Help," will lay out a fresh blueprint on how to change the paradigm of how the Church engages the global poor.

Kurt Kandler - All too often, the process of finding and vetting global mission partners falls into two categories – people someone in our church knows or places on a map. But as stewards of our church’s resources, global mission leaders must do more. In this session, Kurt Kandler, Executive Director of the 410 Global Outreach Network, will share a comprehensive approach to thoroughly vetting global mission partners, ensuring that the partner and the church are aligned in their mission, values, and strategy.

Kurt Kandler - We’ve heard it hundreds of times, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth measuring.” But what should we measure when it comes to global missions? Are we measuring activity or outcomes? In this session, Kurt Kandler – author of “If You Really Want to Help” – will share his insights on e=ectively measuring impact on both sides of the bridge.

Healthcare professionals of today face stresses that have previously been unknown in nearly every segment.  Moreover, there are hardly any members of the healthcare community who have not encountered the tremendous stress of dealing with patients, their family members, and colleagues amid these overwhelming and tragic circumstances. 

It is with these stress and impacts in mind that the 8-lesson group training program ‘Care for the caregiver’ was developed by Companions of Grace International (COGI). Using large group learnings, small group sharing and peer-to-peer sharing, it focuses on equipping Christian healthcare professionals to deal more effectively the the difficulties they face in their daily lives at work, at home, and within their communities. The program is presently rolled out in five countries through partnerships with three major Christian Healthcare organization and some key churches - more countries are joining the ever-expanding network.

This session at the conference is a taster of the full 8 module course. The session identifies some of the causes and consequences of stress that a healthcare professional faces. It also provides insights into to why healthcare professionals fail to seek for help themselves or often uncared for. A significant portion of the session will focus on selected concepts/ skills taken from the full course and a roleplay demonstration of one of them. The role play will demonstrate to participants the skill and tools and how the program provides a therapeutic experience to participants. A question answer sections will also be included.

Is the Great Commission really only relevant to those that are on the “mission-field”? Is it only relevant to the 0.01% of all Christians that are vocational missionaries? What about the rest of the church, the other 99.99% who are not on the mission-field? Is their job to simply fund their endeavors, to tithe, write a check, or support via prayer? The largest missions opportunity for the church today is not only the 10/40 window, but also the 9 to 5 window. In this session Rob Lim will empower us to consecrate, configure, catalyze and commission the marketplace saints for this season of outpouring.

Come and experience how to move the mission needle in your church. Learn how to mobilize others toward reaching your near neighbors and those who are unreached. Experience the steps that must be taken to move someone in the congregation from the sideline to involvement. 

Through this breakout, pastors, missions leaders, and next-generation leaders will explore practical ideas on how to engage your students in God’s work in the world through missions. From living everyday life on mission to local missions to global missions, this breakout will help you build processes and systems to help move the students in your ministry from the sidelines to the frontlines of missions.

From its roots in the beginnings of the founding of the United States, Methodism has understood its mission to be "spreading scriptural holiness." This mission lit a fire for every Methodist circuit riding preacher to move out from their place of comfort and spread the gospel throughout the American frontier. Once Methodism had spread all the way West to the Pacific Coast, they instinctively began sending missionaries across the world to continue their mission. This workshop will outline the meaning and significance of the Methodist mission to "spread scriptural holiness" and show its relevance for evangelism and missions today.