These are unusual times.

• We are 7 months into a global pandemic that simply will not go away.

• Nearly every institution, tradition, and rhythm that has shaped our lives has been disrupted, postponed, threatened, or closed permanently.

• Our nation is as bitterly divided as ever.

• The economy is good for some, hard for many, and the future is uncertain.

• The Church and its message are slipping further to the background of peoples’ lives, including believers.

Christians living in America now find themselves as “resident aliens” in a hostile and strange land. Sixty years ago, American culture subscribed to Christian values. A majority of people attended church. Today, our culture is ambivalent if not hostile to Christianity. The gap between the church and the culture continues to widen. The strategies of a generation ago to get people to “come to church” are less likely to work. Those attractional strategies require our unbelieving neighbors to do the work to bridge the cultural gap to come to us. Jesus, however, did not call us to stay in the familiarity of our churches, invent better programs, and be attractive enough in hopes that people will come. He calls us to “go” where people are – where we, and they, live, work, and play. We are now required to live as missionaries, doing what missionaries have always had to do when serving in a foreign country. We have to learn the language of the world around us, learn their traditions and understand their values, love them, and build a bridge between what is familiar to their world and the strange power and truth of the Gospel. Forge Motown exists to bridge that gap.

Forge Motown is a hub of Forge America that networks with and trains everyday people to live as missionaries throughout Metro Detroit. One of the primary ways we do this is through our Missionary Formation Residency. The residency is a 6-month discipleship coaching/training experience that will enable any individual to develop a missionary posture and lifestyle – where they live, work, and play.

Our next residency cohort starts September 15th! Register here: https://smc.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/471838

Join us for an evening of celebration as we wrap up our Forge Motown Missionary Formation Residency. We will eat together, share how the residency has impacted us with one another and be commissioned to live as missionaries where we live, work and play! We are inviting all residents, their spouses/significant others and any friends or leaders that might be interested in Forge partnership or participating in a future residency. We will share about our upcoming Fall residency as well. The graduation/celebration is FREE but we ask that you register by Sunday, August 16th so we can plan accordingly. You can register here: https://smc.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/475822

The Covid-19 crisis has forced churches to make rapid shifts in a short amount of time. One of the primary shifts has been establishing an online ministry presence to continue to serve and disciple our church members as well as effectively reaching the unchurched. This is an important shift but it is not the only one or even the most important. How do we move beyond being the church online to multiplying disciples, leaders and churches? In this FREE webinar Pastor, Church Planter and Entrepreneur, Myron Pierce will share with you how to:

• clarify your ecclesiology
• leverage online resources to create authentic digital disciples
• develop a multiplication framework in our respective contexts, whether digitally or physically.

This 90 minute webinar will involve training as well as Q and A and is being offered for FREE by Mission Igniter and Forge Motown.

Myron Pierce is the Lead Pastor of Mission Church, a grassroots inner city mission in Omaha, Nebraska, with a dream to saturate every inner city with diverse Hope filled churches. As a digital church they have planted 5 digital churches in the last year with a goal to launch 5 more churches this year.

Learn more and register here: https://smc.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/421294

You can learn more about Myron here: https://myronpierce.com/

Michael Frost is an internationally recognized missiologist and one of the leading voices in the missional church movement. His books are required reading in colleges and seminaries around the world and he is much sought after as an international conference speaker. Frost is the Vice Principal of Morling College and the founding Director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission study center located at Morling College in Sydney, Australia. He is the author or editor of fourteen books, the most recent of which are the highly successful and award-winning The Shaping of Things to Come (2003, co-authored with colleague Alan Hirsch), Exiles (2006) and The Road to Missional (2011). 

Cost: $10

Coffee and Refreshments provided

Register here: https://smc.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/358158

What if instead of viewing the church as the place people go to for religious goods and services we saw the church instead as a people sent on mission to bless their neighborhoods and communities with the good news of Jesus? For too long we have raised up church-goers instead of releasing a going church and as a result our people have experienced a faith that is largely devoid of mission. In this one-day event we will explore together how we can equip, empower and release everyday people for mission where they live, work and play. We will learn how to build a culture of missional discipleship, explore how to start churches lead by everyday people that cost zero to little dollars and hear stories of local practitioners who are pioneering new expressions of church in their contexts.

Sponsored by Forge Motown, Mission Igniter and the Southern Michigan Conference of the Free Methodist Church.

Presenters: Deb Hirsch (Co-Founder of Forge Mission Training Network) and Ryan Hairston (Director of Forge America)

Cost: General Admission: $15, Southern Michigan FM Pastors: FREE

Register here: https://smc.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/348782

Hey Forge Partners...we'd like to invite you to lunch, and we're buying! Join us for this gathering of leaders from Forge Motown partner churches as we share with and learn from one another how we're utilizing Forge in our churches. This lunch is open to Forge Motown Partners only.

The Forge Missionary Formation Residency is a 6-month coaching and training experience that equips people to live as missionaries where they live work and play.

The residency includes:

- Content (videos and readings on an online platform)

- Monthly cohort-based gatherings where we process the content together in smaller groups

- Monthly coaching sessions (where a coach connects with you regularly to help you get clarity on what God is saying to you in your particular context)

Our next residency will run September 2019 through April 2020 with a break in December.

Cost: $600/resident

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/forge-missionary-formation-residency-tickets-63357217142

Join us for an evening of celebration as we wrap up our first ever Forge Motown Missionary Formation Residency. We will eat together, share how the residency has impacted us with one another and be commissioned to live as missionaries where we live, work and play! We are inviting all residents, their spouses/significant other and any friends or leaders that might be interested in Forge partnership or participating in a future residency. We will share about our Fall residency as well. The graduation/celebration is FREE but we ask that you register by Sunday, June 9th so we can plan accordingly. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/forge-motown-residency-graduation-tickets-62524099264