—January seminar at two locations, Princeton Seminary and Stony Point, New York, will discuss the strengths of small churches —

Princeton, NJ, December 14, 2011–Princeton Theological Seminary’s School of Christian Vocation and Mission (SCVM) is offering a one-day seminar on “Leveraging the Strengths of the Small Church.” Offered at two locations, the seminar will take place on Monday, January 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the SCVM, 20 Library Place in Princeton, and on Tuesday, January 10 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Stony Point Center in Stony Point, New York.  

Most church leaders are preoccupied with numbers of visitors, members, and conversions, with the assumption that the primary goal is to increase their congregation’s size, but most churches are small and will always be. This seminar is designed to encourage leaders of small churches, and to convince them that their congregations play an instrumental role in the Kingdom of God, precisely because they are small.

Brandon O’Brien, the author of The Strategically Small Church: Intimate, Nimble, Authentic, and Effective, and editor-at-large for Leadership Journal, will speak. He has written articles and reviews, and conducted interviews for Leadership Journal, Christianity Today, Relevant, Neue, and the Out of Ur blog, as well as pastored two small Baptist congregations in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. He holds an M.A. in religion in American life from Wheaton College Graduate School in Wheaton, Illinois, and is currently a doctoral student in historical theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.     

The cost for the Princeton program is $60, which includes lunch. Groups of two or more from the same church may register for only $35 each. The cost for the Stony Point program is $20, and is underwritten by the Marlboro (New York) Presbyterian Church Seminar on Small Church Ministry, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Hudson River Presbytery’s Congregational Change Committee. For registration and more details, visit www.ptsem.edu/cvm, call 609.497.7990, or email scvm@ptsem.edu.

Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812 as the first seminary established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. Celebrating its Bicentennial in 2012, it is the largest Presbyterian seminary in the country, with more than 500 students in six graduate degree programs.