UMV 2025
We are excited again to host the annual gathering of the Upper Mississippi Valley network. Our gathering will be June 13-14 at Cedar Hills Community Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
REGISTER NOW
(Hotel accommodations and special pricing reserved through May 14 – see below)
Friday, June 13 – Evangelism Workshop
If you ever wanted to explore ways to “think outside the box,” join us on Friday, June 13th to hear from Verlon Fosner. Verlon is the Founder and Director of the Dinner Church Collective (dinnerchurch.com) and is bringing the gospel to the people of Seattle and beyond with new approaches to reach small, medium and large communities. You won’t want to miss this. The first session will focus on the role of pastors and church staff, we’ll have dinner then the next session will focus on pastors, lay leaders and members and how they can make a difference in outreach.
- 2:00pm-5:00pm – Training
“Seeing, Reaching, and Communicating with the unengaged” with Verlon Fosner, for pastors and staff. - 5:00pm – 30-minute break
- 5:30pm – Meal
- 6:30pm- 9:00pm – Training
“Leadership and Outreach” with Verlon Fosner for all leaders.
Saturday, June 14 – Annual meeting
8:00am-9:00am – CHECK-IN/BREAKFAST
- Check-in
- Continental Breakfast, and Fellowship.
- Registration Open
9:30am-10:15am – KEYNOTE SPEAKER
- Greg Alderman, Alliance of Reformed Churches
9:00am-9:30am
WELCOME, WORSHIP, DEVOTIONS
10:30am-11:25am
BREAKOUT Session #1
- A.I. and Ministry (Chuck Huckaby) Empowering Outreach, Operations, and Weekly Worship without Selling Your Soul!
Discover how local churches in and outside the ARC are using AI tools to enhance their outreach, streamline office work, and multiply the effectiveness of their discipleship efforts. Get your AI questions answered!
- Reaching the Next Generation (Steve Poole and Frankline Tshombe) Learn tools and practices to reach the next generation.
- Evangelism for Non-Evangelists (Ben Ingebretson) Because engagement precedes evangelism, this session will focus on introducing a wide range of evangelism methods. Transferrable, field-tested approaches relevant for all churches.
11:30am-12:00am – Business Meeting
- Alliance Update
- Budget Review
- Update on Board Members and Election
- Five-year Review
12:00pm-1:00pm – Catered Lunch
1:00pm-1:50pm
BREAKOUT Session #2
- Dinner Church (Verlon Fosner and Scott Stephan) Discover a practical tool to reach your community and discuss its implementation with practitioners who have seen its fruitfulness.
- Four Fields (Thomas Cellilli and E3 Partners) Explore an evangelism framework to engage in outreach with experienced leaders.
- Discipleship Pathway (Ben Ingebretson) Look at models and methods for discipleship that will re-ignite the priority of discipleship. A crisis in discipleship usually precedes a crisis in ministry – come discover why.
2:00pm-2:15pm – Closing Thoughts and Prayer
PRESENTERS
Ben Ingebretson is the Director of Church Multiplication and Vitality at CORAM DEO. He is husband to Karen, father to three adult kids and their families, and lives in Grand Rapids, MI. Since college and seminary days in Minnesota and Scotland (Bethel St. Paul and then University of Aberdeen) he has been a bi-vo church planter, pastor of a multiplying church and served as new church development director with two denominations: the Reformed Church in America and the United Methodist church).
Over those years he has taken part in the development of over 200 new churches in rural, urban, suburban and multi-ethnic contexts. Ben has published several books: Parent Church Landmines, Multiplication Moves, and most recently Plant Like Jesus, the church planters devotional. In his down time he loves to tandem bike with his wife, hang out with his growing family and sail the Great Lakes!
Verlon Fosner is the Director of Dinner Church Collective. Verlon and Melodee Fosner have been in church leadership for 44 years in Seattle, Washington. After several years in their tenure as lead pastors the church went into decline and they faced a decision: move to the suburbs or become an urban church. After much prayer, the leadership felt called to not only stay, but to dive further into the urban neighborhoods of Seattle.
What began as a single urban church plant quickly grew into a multi-site Dinner Church, and then expanded into a national Dinner Church Network. Then in 2016, Verlon and Melodee joined the Fresh Expressions team to lead the Dinner Church Collective.
Greg Alderman serves as the Executive Director for the Alliance of Reformed Churches. Greg was born and raised in Southern California and is a lifelong Dodgers fan. He received his BA from UCLA and M. Div from Fuller Theological Seminary. Prior to joining the staff at the Alliance, Greg served for 8.5 years as Lead Pastor at Centerpoint Church in Sioux Center, IA and 15.5 years as Senior Pastor at Christ Community in Carmichael, CA. After his time serving at Christ Community, Greg founded a non-profit, One Voice Board, in July 2022 to help churches and other non-profits in board governance at no cost.
Since 2022, Greg has served as an interim pastor at Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church and then at First Reformed Church in Orange City, IA. Greg lives in Denton, TX with his wife Veronica. Together, they have four adult children and four grandchildren.
OTHER PRESENTERS
- Ron Fischer, UMV Network Leader
- Kent Landhuis, Pastor of Teaching & Leadership, Cedar Hills Community
- Steve Poole – Pastor of Youth & Young Adults, Cedar Hills Community
- Frankline Tshombe, Director of Children’s Church, Cedar Hills Community
- Scott Stephan, Senior Pastor, CrossView Church
- Thomas Cellilli, Lead Pastor, New Life Community, IA
- Chuck Huckaby, Lead Pastor, First Reformed Fulton
- Leah Carolan, Worship Pastor, Cedar Hills Community
