Lake Junaluska, NC- Reverend Olu Brown and leadership from Impact United Methodist Church will headline the African American Clergy and Laity Leadership Retreat held at Lake Junaluska April 16-18. This year’s Retreat will offer clergy and laity participants insight into the success of one of the fastest growing African-American United Methodist Churches. Participants will focus their work using six effective, integrated and interactive modules of developing relevant ministry, including Technology, People Resources and Worship and Special Events.

Participants at this year’s retreat can expect counsel and advice from a Church that is doing great things. Leadership from Impact United Methodist Church will help participants to identify what areas in their own church need strengthening for better community outreach. Some of the highlighted sessions are “creating a vision for your church,” and “creating worship that people never forget.”

This year’s event is open to both clergy and laity whereas in the past, the event focused solely on clergy training. The hope is that by allowing lay people to accompany clergy, the ideas developed between the two groups at the retreat will be more easily presented to the entire church body of both leaders and members. “We have discovered that often times clergy will come to the event, like what they hear and get excited about what they have learned, but then they will struggle with sharing that information successfully. We hope that by bringing lay people along, they will be able to present the information learned as a team and not get discouraged,” said Carl Arrington, Director of African-American Ministries.

For more information or to register for the African-American Clergy and Laity Leadership retreat, visit www.lakejunaluska.com/african-american-clergy or call 800-222-4930. Early registration deadline is February 29, 2012.

Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center is an agency of the Southeastern Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church. The mission of Lake Junaluska is to be a place of Christian hospitality where lives are transformed through renewal of soul, mind, and body.