The past two years have been a time of discussion, change, and decision for our worldwide fellowship. Through all of our efforts, we have been looking to see where God would take us in redefining the leadership for our church. As Scripture says: “In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps (Proverbs 16:9).” With a theme of moving “forward by faith,” we believe that God has helped us arrive at a new place in our new global organization and cooperation that focuses on the delegates, the Regional Family Chairs and the addition of the Catalyst Team to help stimulate action to accomplishing God’s purposes. We can take comfort in this direction from all of the time spent working together, questioning different ideas, applying scriptural principles, and beseeching God in prayer. We look forward to the next phase with anticipation and hope for what God will do. The following paragraphs outline some of the details about the changes and provide an overview of how it all works together.
As reported in the Forward by Faith – 2018 ICOC Delegates Conference Update regarding the various proposals for development within the organizational structure of the ICOC, “the ICOC 2.1 model was chosen that would replace the Evangelists Service Team with the congress of Regional Family Chairmen and establish a 13-member Catalyst Team to provide vision, focus, and directives to the Delegates and Regional Chairmen.” According to this model, the Catalyst Team will include two elders, one teacher, two women’s ministry leaders, a representative from the Missions Cooperation Task Force, as well as seven representatives from the Regional Family Chairmen. In the case of the representative elders, teacher, and women’s ministry leaders, the respective Service Teams organized their own selection processes and have chosen the following Catalyst Team members:
- Walter Evans (Elder)
- Dan Liu (Elder)
- Andy Fleming (Teacher)
- Anne-Brigitte Taliaferro (Women’s Minister)
- Tammy Fleming (Women’s Minister)
The Regional Family Chairmen also voted from among those willing in their number, and the following seven evangelists were selected:
- Harliem Salim (South East Asia)
- Mike Taliaferro (Texas, U.S.)
- Chris Ogbonnaya (Africa – West)
- AT Arneson (Midwest U.S.)
- Mohan Nanjundan (U.K. and Scandinavia)
- Douglas Arthur (New England, U.S.)
- Rafael Lua (Pacific and Southwest U.S.)
The thirteenth member of the Catalyst Team from the Missions Cooperation Task Force has yet to be selected since that Task Force is currently organizing itself according to the decisions and plans approved in Panama. Following a majority decision on the part of the Regional Family Chairmen, the Catalyst Team was tasked with selecting its own co-ordinator, and AT Arneson was chosen to serve in that capacity. (Note: the designation of “coordinator” has been suggested so as not to be confused with the “chairmen” roles of other Service Teams and Regional Church Family leadership).
The stated objective of ICOC 2.1 is “to direct and focus delegates to action on items of importance (church health, growth, unity, etc.) to produce action and change.” The mechanism in this approach is to broaden the basis of influence rather than heighten our organizational structure—and for this purpose, the new Catalyst Team offers some exciting possibilities. Therefore, the Catalyst Team will work together with the RFCs to develop the agenda/program for the Spring Meeting where the proper strategies can also be discussed for planning the 2019 ILC (possibility involving the creation of subcommittees and obtaining real-time input from the delegates). The ICOC 2.1 model recognizes the Regional Family Chairmen (RFC) as the first stage of our global fellowship’s policymakers and developers, and the role of the delegates is to review, further comment, and finalize those proposals (i.e., affirm or reject).
The second conference call is currently being organized by the Catalyst Team coordinator, and we ask that prayers for wisdom and the working of God’s Spirit be made for this new team, the Regional Family Chairmen, and for our leadership efforts worldwide.
– The ICOC 2.1 Structure Transition Team (Ron Conkling, Andy Fleming, Mike Fontenot, Darren Gauthier, Dinesh George, Kay McKean, Mohan Nanjundan, Daren Overstreet, Sebastian Serra)