The “3-Day Movement Synergy EOI” presented by David Deeds was attended by twenty 2025 AG participants. In this audience, Becky Rogers has served on Teens Encounter Christ (TEC), Via de Cristo (VdC), and Kairos Outside Weekends. Three others had served on TEC and VdC Weekends and David serves on VdC and Kairos Weekends. This EOI explored possibilities of increasing the dialog between the Movements as a means of increasing Team member participation across the Movements. TEC and VdC have the most similarities. Both TEC and VdC emphasize spiritual growth, community building, lay leadership, and faith sharing to deepen participants’ relationship with Christ. VdC reaches adults with lay and clergy-led talks; while TEC focuses on teenagers who also give talks and share leadership with adults. These websites, Show-Me Lutheran Teens Encounter Christ and Hand In Hand TEC (in central NC), highlight two active Lutheran TEC movements.
Kairos and VdC share focuses on spiritual growth, community building, lay leadership, and faith sharing, and God’s grace and forgiveness. VdC’s outreach is to adults in Christian church communities, while Kairos serves prison populations with prison-specific activities and leaders familiar with incarceration experiences. Kairos organizations maintain websites (e.g., Prison Ministry – Kairos of North Carolina) for outreach and emphasize respect, dignity, and Christ-like love, practicing the principle of “Listen, Listen, Love, Love.” There was discussion about the fact that a VdC Secretariat should be healthy before starting a dialogue with a TEC movement; so the VdC team members would not be stretched too thin serving both communities.
Reported by David Deeds
