Friday

Pastor Karl Gaston led a group discussion of the role of Lay Spiritual Directors (SDs).  There are often not enough ordained clergy to serve on VDC weekends.  Some areas of the country have no ordained SDs available willing to serve on weekends.  Secretariats sometimes can pull in SDs from out of state and sometime use non-Lutheran pastors from among our ecumenical partners.  Increasingly Lay SDs are serving as the #2 or #3 SD position on...

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. ...

Business Meeting #1 (Friday) in Ketner Auditorium at Queens University, Charlotte NC Following an opening prayer by Pastor Karl Gaston, Secretary Suzanne Bathe conducted a Delegate Roll Call to confirm that the meeting quorum was met.  Pastor Karl then commissioned the delegates and President Brian Comeno called the business meeting to order.  After some opening remarks, Bob Lewis, the Nomination Committee Chair, came forward and presented the following candidates for the NLS board positions that...

Jerry Gray, NLS Treasurer, led an exchange of ideas discussion and answered budget questions. The main topics include the 2026 budget, fundraising, and sharing best practices among Via de Cristo communities. Jerry reported that the NLS board is working on website improvements while minimizing software and website costs. Communication between Secretariats, Regional Coordinators, and the NLS board is inefficient, affecting dues collection, Palanca sharing, and information exchange. It was noted that the draft 2026 budget...

Led by Pastor Karl Gaston  Spiritual Director Participation & Recruitment  Practical Support for Clergy Involvement  Tech and Communication Improvements  Clergy Video Project  Personal Stories & Reflections Several attendees shared powerful and diverse personal stories:  Challenges & Concerns Reported by Donovan & Andrea Douglas

Alexa Roseman The goal is to connect with people from different areas and discuss church health – to get different perspectives. This can spark follow up discussions over the rest of the weekend to get ideas on how to improve and take those ideas back to local church leaders. Alexa reviewed a list of scripture references and discussed how those scriptures could point to ways to improve our church health. Each table discussed these and...

The team training EOI is a companion session to work with the team building session. The latter focused on finding common ground regarding terminology and how our teams are organized, as well as how team meetings are run. This session built on the work done at first EOI to discuss the importance and purpose of team training. Why do we do what we do? The purpose of team training is to help us understand and...

As the Team Building exchange of ideas (EOI) session opened, it rapidly became apparent that there are probably as many different ways to organize weekend teams and names for team member positions as there are Secretariats in Via de Cristo. The meeting started with a comparison of the various position names used across Via de Cristo, to help compare how each Secretariat develops their teams. The EOI featured a robust discussion of how teams were...

A great spirited discussion was led by President Brian Comeno.  The group discussed asking people to join the weekend and ideas for getting younger people.  There was a great amount of discussion regarding whether or not pilgrims should have their phones.  There was a lot of emphasis put on how music helps the movement!  Concerns were brought forward about changing and adapting with fill in the blank forms, the length of the rollos, and the...

Pastor Ed Thomas, Pastor Conda Lashley, Pastor Jacob Roberts, Vicar Josh Eicholtz, Christian Sharpe, Luke Roberts Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church (SOJ) in NC has been involved with Via de Cristo for over 30 years. Pastor Ed or PE, senior pastor, led the discussion by asking, “What do we want kids to look like?”  Answer: “We want them to be conformed to the WORD, not to the world.” But how do we do this?  Pastor...

Pastor Conda Lashley, Jen Creech Teens Encounter Christ (TEC) has about 30 different fellowships around the nation. North Carolina has a TEC program called Hand in Hand TEC (HIHTEC). TEC is very similar to Via de Cristo. There are the same teams, but for TEC each team is led by a youth with an adult to help as an encourager, safety net, mentor. Where VdC focuses on God’s Grace, TEC focuses on God’s love.  TEC...