The Academy (Hispanic/Latino) for Faith Community Development is a two-year training program for pastors and lay persons who feel called to start a “new thing” with the Hispanic/Latino community of Northern Illinois. This intensive process provides support, ministry skills development, and leadership training in order to prepare a pool of leaders for reaching out to religious “nones” through Hispanic/Latino ministries in the Northern Illinois Conference.

We invite you to recommend prayerfully someone whom you believe is suited and gifted for planting a new church or starting a new ministry. This could be a colleague, a clergy person, a lay person, or even yourself!

The Academy seeks participants who have the following traits: (1) A passion for starting a “new thing.” Many Academy participants will not launch a church plant. We simply desire participants zealous for reaching religious “nones.” (2) Hunger for learning. We desire participants who want to learn from the presenters, peer-to-peer sharing, personal accountability, and the spiritual formation process.

I learned when and how to reach out to new people at the Conference Academy!

By visiting other churches, I picked up new ideas for my local ministry.

Download the brochure

For more information, contact Martin Lee, at mlee@umcnic.org.