What is a National Forum Conference / Movement?

Need

Many evangelical leaders lacking training, resources, relationships, and hope cannot attend the European Leadership Forum. Therefore, there is a need to unite, equip, and resource evangelical leaders in their own country and language, addressing the unique needs of the evangelical church and leaders in their context.

Vision

The vision of the European Leadership Forum (ELF) is to renew the European church and evangelize Europe by uniting, equipping, and resourcing Europe’s evangelical leaders. It does this in three ways: the ELF annual meeting, year-round leadership training and mentoring, and a year-round movement made up of hundreds of strategies run by European evangelical leaders who share the Forum vision.

Strategy

One strategy that national leaders can implement to serve evangelical leaders within their own countries is to establish a National Forum Conference / movement.

A National Forum Conference (NFC) adopts the basic structure of the ELF’s annual meeting – including networks, plenary sessions, workshops, and mentoring – but is tailored to the needs of evangelical leaders in a specific country and conducted in their national language. This provides opportunities for national leaders to focus on the pressing issues and unique circumstances of their own contexts. The NFCs also allow non-English-speaking leaders, who otherwise would not be able to attend ELF, to receive a similar quality of training and resources in their own language.

“The Albanian Leadership Forum is right now the single most appreciated meeting point of ethnic Albanian evangelical leaders from Albania, Kosovo, and the region, attended by 200 leaders from different backgrounds, denominations, and ministries.”

– Zefjan Nikola, director of the Albanian Leadership Forum

Each National Forum Conference (NFC) forms the hub of a larger National Forum movement, which operates year-round. After catching the Forum vision at the NFC, National Forum participants host events and strategies throughout the year using ELF and NFC speakers and resources that provide specialized training and mentoring to leaders in their local context. In addition, National Forum leaders are asked to recommend participants to attend ELF and be trained through ELF’s Europe-wide Year-Round Mentoring groups and other Forum initiatives. This year-round aspect of a National Forum is extremely important, as it allows for training to be reinforced, relationships to grow, and transformation to occur in the lives of its participants.