Sponsor A Christian Leader in Your Church!

Sponsorship is an incredible gift to a Christian leader that you know who may benefit from The Walk to Emmaus experience!

If God is calling you to sponsor someone and you need an application...click the following link to fill out and email or print and mail!  PilgrimAppEmmaus.pdf 

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An Important Message about Sponsorship from our Grace Notes Newsletter

The El Shaddai Board is concerned about the sponsoring of new pilgrims. We, as a Board, have been praying for greater clarity, wisdom and commitment in the area of sponsoring. We have not been good stewards in the training and equipping of our members on this issue, and we hope to turn that problem around in the coming months.

The most critical element of sponsoring is the most obvious, but not always the first thing we do. We must devote time to PRAYER. Sure, you can make a list of potential names, but take that list to God. Sit and listen in prayer. God knows better than we do about who is ready for The Walk to Emmaus experience. As we pray about whom to sponsor, we need to focus on people who are already leaders or show great potential for leadership in our churches. This is not a time to be a “hospital”—to heal marriages, convert unbelievers, or provide a spiritual “high”. Yes, healings do happen in the course of a Weekend, but that is not the purpose of the Walk to Emmaus. The weekend is designed for people who are seeking knowledge and who want to increase their spiritual understanding.
We must pray, not only about whom to sponsor, but about whether WE are ready to sponsor. Much is expected from a sponsor. It goes beyond just gathering Agape letters.

Are you sincerely ready to pray daily for your pilgrim? Will you arrange the childcare they may need during that time? Will you provide transportation to and from the weekend? Will you stay for the worship during Sponsor Hour on Thursday? Will you be available to the pilgrim’s family during the Walk? Will you participate in the Candlelight Service on Saturday night? Will you attend the Closing Worship on Sunday afternoon? This is a lengthy set of responsibilities, but they don’t have to be done all by one person. Can you enlist others in your church to partner with you in this sponsoring?

When the Weekend is over, your sponsoring is not over. You need to encourage your pilgrim to attend the Reunion gathering. The best way to encourage is to take the pilgrim yourself. If you can’t do it, find some Emmaus member who can!
Assisting the new pilgrim in finding an accountability group appears to be the most difficult step for a sponsor. If a group does not exist in your area, then you need to offer to meet with the pilgrim regularly to provide that fellowship and accountability. If you are already in a group, you need to invite the new pilgrim to join you. Reunion groups are as essential to the spiritual growth of your pilgrim as the Walk itself was. Group members reinforce one another’s desire to maintain constant communion with Christ and contact with other Christians who share a vision of life lived fully in the grace of God.

Another opportunity for growth is coming back to work on a Weekend. Again, a sponsor encourages through example. You may have already worked as a team member—share how you were blessed. Your pilgrim is more likely to actually work a Weekend if he/she already has a friend who is on team. Be that friend!

We know of several Emmaus communities who have folded recently because of weak sponsoring habits. El Shaddai wants to insure that this does not happen to our community. Please join us in this effort to strengthen our sponsoring habits. Thank you for taking this issue to heart and for responding to God’s ministry through the El Shaddai Walk to Emmaus.

Prayerfully,
The El Shaddai Board of Directors