CM Conference 2016

Last year, my friend and I attended the CM Conference in Louisville, KY and it was an amazing experience.  So this year, I was doing all I could to spread the word so that more people I knew would be able to attend.  This year, I attended with 4 other people and we had a spectacular time.  Not only is the conference extremely well done, but it is affordable.

No, really...it is actually affordable.   This conference does everything it can to be accessible to people from all church sizes.  They start with a low price and then if that is still too much, they have scholarships that you can apply for to cover part or sometimes even all of the cost.  The way the leadership at the CM Conference genuinely care about under served churches is a blessing that is hard to describe.

So, what is attending the conference like?  Well, it's 4 days, includes 4 amazing and inspiring worship services, 12 Workshop opportunities (with over 90 workshops to choose from), has a cool exhibit area that gives you the opportunity to learn about and/or buy helpful ministry tools, and to top it off, it allows you to connect with people who work with children from around the world. There were folks there from Canada, Iran, Australia, New Zealand, and India...and those are just the ones I saw or connected with.  What a blessing to hear/see how God is moving all around the world!

I was given the opportunity to present a workshop at the conference this year and what an honor that was.  Mine was "Children's Ministry on a Shoestring Budget" and I thoroughly enjoyed leading it.  If you would like the handout, I'd be glad to send it to you, just send me a note.  I also attended some  amazing workshops including, "Handling Trauma filled Children in your Kids Ministry" (full of wonderfully useful information and led by Darren Washausen), "Gospel-Based Entertainment: How to use Crazy Games and Skits to Share Jesus" (led by Jon Wicks and very very well done), two workshops led by Tim Cleary titled "Why the Church Needs Digital Disruption" and "As You Wish - Recapturing the Power of Storytelling in Children's Ministry" both of which were great and gave me much to think about, and Trisha Peach led an incredible one called "Standing up to Bullying in the Church." I could go on and on.  All of the workshops I attended gave me something to think about and helped me grow in my ministry.  There were literally workshops about just about every aspect of Children's Ministry.

If you missed this year's conference, all is not lost.  The workshops were recorded and you can purchase them through the CM Connect website for just $2 a piece!  There are in process of being added so it may take a few days for them to all be there, but I'm excited about that because there were several workshops that I wanted to attend, but had to choose between onsite.  I'm looking forward to purchasing them soon.

So, do yourself a favor, check out a couple of the workshops from this year and then sign up to attend next year.  You will be so glad you did.

Until next week!