2009 REGIONAL CHILDREN'S CONFERENCES

Next week I will be meeting with people in our office and from GCP about holding regional conferences for children's ministry in 2009. Our "upfront" plan is to hold one-day conferences in a local church, charging around $30 per person which would include lunch, and we would provide a list of hotels for those traveling a distance that would require an overnight stay. We did this in Orlando last February and it worked quite well. There would be an opening and closing session for everyone with morning and afternoon workshop choices. If you would like to host one in your area, let me know. We would send out brochures for your area, but would like to have a couple of people in each region who would make personal contacts. In Orlando, a group met and planned the schedule. This gave them more ownership in the conference and probably helped attendance since there was more grassroot involvement. Let me here from you! I'll also be sending out an e-mail about this!

Last week I taught Reachout Adventures VBS in my home church. On Thursday the lesson was on the sin of Achan. One little second grade girl, Danielle, began to weep. Crocodile tears flowed down her face, and seeing this, I got to the end of the story and introduced Jesus more quickly than I had planned. Afterwards she told my daughter, her coach, that she knew Jesus had died for her sin, but that she just thought about how awful her sin was and it made her sad. She said, "I sin everyday and I really don't want to. That's why I was crying." I don't want to forget her face or her words. A little child, convicted and sad about her sin...that's who I want to be.