Preparing for the Winter Conferences

As January comes to an end it is time to get ready for the winter season of Associational Evangelism Conferences. All of the conferences begin on Saturday night and run through the following Tuesday. Next weekend is the Mineral Area Conference in Bismarck MO. This will be the third year of this conference and it is an honor to be asked to come back each year. I have been to Pilot Knob for a revival and will be in Silver Springs at the end of March this year. I was a guest at their youth camp last year and will serve as camp pastor for their boy's camp this summer. All of these are a result of the exposure from this conference.

There is no conference scheduled for Valentine weekend.

The weekend of the 21st through the 24th is the Barry County Evangelism Conference in Cassville MO. This one is the longest running of the conferences and is also the largest in terms of participating churches and attending evangelists. This year will be the first year to for me to attend this conference.

The next weekend is the Pulaski County Conference and it is just their second year of hosting an evangelism Conference. Last year the Association's Evangelism Director said that he dreams of the day when the county will have more people in church on Sunday morning than are out of church! I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of growth they have had since we were there last year.

Then on March 7-10th, the Tri-county Association will host it's first conference in many years. I am very excited about this conference because this is my home association. I've been given the privilege of inviting the evangelists for this conference. These that I have invited are great preachers, great encouragers and are great friends. They have mentored me, given me great endorsements and I feel so good about being able to say thanks by having them come to our conference.

The basic program is a song service on Saturday night with all of the music evangelists participating. There will usually be one message--a sort of keynote address to start things off. Clyde Chiles will be the Saturday night messenger at our conference. Sunday will find all of the evangelists in different churches for the morning and evening services. There will be sessions in the mornings on Monday and Tuesday. The evangelists have free time in the afternoons and are back for more music and message in the evenings. Tri-county will not be using music evangelists but will use local musicians to encourage local church members to attend. It is my hope and prayer that this wil be a growing and continuing event. I would love to invite more evangelists each year and include our wonderful music evangelists for future years.

These conferences are great kingdom tools. Churches get an opportunity to meet and listen to evangelists in order to consider using them for revivals, crusades and special events. The evangelists get the opportunity to meet with pastors and book future events. Everybody gets to enjoy great times of worship and fellowship and lifting up the Holy name of Jesus.

On the down side...I won't be in my home church much in the next couple of months. I really miss the worship, the preaching and the teaching. I'l try to keep up with the posts to let you know what is going on. I'll have my laptop with me and should be able to make a connection from most areas. I will be at my home church tomorrow...and I can't wait to see how God moves among His people!

John