A conference created for Volunteers

My good friend Kenny invited me out to Austin Texas to be part of a training event for his volunteers and over the course of the next few weeks he decided to open it up to other churches as well. The result was a God idea. Kenny created an amazing opportunty for churches to take their volunteers to hear people you would normally have to fly to Orange or Kidmin Conference to hear. How cool would it be to take your volunteers to sit under Craig Jutila, Jim Wideman, Gina McClain, Jonathan Cliff, Matt Mckee, Amy Fenton Lee, Michael Chanley or Dan Scott.

The feedback Kenny got was sudden and overwhelming You can read about what he did here, here andhere. Essentially, the idea was to create an incredible experience for his volunteers at Gateway. How many times have you walked out of an incredible breakout at a national conference and said, “Wow! I wish all my volunteers had experienced that!” Unfortunately, most churches can’t provide a “national conference” experience for all the volunteers… unless that church brought the national conference to their volunteers. That’s what Illuminate is.

On Saturday, November 12, 2011, Gateway Church in Austin, TX will host Illuminate for the second time. I’m expecting 600-800 kidmin volunteers/staff for this incredible experience. The breakout and speaker lineup is amazing!

But wait… there’s more!

Illuminate is a huge blessing for kidmin volunteers in Central Texas. Why limit it to just Central Texas? Once all the content and program is developed, doing it again in a new location isn’t really that much work, right?

So on Saturday, August 27, 2011, Westwood Church in Birmingham, AL will host the first Illuminate Conference outside the great state of Texas. How exciting is that? We’ll pack in the same great stuff that made Illuminate successful in Texas, but serve it up Southern Style.

But wait… there’s even more!

Last year Kenny recorded every session and breakout of Illuminate. He intends to record every session and breakout from Birmingham and Austin in 2011 as well. So, what am I going to do with all this great video content? You guessed it. Illuminate is going online. I don’t have specific dates and details yet, but plans are underway and concrete dates will be set this summer. I truly believe in what is happening with Illuminate. I don’t know of any other experience of this magnitude focused at equipping volunteers. Not everyone can get to Austin or Birmingham… but this video content can help anyone, regardless of where they’re coming from.

This year for Illuminate, Kenny’s gathered some of the greatest minds in Kidmin: Jim Wideman, Sam Luce, Jonathan Cliff, Gina McClain, Dan Scott, Matt McKee, Amy Fenton Lee, Michael Chanley and more to be announced. That’s a Kidmin Powerhouse!

So, whether you live in Texas or Alabama (or within a couple ours of the locations) or whether you have a computer with high speed internet, plan to connect with Illuminate this Fall. It could be exactly what you’re volunteers need most. Stay tuned for more details soon.

I am super excited about this. I really think that Kenny is on to something bringing the national conference experience to the local church. Can’t wait for August and November! I hope to see y’all there.

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