The week that was at conference

Last week saw a whole bunch of us going to Brighton for the annual leadership conference. Once again, I found myself in the realm of new experiences. For the first time B was there and for the first time I was also there as a father. No longer were my first thoughts as to what books to buy or where to go for dinner, but they were now, where is the skyline (the creche type room provided for those with babies and toddlers) and how do I make this week a great experience for my wife.

This meant it was different but just as inspiring and even more fun. The conference is always quite hard work in terms of the amount of information that you are trying to process in a small period of time. I resolved this year to try and take only one thing away from each of the preaches, but to be fair I am still trying to process what those things are!!!

Some of my thoughts of the week were these:

• Great to have the likes of Stuart, Mix and Dorothy and Becca with us, new faces from last year in our party;
• Great to worship with 5000 other people;
• Good to see new faces on the stage from within Newfrontiers;
• Good to be part of something so much bigger than Reading;
• Good to hear from Joel that being an armour bearer is really important;
• Good to sing old hymns with new rhythms;
• Great to hear what God is doing in nations that barely get any thought in my mind!
• Good to hear from Stef that childlikeness does not equal childishness!
• The call to be R.A.W. (take Risks, take Authority, be Wild) as Christians was refreshing from PJ.
• Great to see Mark, Gavin and Martin really going for it for Jesus in dance on the thursday evening.

Overall I enjoyed the week immensely and really appreciate the fact that we are together on a mission with people we will never meet, through the family of churches that are represented by the name Newfrontiers.