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Chuck on October 14th, 2009
With the CollegeLeader Conference coming up tomorrow and the amount of conferences happening this time of year, I thought I’d issue some tips for attending them. I’ve been around ministry-type conferences for about 15 years – attending and speaking. So these tips come from both sides of that fence. Here are 4 quick tips if you’re heading to a conference:
- Keep it simple. Usually when you’re at a conference you’ll hear a theme. The theme might not be the theme of the conference – it’s often not. Typically you’ll hear the theme from seminar to seminar or conversation to conversation. All other seminars might not even mention the theme, but it’s clear in the one’s you attend. The theme is God working on you. Stick to that theme, keep it simple, push everything else aside, and go home and implement the theme God’s given you. Not sticking to the theme leaves you with a binder of notes you’ll never implement.
- Develop a filter. Every speaker is there for a reason. Most have thought a ton about the subject their teaching on and have experience (hopefully) in that particular area. But, they don’t know your context, the people you work with, or the traditions you live in/with. Therefore, you have to develop a filter that would sift out the things that wouldn’t apply in your context – no matter how epic the thought might be. God’s called you to the context you’re in and you’re at the conference to be more effective in that context. So, the filter is necessary.
- Stay humble. Every speaker has something to offer you and your ministry. Sometimes we can get frustrated because the seminar didn’t hit what we thought was important. We might even think we could do it better. This attitude shuts off our ears and inflates our mind. Ultimately we tune out what God was trying to teach us. As simple or basic as a seminar could be the truth is there is always something we can take away from it. Find that one thing and embrace it humbly.
- Purchase carefully. Sometimes we go to a conference because we just need some time away, but usually we attend conferences because we’re hungry for some direction, training, and resources. And, oh man, we go into the resource center and everything looks good. We have the budget, so we just go crazy. Getting resources, by the way, isn’t a bad thing. If there are resources you think will be useful in ministry by all means buy them. But, just be careful to buy those that will actually be used. Far too many budgets are spent on resources still in the wrapper 12 months later.
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what college conferences do you recommend attending?