[Kid Inspiration]

We are once again ramping up for Hillsong Conference in July!

I love conference time each year… the air is crisp, the sun bright but ineffective, winter is all around and we all get precious little sleep as we present our annual conference to champion the cause of the local church.

KIDSONG 2010 promo from Hillsong Church on Vimeo.

So, Hillsong Kids team, we want to hang out with you and a couple thousand kids! Make plans to be there. Ministry leaders come along, if you are in the leadership stream we would love for you to be a part of our Children’s Pastors and Leaders electives!

hillsongconference.com

#napconf is the hashtag for this years Napkin Conference in Las Vegas.

Man I love it!

With a bunch of like minded people who care about kids – even more than that, the kind of of people who don’t get all freaky about going to ‘sin city‘… the truth is Jesus was all about being where the sinners were!

So the room is full of ‘My People’!

More than any other conference I have attended, I feel like this is a group of friends learning from each other.

Congrats to Pastor Justyn – the first day was sensational! Looking forward to the second day.

P.S. Nathan Mclean, Carlos and I went $1 Graveyard bowling at midnight at the Hotel and Mclean bowled 6 strikes in one game for a score of 160! A true 2am champion!

I am pretty pumped about this becuase for the first time ever Hillsong Church has created an official online forum!

So if you have been to Hillsong Conference in the last two years or a member of our network then you should have a login for the new online community all based around Conference.

Check it out!

The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated. – William James

This is an excerpt from When “Thanks” Isn’t Enough – 3 Steps to Gratitude that Empowers from the blog of Keith Ferrazzi.

…His favorite version of the Power Thank You was inspired by Heidi Wall, the co-founder of the Flash Forward Institute here in LA. It has three steps:

1. Thank the person for something specific that he or she did for you. (It can also be something the person refrained from doing that would have hurt you.)
2. Acknowledge the effort it took for the person to help you by saying something like: “I know you didn’t have to do _______” or “I know you went out of your way to do_______.”
3. Tell the person the difference that his or her act personally made to you.

Mark writes, “If a person performs an extraordinary act of kindness or assistance and all you say is ‘thanks,’ you create a mirror neuron receptor gap because emotionally you’re not giving back as much as you received. Saying ‘thanks’ is better than nothing, but it’s not good enough” (emphasis mine).

Read On

There is pretty much one conference I attend each year that I have nothing to organise and that is Kidshaper. It is the national ACC children’s ministry conference in Melbourne Australia.

I get to just attend and enjoy it!

Except this year I had the honour of speaking as a keynote to the hundreds of awesome men and women of God who sow their lives into the kids of Australia and New Zealand and the world!

You can read a report from the official blog of Kidshaper CM1234

And follow Rob Bradbury (national grand poo-bah of Kids R Us) on twitter.

But from a personal perspective it was such a great few days receiving leadership and wisdom from Papa Smurf himself Jim Wideman and so many other leaders around this nation.

I really felt God speak to my heart about great steps forward both personally and for our church. It was a profound week and I love seeing the same faces each year knowing there are so many volunteers out there running ministries with a heart for God and kids.

If you are one of those people who perhaps is out there running your ministry as a volunteer without a big network of like minded people around you:

1. Find out who is close by you from Kids R Us… make contact and make yourself known. I know Rob and his team would love to support you.
2. Contribute – it’s the greatest way to connect. Write a nice comment on someone’s blog, reply to them on twitter. Connection is not all about the phone and face to face anymore. As you give you will receive. Send a resource to another Church, help them out. You may just find a lifetime ministry friend.
3. Come to Kidshaper next year and say hi.

Thanks Rob and team!

Under increasing international pressure and a well funded lobby group I need to tell you about one of the greatest new blogs online.

You may know Funny Man Dan from our Hillsong Kids DVD’s and as the HipHopAPotamus in Love Never Fails.

The fact is he is also a brilliant writer and a great friend who I have watched impact the lives of so many young people over the years.

So you need to read The Thursday Blog. Yep, he writes once a week on a Thursday.

Please stop by and leave a comment… he is completely obsessed with stats (like most new bloggers) so send some friends.

So a month ago we had our annual Men’s Conference here at Hillsong. It was probably our most significant one at a time when Men are really needed to assume leadership and take a stand for Christ in their families.

Robert Fergusson talked about the empty chair. His father died when he was eight and left an empty chair… but you don’t need to be dead to be vacant in areas of your life.

And I was really pumped to see Perry Noble speak as a guest speaker at the conference. I have been reading the dude’s blog for a couple of years and he just oozes passion. I also love reading one of his Children’s Pastors blog… shout out to Pudge! When a new post pop’s up from his blog I REALLY read it.

Anywoo… Perry bought a bunch of people along with him one of whom was Cherie Duffy the Children’s Pastor at Newspring!

It was fantastic meeting her and I dug up some stories on Pudge  (not really buddy) and generally connected with a passionate advocate of kids in the South of the US.

Now the reason I am blogging it now it because I realised after seeing the following video that I had not blogged about the conference or indeed the very Noble Perry, The video is at Tony Morgan’s blog

So check out the video below and subscribe to Tony’s blog, it’s top of my reading list!

Cover of K Mag.

Earlier this year I was invited to be a part of a fantastic new venture… K!

K! Magazine is sweeping children’s ministries around the globe. Each issue is jam-packed with practical articles, great ideas, and the best tips for ministering to 21st century kids and their families.

There are very few magazines of this calibre about ministry to kids in the world!!

So here is what you should do…

Go to www.thekmagazine.com and then click on the “Bulk Subscription” link to learn more about bulk subscriptions and rates… buy some for your whole team!!

In this months edition you can read what I wrote about Private Devotion and Public Passion – Training kids to worship God Monday through Saturday.

And in the next – The Air They Breathe.

I write with my wife Beci about the journey of Hillsong Kids Praise and Worship!

Check it out now.

So a dude by the name of Michael Chanley started a site called cmconnect.org

You can see his page on the site here http://www.cmconnect.org/profile/MichaelChanley

This site is part of the Ning.com network which simply according to them is an “online service to create, customize, and share a social network.”

Which is a fantastic way to start a site. They provide the technical expertise and support and you focus on the connections and building the network.

So far they have over 2,000 members which is great for such a niche site online!

This is turning into one of the great sites online to connect with others of same heart and focus. Kidology.org is the biggest one of these with 20,631 members in the forum (although, I am not sure how many of those post regularly… I know I am a slacker recently).

So here’s what you do, hop on over to cmconnect.org and create yourself a profile. invite me to be your friend! http://www.cmconnect.org/profile/DavidWakerley

Well done Michael!!